#fembilbo

by talkfast

Briar Baggins was a disappointment to those in the Shire who once expected that she would become someone exceptional. She was difficult to coax from her study, often withdrawing into books about lands far beyond their green, rolling hills.

It came as a surprise when Briar accepted an invitation from her cousin to visit Bucklebury, and returned some time later with a baby in her arms. A baby that malicious gossips insisted had been seen wearing tiny socks, of all things!

No doubt things would settle down again after that bit of excitement.

A proper gentlehobbit would not chase after adventure well into her middle age, after all.

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An adorable fem!Bilbo thilbo fic. Just what I wanted. It's so sweet, a lovely sprinkle of angst, adorable dwobbits... love it love it.

summary: Hobbits are terribly sexist and have incredibly traditional views on gender roles. Bilba Baggins is a female Hobbit – who by normal standards should have married 10 years ago – and she’s just about done with The Shire and everyone in it. Gandalf gives her an out, and it’s an out she was never going to refuse, no matter how dangerous it may prove to be. Alternatively: my excuse to make Bilbo and Thorin lesbians. 

pairing: fem!bilbo x fem!thorin

warnings: I just want to give a little warning for themes like sexism, misogyny etc. I also just want to say that there is unintentional misgendering on the part of the female dwarves. I want to clarify that in this fic, the gender-swapped dwarves are all cisgender, and the dwarves perpetuate the idea that they’re all male when they’re in the company of outsiders (but I still thought it worth mentioning just in case this could trigger someone ❤️)

word count: 3135

Disclaimer - this world, characters and other stuff doesn’t belong to me. All credit goes to J. R. R. Tolkien, Peter Jackson and whoever else owns the franchise. This is a fem!Bilbo, pre-quest au where hobbits basically take in and care for the dwarves of stevie before they find Ered Luin. Just a side note. I am ignoring Canon, timelines and other things that clog up my creativity flow. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1:

Bella was the most peculiar hobbit anyone, so her neighbours said, had ever had the fortune of knowing. She was quite… odd. Unlike the proper, respectable dame that was expected of someone of her Baggins lineage, she was rather more of a, well, Took.

She reminded most who met her of her late mother Belladonna Took, with her wild nature and fiery temper.

She had scared no small number of gentle-hobbits near to death with her habit of simply appearing next to them, seemingly out of thin air. Not that anyone ever said that aloud of course.

Because, no matter how fiery, wild and un-respectable the young lass acted, no-one could ever bring themselves to dislike her. Some, a fleeting minority, made their displeasure known, the Sackville-Bagginses being the most prominent. But for all their talk and fuss, they could never bring themselves to actually do anything about it.

Now, our little adventure starts, well, the way one might expect, with a hobbit, and some dwarves.

Bella was on a trip to Bree, just flitting round the market, sweet smile on her face, when she saw it.

Them.

Slavers.

Her face twisted with horror as she took it in, five dwarrow chained together with iron shackles, looking quite worse for wear, dirty and muddy and, dear Yavanna was that blood?!

Quite understandably, she was furious. So furious, in fact, that she didn’t even hesitate before marching over there, distain and disgust shown clear on her face, and buying them. She felt disgusted, and dirty, bartering for these poor people’s lives but it had to be done.

It took some haggling and negotiation, if one could even call it that, thieving conmen, but she had finally got the slaves. It had almost torn her pride in two when she had had to compliment the disgusting man in front of her, then again when she had to actually speak as if she was going to hurt them, the poor things.

But, that was all in the past now, they had to get to the blacksmiths forge right now to get their ruddy chains removed.

And that’s how Bella Baggins-Took found herself tromping through the markets, five dwarrow chained to her like dogs.

She looked back, and they all looked like kicked puppies. Why are they looking like that? They should be happy they’re fr- oh. They don’t know that. Oh Bella Baggins you fool of a Took.

She stopped, abruptly, and whirled around facing them, scrutinising their expressions. Then she sighed, shook her head and said, “Come on you lot, we’ve got to get to the blacksmiths before nightfall if we’re going to get those chains off you.

She immediately found herself being stared at by five pairs of bewildered eyes. She shrugged. “Come on.” She said again and turned around.

/D… did she just say that she’s going to take the chains off?/ Kiki sounded so hopeful, not yet broken by the months in a cage. There was hope for him yet.

For all of them if the tiny lass was telling the truth.

/She did. She did! She’s going to take the chains off!/

All the dwarrow expressed their shock and gratitude, some felt doubt but that was soon overshadowed by the hope they felt at the mere idea of being free again.

They raced after the tiny lass, all the way to the forge and soon were amazedly rubbing their sore, chain-free necks in bliss.

An hour later and they were out of their stained, soiled rags and into newer, softer, warmer clothes. The refreshing baths they had been treated to had done more than wash away the grime and dirt. They felt like true dwarrow again.

It was more than they had ever hoped for.

But there was only one question that remained, one thing that shrill worried them. What about Dis?

Note: So apparently I can’t do a writing prompt without it turning into a full fledged story SO I decided to just give in and write a full fledged story! Yay! Here is Chapter One! :D

Summary: Bilba Baggins, Crown Princess of Erebor, knew the stories well. How her wandering ancestors, desiring a home, had tricked the King of Erebor and stolen his throne. It wasn’t a particularly nice story but, according to the legends, the old king had been a brute anyway so Bilba never particularly minded.

King Durin had reportedly vowed to one day return and reclaim the mountain but, as the years passed the threat became little more than legend.

Legend, until the day they weren’t.

Now declared a threat to the stability of the throne and the new king who sits upon it, BIlba is given an ultimatum. She can marry her sworn enemy and bear him heirs to strengthen the Durin line, or be executed to remove the threat she presents by simply existing.

The choice is hers.

Extra Note: For the purposes of this story hobbits and dwarves have the same lifespan, cause it’s my story and I say so. :P :D :D

Princess of Shadow Master Chapter List: https://d3-iseefire.tumblr.com/post/187613581372/princess-of-shadow-master-list

Link to my other works on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ISeeFire/works

Bilba Baggins’ life as she knew it was turned upside down on a bright, sunny morning in late fall. Usually, Bilba longed for such mornings. Winters were frigid in Erebor and often left her, and the rest of the mountain’s inhabitants snowbound for months on end. It often made her wonder just what had possessed her ancestors to target the land for their own, especially when those hobbits who’d chosen to continue wandering had sent word of the Shire’s discovery less than two years later. Deep down, she had a suspicion that the decision to stay came more from stubbornness and pride than any genuine love for the mountain’s bruising stone or its constant, biting cold. Better to suffer in a stolen mountain than admit they might have been wrong to take it in the first place. In any event, Bilba loved those rare, sunny days that arrived less and less as the year ticked on toward winter. They were a reminder of what she’d enjoyed during the summer, and a promise of what awaited her on the far side of the harsh months that lay ahead. On such days she always did her best to stay outside as long as possible, visiting her best friend in Dale or simply wandering the hills around the mountain. There was no chance of her doing either activity today.

She’d been trapped inside for weeks now, so long that the urge to leave had slowly shriveled into apathy edged with despair.

She stayed in bed for several long minutes after awakening, perfectly still and with her eyes fixed on the underside of her canopy. She had nowhere to be anymore, and nothing to do so the impetus to get up in the morning had long since fled. As the days had crawled by she’d begun to crave sleep. It allowed her to forget, if ever so briefly, the way her stomach was perpetually tied into knots, or the increasingly dead look in the eyes of those wandering the halls of the mountain.

They all knew what was coming. It was no longer a question of if, but when.

She found the will to move finally and forced herself to sit up, She pushed the blankets back, shivered at the bite in the air, and carefully stood. Her feet slid into the plush rug her bed sat on and she took a second to dig her toes in and relish the warmth under her soles.

Her thin nightgown swirled about her legs and she snagged the matching robe off a nearby chair. As she slid it on and cinched the belt she reflected on the fact that it had been intended as part of her wedding trousseau and, had things gone differently, she’d be wearing it for her husband now instead of an empty room.

A shudder not born from the cold washed over her and acid churned uncomfortably in her gut at that particular thought.

Her intended, Lord Grima, was a nobleman of some note in Gondor, and loosely related to the throne. He was also at least four decades older than her. Despite her pleas, Bilba’s grandfather had accepted his offer of marriage in return for a promise that Grima would try to bend the king of Gondor toward an alliance with Erebor. 

It was an alliance her grandfather had long desired, but which had long been denied for reason Bilba didn’t entirely understand. Gerontius Took firmly believed politics and the like to be the realm of men and it was rare Bilba had any idea of what was going on with her grandfather or his councilors.

Not that any of that stopped her grandfather from attempting to sell her off like a trinket at market. Grima had visited a few times to view his purchase, and his leering gaze and wandering hands had made her physically ill.

She was supposed if there were any silver lining to be found in their current circumstances, it was that at least she no longer had to worry about him. Still, had it come down to her marrying Grima, or watching her people suffer as they now were...she’d have chosen the marriage. As awful and miserable as she knew it would have been, if her marriage could have spared her people she’d have gone to it, and gladly.

Well, maybe not gladly, but she’d have gone.

A light knock came on her door and, at her quiet word, it opened to admit her maid, one of the few women in the mountain with a smaller stature than Bilba, which was saying something. In the past, Josie had always dressed more like a Lady in Waiting than a maid, with her blonde hair curled and piled high and her gowns bright and eye-catching.

She’d had a dream, she’d confided once, of catching the eye of a nobleman willing to overlook her class and marry her. A fairy-tale come true she’d said, eyes sparkling with excitement, and hands clasped before her. Bilba had quite agreed and had done her best to steer the other women toward the kinder noblemen, while simultaneously extolling her virtues to them every chance she got.

None of that excited, hopeful girl was evident now in the quiet woman who entered the room. Josie’s hair was in a knot at the back of her head and her gown was homespun and simple. The bounce that was normally present in her step was gone, and her eyes were dull and lifeless.

As if the sight triggered something deep inside, Bilba’s feet began to move almost on their own toward the two large doors that led onto her balcony. Dawn tinted sunlight streamed through the large panes of glass set in the wood frame, casting a reddish orange hue over her room. In the past she’d loved it when it looked like this.

Now all she could think of when she saw it was blood.

“Your Highness,” Josie said, hesitant, from behind her. “Perhaps it’d be best if you didn’t go out there. It’s not safe.”

Bilba’s heart began to hammer in her chest as she curled her hand around the handle of the door and, in one smooth motion, yanked it open before she could talk herself out of it.

It was deceptively quiet, just the rush of air about the mountain and the faint, raucous sound of ravens that like to roost among the rocks. Her balcony was enormous, dug from the side of the mountain itself and sporting a rock ledge that rose from the edges to nearly her waist.

It was a masterwork of engineering, and one of the few still usable in the mountain. Hobbits were not gifted in the art of stonework, and lacked the necessary skills or knowledge to learn. There were entire sections of Erebor now that were considered unstable and were closed off to the public.

It was quite possible that, had things been allowed to progress naturally, they would have had to leave Erebor in another hundred years or so as it would have simply become to dangerous to continue living there.

Not that any of that mattered now.

Bilba shuffled out slowly onto the balcony, shivering as the cold air bit through her clothes. Now that she was out she could hear it, the faintest clamor from far below, of voices, tack and equipment as bodies awakened and readied themselves for the day.

She let out a slow breath and then, resigned, made her way to the edge. She already knew what she’d see, but held out the irrational hope that once, just once, she’d look down and be wrong.

That her eyes would look out over an empty plain, stretching back serenely toward Dale and farther still until it reached the borders of Mirkwood. That the only movement would be a light breeze dancing through the grass and rustling the branches of trees. That, in the distance, she’d catch sight of the Men of Dale ratcheting open the gates as they readied for a day of brisk trade between their merchants and those of Erebor.

It was a sight that had greeted her daily for most of her twenty years. It was a sight that she’d often considered boring, her restless soul yearning for adventure and excitement beyond the daily, repetitive grind.

It was a sight she’d given anything to see again.

The gates of Dale were shut, as they had been for over a month now, and if there was a breeze dancing in the grass she couldn’t see it.

Instead all she could see was an army. It filled the plain below, swelled against the walls of Dale and muddled the borders of Mirkwood. Row upon row of soldiers, horses, and siege weapons. From the height she was at, they looked like little more than ants milling about the landscape, but Bilba knew they were anything but.

The dwarves, as it turned out, were not willing to wait another hundred years to reclaim Erebor. They wanted it back now and, given how things had been going of late, they would soon get it.

Bilba’s eyes drifted toward the largest tents in the center of the camp, and her heart twisted at the sight of the banners proudly proclaiming their owners. She would never understand. Lady Sigrid was her best friend. She’d spent hours in their home, considered Lord Bard as a surrogate father of sorts. Mirkwood she’d spent less time in but, even so, she was still on a first name basis with Legolas, had attended dances and banquets in both their honor and her own.

She’d thought they were friends, and yet here were the banners of both fluttering alongside that of the dwarves, proudly announcing their allegiance.

The pain of the betrayal cut deep, and even now blurred her vision. Apparently, they hadn’t been as close as she’d once believed. All the while they’d laughed and smiled, invited her into their homes and lives, they’d been plotting behind her and her grandfather’s back. Planning, smiling to her face while simultaneously sneaking around to drive a blade into her back.

It hurt, and it was humiliating. She’d believed them. She’d really, honestly, thought they were her friends. She could just imagine how they must have laughed at her behind her back, mocked her...

Bilba drew in a sharp breath. Her nose burned and she scowled as tears began to track down her face. She needed to get that under control. The writing was on the wall, and the last thing she wanted was to break down in front of them later. It was bad enough that they’d hurt her. She didn’t want to let them see it, and hear their mocking laughter in return. 

“Your Highness?” Josie’s voice came from right over her shoulder. “Perhaps we should go back inside. You’ll catch a cold standing out here.”

Bilba set her shoulders back, and nodded stiffly. “You’re right of course.” She pasted a shaky smile on her face, and turned to face the other girl. “Let’s go.”

Josie nodded and turned to go back in. As she did, Bilba couldn’t help a final look over her shoulder, down to what had become a battlefield far below. Her eyes caught on one tent in particular, the largest in the dead center of the camp.

There she knew she would find the source of all of Erebor’s problems. A bloodline her grandfather believed gone, died out and lost generations ago. A line descended from the evil brute her ancestors had described, and undoubtedly still just as brutish.

A pox on them, Bilba thought bitterly, as anger overcame her. If it weren’t for them none of this would be happening. She clenched her jaw and, with an angry motion, jerked around to follow Josie inside.

As she slammed the doors shut with slightly more force than necessary she found herself wishing fervently and passionately that the Valar would send a bolt of lightning and strike the entire line dead where they stood.

Damn the line of Durin, and all those who supported them.

                                                     ***

Frerin shoved back the flap of his tent and strode out into the open. Brisk, cool air wrapped around him and he relaxed into it. He raised his arms over his head and stretched, nearly groaning in pleasure as his various joints and vertebrae popped and snapped themselves back into position.

There was just nothing positive about sleeping in a tent, regardless of the furs and food and whatever else put in to try and convince him otherwise. The cots were always too small and too hard, and the air quickly became stuffy and overbearing.

He always woke up stiff, sore and drenched in sweat, and with a renewed gratitude for his quarters in Ered Luin. Small and cramped they might be but, compared to a tent, they might as well have been the lap of luxury.

Giggling drew his attention to a pair of human, female archers passing by. He hadn’t thought much about seeing women when he’d chosen to walk out in nothing but his trousers. Females in dwarven society weren’t allowed to fight. They were so rare as it was that risking what few there were in battle would be idiotic.

He raised his eyebrows suggestively at the two archers, and smirked. The women immediately went beet red and scurried off, laughter ringing out behind them.

Frerin chuckled. He could get used to having women on the battlefield he decied as he ducked back inside his tent. When he emerged a few minutes later he was properly dressed and had pulled his boots on. He’d opted for a leather cuirass instead of full armor, and had simply belted on his sword rather than spend time arming himself with the various blades he liked to carry. 

He made his way toward the large pavilion set up several tents away. He wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Thorin already there, pouring over a map laid out on the table before him as if it held all the answers in the world.

“Planning our next battle plan?” he asked in amusement.

Thorin paused long enough to glare at him before resuming his study of the map. They both knew there wouldn’t be another battle plan. The last fight had been over a week earlier, and it had been the last. The hobbits had barely been able to muster a force of thirty, and less than half of them had made it back inside the mountain.

The hobbits had shut and barred the gates behind them, while the forces outside had surrounded the mountain.

It was no longer a fight. It was a siege, the outcome all but guaranteed. The only thing question now was --

“How much longer?” he asked as he approached the table.

Thorin raised his head, eyes directed toward the mountain that loomed over their encampment. He’d been hesitant to use the trebuchets and, in the end, the decision had proven to be a good one. The hobbits seemed to have no siege weapons of their own and, in Thorin refusing to use the ones at his disposal, they’d avoided unnecessary damage to their future home.

The last thing anyone wanted was to destroy the very thing they’d spent blood trying to reclaim. 

“There are natural springs inside the mountain,” Thorin’s voice broke into his thoughts, “so they’ll have no fear over water. The biggest question is if they’ve stored food for the winter and, if so, how much.”

If they had stored food, the hobbits could conceivably last months, assuming they were careful and rationed it. 

Frerin chewed on his lower lip as he followed his brother’s gaze to the mountain. If this siege did last months, it could soon erase their advantage. The snows would come, leaving the hobbits safely ensconced inside the mountain, while they would be trapped outside in the elements.

Planning a war with winter fast approaching wasn’t what any of them had wanted, or would have chosen had it been solely up to them. If they could have, they’d have spent time carefully planning before marching in early spring with months of warm weather ahead of them within which to outlast the hobbits.

It hadn’t been up to them, however, not entirely. The previous winter in Ered Luin had been brutal. So bad that it had managed to upset the delicate line they had long walked between extreme poverty, and outright starvation.

He’d lost count of how many had died that winter. Of how many times he’d stood silently alongside his brother and sister as flames had flickered and snapped over the wood of pyres, sending yet one more soul to the Halls of Mandos to await the rebuilding of the world.

Not only had the winter itself been brutal, but it had lasted far longer than normal. The optimal time for planting was long past by the time the frost finally loosened its grip, and many crops that were planted failed to produce. Those few that did were destroyed in a series of spring storms that plagued the mountains.

They had tried reaching out to surrounding areas for help but the grip of winter had spread far and there were none who could spare the resources.