Another song inspired title with no other context, so I listened to this song on loop and tried to narrow down the idea so I wouldn’t end up rambling horribly like with I Am Your Lionheart, so hopefully you like what has shaken out, anon.
And Way Down We Go
This is not her journey. The fate of this world does not rest on her shoulders.
But she’ll be damned if she doesn’t try to help anyway.
I hope it doesn’t come off as me recycling previous ideas, but for this song I got very strong Tolkien ‘verse feels. More specifically one of those “Shikako gets reincarnated again in a different universe.” I mean, I suppose it doesn’t necessarily have to be Shikako’s second reincarnation, it could just be some SI!OC’s first reincarnation, but that’s what came to mind for the song what with all the very powerful Nara-esque lyrics of the song
Anyway Hartley Proudfoot(?) is perhaps not the most typical hobbit–too serious and too quiet and somehow always sad–but the Proudfoot clan is a genteel family, and they’ve always been a bit strange. Perhaps she’ll end up a spinster, unfortunate but not surprising.
Thankfully, there’s a different Shire oddball who has everyone’s attention–Bilbo Baggins, quite eligible bachelor and inheritor of not one but two fortunes… and his mother’s troubles.
(I suppose this would work with The Lord of the Rings instead of The Hobbit, but I am more familiar with The Hobbit give how recently those movies came out, and given the fake fic title it matches more with The Hobbit, I think.)
So, yeah, Gandalf comes around, dwarves in tow, dispensing quests like the world’s nosiest NPC and as they leave–the most conspicuous caravan to ever be found in the Shire–Hartley happens upon them.
And here’s the thing–whether or not she is Shikako or some other SI!OC, she knows who Gandalf is. She knows what his presence in the Shire means (beyond just the childish firecrackers that he brings to the Party Tree). She could, very easily, avoid him and live a calm, peaceful, utterly boring life.
Maybe she wants that! (She does not)
So as the group is leaving (or trying to, they seem to be going around in circles for some reason), Hartley approaches them and basically offers up her services.
Which includes as much of Shikako’s abilities as she could transfer over to this world. Which is actually quite a lot.
Seals may not exist, but explosives certainly do. Chakra doesn’t either, but taijutsu is free and the skills from the Academy can still apply. Blades are blades no matter the universe. And animals in Middle Earth are a lot hardier and smarter than the ones she knew from her first life. Maybe the deer aren’t Heijomaru and her summons, but the antlers are not for show.
As far as the dwarves know, two Hobbits just means that if one dies along the way they’ll have a backup. As far as Bilbo knows, he appreciates not being the only civilized person in the group (although he knows the Proudfoot clan are… odd, and Hartley isn’t exactly proving him wrong). As far as Gandalf knows, the last hobbit who asked him to go on an adventure was Belladonna Took.
So, yes, Hartley is added to the fellowship. And, I mean, without doing a massive retelling with all the stations of canon, she does change a few things but not everything.
But she is a hobbit, and in this world hobbits can do great things beyond themselves.
There is no romance on Hartley’s part (Bagginshield is, of course, up to interpretation) but she does become friends with all of the dwarves. I would like for her existence to change the fates for the line of Durin–whether that means for all of them or only the nephews…
She knows what the ring is. I don’t think she’d take it from Bilbo, since he did hold onto it without issues for decades, but maybe she’d tell Gandalf. Maybe that fellowship of the ring has a different lineup, a few decades early.
Maybe she and Tauriel (and Dis) bond over being badass ladies. Maybe, instead of heading all the way back to the Shire where she’s never really belonged, she platonically lives with Beorn and raises ginormous deer a hop and a skip away from all her friends.
JackSGreyson Says 