Chapter Text
The wizard Nishun was tall, shabbily-dressed and striking, with eyes that gleamed like stars when he was amused; or went dark as storm-clouds when sorcery was afoot. In his pockets there were always sweets for the children, an old key or two, coins from distant lands, and his favourite battered old pipe. He never stated his profession outright, but of course everybody knew that he was a wizard, because the town always knew these things, even if no one ever said them.
- Stars’ Descent (Ash Mountain #1)
❆
“And who might you be, lad?” the old voice said gruffly.
Frodo blinked. He was standing on the doorstep of the lodge with two extremely heavy duffle bags—the straps of which were cutting into his hands, in a way he might have minded if the cold hadn’t already numbed all his extremities.
On second thoughts, he should’ve put the bags down after ringing the doorbell… Only, he hadn’t expected all the shuffling and bolt-latching on the other side to take quite as long as it had. It felt like he’d been standing there in the snow for several minutes. For forever.
Now the heavy wooden door had been opened a fraction, enough for him to see two piercing eyes under heavy grey brows, made more protruding perhaps by the thick woollen beanie jammed over the rest of the forehead. This—the beanie—was also grey, only a few shades darker than the rather magnificent beard that Frodo could glimpse through the door crack.
“I—I’m Frodo Baggins,” he said, clearing his throat. Was it an air of suspicion that he was imagining, or was this simply how they did things in the village? “I’ve got a room for the season…?”
“Ah.” The door opened wider, enough for Frodo to take in the tall figure, who could have been anywhere between sixty and a hundred—it was hard to tell, looking past the lined face, into the keen gleam of those eyes. “You’re Bilbo’s lad. Yes, yes, come in.”
“Oh. That is—yes, Bilbo’s my uncle.” Feeling rather ruffled and not exactly sure why, Frodo lifted his bags another centimetre and took a hurried step into the doorway before the man could change his mind and bolt him out again.
“On you go, down the hall, only one direction to it,” the gruff voice said, though rather more kindly than before, and Frodo edged his luggage past a short but intense scuffle that seemed to involve multiple keys, several bolt latches and a heavy door-chain for good measure.
He took his shoes off in the drying room, noting that they were one of the very few pairs. Then he was hustled along down a long wood-panelled hall, so blessedly warm in contrast to the snowy evening that he could feel his fingers thawing out, and his cheeks beginning to sting.
“Room number nine for you, Frodo Baggins,” said his mysterious caretaker, unlocking a heavy wooden door after the second turn.
Frodo stepped into the room that, if all went smoothly, he was to spend the next three months in, and switched on the light to determine what he’d gotten himself into.
It was a nice room, certainly. Not here were the crowded bunks and plasticky mattresses of other lodging rooms—this room, bless his dear uncle for knowing Frodo’s tastes, was entirely his own. A king-sized bed in navy blue took up most of the space, tucked in a crisp, almost military fashion. It only slightly clashed with the maroon carpet that seemed to mould under his socks. White walls continued above the wooden panelling that came to the height of the bed; making the room feel both smaller and more cozy. A window on the left wall, and the prospect of a view—although this was hidden by the shuttered blinds.
Moving as though he was alone, Frodo crossed to pull aside these shutters and inspect the natural surroundings. All was black outside, bar a few ghostly shapes that he supposed might be trees, or could simply be the furniture’s reflection in the glass.
By the bed, a small dressing table of adequate height. Yes, Frodo thought—he could certainly pull that over to the window, to make a desk of sorts, and here he could write. He could picture it, with the snow eddying against the window and perfect, blessed silence, and his toes curling in the carpet.
Yes, he could certainly make something of this. In fact—
There was a rather startling throat-clearing from the doorway. Frodo’s escorter was still looming there by his bags, scrutinising him with eyes that still had a strangely piercing effect, even from across the room.
“To your liking, then, Mr. Baggins.” It wasn’t so much of a question.
“Yes. Very much so. You must be, er…” Bilbo had told him Gandalf, although he couldn’t remember if that had been the first or the last name, suddenly.
“Gandalf,” said the man, which did not clear up the question exactly. It could be a last name…“Your uncle and I have had quite some adventures together, back in the day.”
Unsure how to respond to this ambiguous statement, Frodo said, “I’m very grateful that you could fit me in. Especially with the season coming on so soon.”
There was another bout of throat-clearing, which might have been a from of acknowledgment, or simply a stubborn clogging of phlegm. Although Frodo was sure he saw a twinkle in Gandalf’s eye as he said a moment later, “Bilbo tells me you write books.”
Wrote books, Frodo thought. “Yes.”
“And you’ll be doing that while you’re here, I gather.”
“I hope to be, yes.”
“Hm.” Gandalf’s beard quivered again before he hawed and said, “Well then. You’ll need settling in before anything else, I’ll warrant. Come find me in the common-room if it’s supper or a tour you’re after. I keep late hours.”
And then he was gone before Frodo had fully stammered out a thanks, the door clicking softly shut behind him.
And Frodo was alone in his new quarters. He did another slow turn of the place—window, bedside, carpet, bags—and nodded in a private satisfaction. Yes, this would be the place.
It seemed too late for dinner, yet too early for sleep, so Frodo busied himself unpacking his bags, finding dry socks, and laying out his books by the bedside. The bathroom was across the hall; the place was eerily silent except for the heating system going somewhere and the sound of his own footsteps.
Frodo looked at himself in the mirror, hair still slowly drying from the damp cold outside, and attempted to see himself like a profile on the back inside-cover of one of his books—confident, purposed, a touch removed. Smiling a little, like he had the story under his grasp, and knew the plot-twists to come.
“The story ends here,” Frodo told himself in the mirror, and then went to locate his toothbrush.
❆
Snow had fallen through the night, though not enough to get the early-season skiers truly excited—still, a crystalline dusting greeted Frodo as he opened his window latch next morning, and the ground outside glittered under a pale eggshell sky. The cold air felt tight on his face, bracing, and he experienced a thrum of something like anticipation.
A new setting, that was all he needed—a change in bed and board, and a good few quiet snow-days. The book would write itself in no time.
Finding himself ravenous, Frodo proceeded to the shared kitchen of the near-empty lodge—it was, still, very early in the season—and discovered to his dismay that food was something the lodgers had to provide for themselves. Shelf after empty shelf greeted him, marked with numbers corresponding to each unoccupied guest room. The fridge contained nothing except an expired milk carton and what appeared to be a couple of hemp protein bars.
There was nothing for it but to venture out into the unknown for his breakfast. Taking only his notebook and wallet from his room, Frodo paused to finger-comb his hair and, as an afterthought, pull on one of Bilbo’s truly atrocious knitted beanies. Thank heavens his uncle’s yarn-crafts phase had been short lived, he thought, for it was one of the few artistic endeavours for which the Bagginses evidently had little talent. Or taste.
Still, it would hurt his uncle’s feelings if Frodo didn’t keep the beanie, scarf and matching mittens he’d been gifted, and he didn’t much mind what the people here thought of his fashion sense. In fact, the odder he seemed, the less likely people were to bother him, and the faster he could finish his accursed book.
Frodo donned his coat and snow-boots in the drying room, toasty warm from the night they’d spent in there, and fussed around with the door for a solid minute before taking his first steps out into the snow.
Everywhere was white, so blinding in the morning light that he had to squint his eyes. Even his breath came out in a puff of white, and it felt good in his lungs—clean. Down the slope from the lodge, the road was still visible under a sheen of snow, framed by dark trees that appeared shiny black against so much brightness.
Frodo picked his way along the path, lifting his feet high after every step, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. The ground was icy, and it’d be a hard landing if his feet went out from under him.
It became clear to Frodo rather quickly that he had no idea where breakfast was. He was on a street that barely seemed to constitute the word—so scattered were the lodges, so buffered with trees and sparkling slopes, that each one seemed to be its own private oasis seperate from the rest. There was not a coffee shop to be seen.
No shops on the next street, either, and after twenty minutes of crunching along like the village’s only inhabitant, Frodo was forced to admit he’d done a great loop and was still no closer to finding so much as a supermarket.
The village stretched out below him, bowl-shaped, and he could see the ski-lifts framed in the distance, eerily still against the pale sky. If he could just get down somehow, he was sure to stumble upon someone sooner or later.
Frodo was cold and famished by the time he discovered the (in hindsight quite obvious) descent down toward the ski slopes, which led him past steadily accumulating lodges and still-dark equipment hire shops, until he reached a wide and snow-heaped centre square.
Here, he guessed, was where the ski slopes began, and already small groups of people were bustling around in preparation, some carrying ski poles and others great hiking backpacks. A small girl was strapping into her ski-boots in a well-practiced sort of way, while her mother held her arm to keep her steady. Immediately the girl shot off on the snow into a pile of muddy slush. Conditions were not yet perfect for ski travel, it seemed.
A delicious frying smell wafted toward Frodo where he stood at the square entrance, gazing round at the banks of half-frozen snow and pretty coloured Christmas lights that were strung up around the place.
His stomach rumbling, he quickly traced the scent to the base of the centre stairs that seemed to lead up to more equipment hire shops. (Really, how many did these people need?)
A cheerful, bunting-clad stand had been set up here, under a red painted sign that proclaimed jam doughnuts.
Immediately Frodo started forward—it was not the breakfast he’d been envisaging, but it was the breakfast he was going to get, by all means—but the auburn-haired girl behind the stall did not immediately notice him; she was busy chatting to a boy in front, a blue-jacketed boy that Frodo guessed might be one of the staff.
“You know I used to think he was a complete airhead—unlike his sister, she’s lovely—but anyway, Éomer asked me if I’d thought about signing up to teach this year…”
“Why don’t you?” asked the boy, sandy-haired, leaning one elbow against the stand where several doughnuts were being rolled through puffs of sugar.
“Because, Sam, as I’ve told you a million times, I can’t stand the kids.”
“They’re not so bad,” the boy said, a smile in his voice.
“They’re either snotty or sticky or too full of themselves to think they need lessons, even though they can’t brake without their skis crossing and nearly jabbing their poles into someone’s eye, or worse, catching you in the—”
“Customer!” the boy interrupted suddenly, having glanced over his shoulder and given a great start to see Frodo.
Frodo cleared his throat, as both the blue-jacket boy and doughnut-stand girl stared at him, the latter with her silver tongs still in the air. “Sorry to interrupt… I was hoping to buy a half-serve of doughnuts?”
❆
Sam blinked at the boy. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and was—Sam couldn’t help noticing—quite handsome, with startlingly blue eyes and a dark jacket pulled right up to his chin, and his curls flattened underneath what had to be the most hideous baby blue, pompom-clad knitted beanie that Sam had ever seen.
The overall effect was still quite adorable, though, especially with a few flakes of snow catching in the dark hair that curled over the boy’s ears.
Sam was aware he and Rosie were both staring and said hurriedly, “Oh no, sorry to keep you waitin’—we’ve been jabb’ring away so. I’ll, er, just get out of the way then.”
He took his elbow off the stand and took a step back, careful not to skid in the slush.
Rosie said with interest, “here for the slopes, then?” She didn’t take her eyes off the boy as she swept doughnuts into a paper bag, sizing him up.
“Er—no,” said the boy apologetically. Sam thought privately that he couldn’t look any less like a skier—you could usually tell, with people. The way they stood, their sense of ease on the snow. And he suspected no skier would be caught dead in a hat like that.
“Not skiing?” Rosie asked, now waving the paper bag at him.
The boy located his wallet and then a crisp ten-pound note, after first pulling off his (also baby blue) mittens. “No,” he said, smiling now. “I’ve never been on a pair of skis, actually.”
“And you’re not a snowboarder, either,” Rosie said, assessing him narrowly. Sam knew that she, just as he could for skiing, tell immediately whether someone was built for a snowboard.
This boy seemed too… delicate, somehow, for any of the usual sports that brought people up to the village this time of year. He was strong enough, Sam supposed, only he seemed too finely carved for the roughness of the slopes—not with twenty thousand visitors of every age and skill-level buffeting for space alongside him.
He’d be more at home at one of those fancy lawn sports, Sam decided—croquet, or whatever that one with the little mallets was. Probably with knitted vests and a glass of champagne in the hand that wasn’t batting. Something about those pale and slender hands as they handed over the money, and accepted the paper bag with red jam-stains already soaking through.
The boy shook his pom-pommed head, still smiling.
“What’re you here for, then?” Rosie asked bluntly.
Sam shot her a look, but her eyes were intent upon the stranger.
“Er,” said the boy—young man, really, he was about Sam’s own age—“well, a bit of a… getaway, I suppose.”
“A what?” Rosie was staring at him, quite having forgotten about the change she owed. The boy had paid enough for about four bags of doughnuts.
“Nice place you’ve chosen,” said Sam, trying to sound friendly, at the same time as Rosie continued, “why on earth would you choose a skiing village for a getaway? If you don’t even ski?” She seemed quite genuinely confused.
“Oh, well.” The boy shrugged elegant shoulders, clasping his paper bag close as though for warmth. “I’m hoping to get some writing done, actually.”
“Writing?”
The boy seemed to have had enough of this line of interrogation however, and he said instead with his eyes turned on Sam, “I don’t suppose you could tell me where they serve breakfast here, could you? A plate of eggs or even just a bakery—I’m not fussy.”
Sam seized on this chance to be useful, even as he could sense Rosie’s eyes boring into the stranger from next to him. “Well,” he said apologetically, “nothin’ much is open yet, this time in the season. There’s a diner of sorts—”
“Whereabouts is that?”
“It’s shut til evening,” Rosie interrupted.
“There’s a little supermarket, though,” Sam said helpfully, for the stranger looked quite genuinely depressed at the thought of the closed diner.
“And there’s a showy little tourist pub,” Rosie added. “Wouldn’t trust their food, though. Now when you say writing—”
“Surely there’s at least coffee or something,” the boy said, half-desperately.
“Nope,” Rosie said cheerfully. “Only doughnuts.”
The boy continued to blink at them in a confused, slightly tragic manner until Sam said, taking pity on him, “per’aps you’d like another bag of them then, to tide you over.”
“I—alright, yes. Thank you very much.”
Rosie triumphantly scooped out another six doughnuts bubbling in their pot, and began rolling them in sugar. Both Sam and the stranger watched her for a moment, until she reached for another paper bag and remarked, “so, you’re a writer.”
The boy seemed resigned to the interrogation, now. He nodded his head, pom-pom wobbling.
“Wow,” said Sam, impressed.
“Are you famous, then?” Rosie asked.
The boy’s face was carefully blank. He politely watched sugar being shaken off the doughnuts and said, “Oh, not particularly.”
“What’s your name? I might know you.”
The boy did not look as though he particularly thought that was likely. “Frodo Baggins,” he said.
The name did not mean anything to Sam—although he thought it was rather pretty—but Rosie suddenly gasped. “My brother reads you,” she said, pausing once again with her tongs. “Big books, aren’t they—got mountains on the cover and that…?”
“That sounds right,” the boy—Frodo—agreed.
Sam tried to picture Tom reading by the fireplace in the lodge, and thought that Rosie’s description did sound vaguely familiar. “That’s amazing,” he said.
Frodo shrugged again, but he was smiling a little. “Oh, you know. If you’re into that sort of thing.”
“So you’ve come here to write another book then?” asked Rosie. She seemed to have completely forgotten about the doughnut order. “Wait ‘til I tell Tom about this, he won’t believe it!”
But Sam had seen the sudden tightening of the boy’s face at this comment; the slight wince at the words another book, and decided that he was not the sort who would appreciate being flaunted as a new village celebrity.
“Rosie,” he said quickly, “his doughnuts.”
Rosie scoffed, as though this was a ridiculous request. “You should come meet my brother sometime,” she said generously to Frodo. “He teaches when he’s not helping out round the village, lots of odd jobs. He’d love to ask you all about the next instalment in your ridiculously long series—”
“Rosie, the change,” interrupted Sam, seeing the panic in the boy’s eyes, and swooping behind the stall counter himself in order to dish out the necessary coins.
“Alright, alright, I’m doing it, calm down, Sam,” said Rosie irritably, and rolled up the next bag of doughnuts before handing them over to Frodo. He looked as though he half wanted to take them and run, but waited dutifully for his change as Sam held it out.
“Sorry about that,” Sam felt the need to say. “It’s a small place at heart, you know, and everyone ends up getting in everyone’s business if you’re here for the season.”
Frodo’s blue eyes met his, and it was like being pinned by the sun on bright snow. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said quite solemnly, though he was smiling a little. “Thank you, er… Sam?”
Sam swallowed. “That’s right,” he said automatically, “Samwise Gamgee. I’m one of the ski instructors—if y’ever do feel like a lesson while you’re here, just give me a shout.”
Shut up, he thought internally, what are you saying, you ninny, he obviously doesn’t want—
“Thank you, Sam,” Frodo said again. He grinned. “I can’t imagine descending to that level of desperation, but I’ll see how the writing goes first.”
He pocketed his change, nodded politely at Rosie, and turned back into the snow before either of them could say anything else, clutching two paper bags of doughnuts that were steadily sweating more jam.
Sam stepped back out from the stall before Rosie could swat him with the tongs, and thoughtfully watched Frodo’s progress back across the snow-carpeted square.
A writer… He’d met all sorts of folk over the last fifteen odd seasons he’d spent here—first only weekends, then six years of teaching—but not one of those. There was something engaging about the young man, though; something charming in his slight and deprecating manner, though he seemed like the sort who lived worlds away from the rest of them, in lands and fancies of his own.
Away with the fairies, that one, Sam’s gaffer would say. He wouldn’t mean it as a compliment, either. Sam, however, thought it was a very admirable quality.
The bubble of more doughnuts frying brought him out of his reverie, and he turned to see Rosie turning them over with her tongs. “He’s got pretty eyes,” she remarked, her gaze also on the retreating figure.
Sam hmmed noncommittally.
“Sure he’s not your type?” Rosie asked, her tone still casual.
She turned to find him frowning at her. “Lay off with all that, will you?”
“I’m just saying… not every day you pick up a rich, famous author who’s interested in your skiing lessons…”
“He’s not interested in my stupid lessons,” Sam retorted, “and anyways, what’s to say he’s rich?”
“You can just tell,” Rosie said wisely. “I bet he’s loaded. I swear my brother has stacks of his books at home, and those big hardbacks don’t come cheap, you know. Not when you have to get him one every birthday—”
“Oi! Any jammy doughnuts for us poor labourers, or do we have to stand here in the snow all day?” came a familiar voice.
Sam turned to see Éomer, standing tall in his instructor’s jacket with a full ski mask and goggles perched high on his blond hair—it wasn’t even properly snowing yet, the prat—surrounded by a gaggle of his friends, and his sister Éowyn, who smiled familiarly at Rosie and Sam.
“There might be,” snapped back Rosie, “but you’re paying full price for them. No discounts—” she raised her voice over the resulting moans and interjections “—except for the lovely Éowyn here. She can have a bag for free.”
“Why her?” Éomer crossed his arms, while his sister laughed and shoved at his shoulder. “We’re all snowboarders here, and that seems like blatant discrimination—”
“Because I said so,” said Rosie, firmly, and Sam smiled to himself.
It looked like it was going to be a good season.