Chapter Text
When they stopped to camp that first night after they left Hobbiton, Bilbo was hungrier than he’d been in years. They had traveled the whole day without stopping, and Bilbo was too embarrassed to ask about elevensies and afternoon tea after the whole handkerchief debacle.
The sun was sitting low on the horizon, bathing the world in gold and red, by the time Thorin finally called a stop, and Bombur began to prep the meal.
It hadn’t occurred to Bilbo to ask how much dwarves ate before signing onto this mad quest. Probably less than hobbits, if he had to take a guess - but then, he was fairly sure no other race in existence could match the hobbits in their eating habits.
It hadn’t occurred to Bilbo that this might be a pretty significant problem, until he was sitting by a campfire, waiting for the evening meal to be done cooking, feeling like his stomach was trying to eat itself alive for the lack of food that day, and his head felt rather like it was filled with cotton.
“Master Balin,” Bilbo asked, taking a seat beside the dwarf he thought the least likely to be hostile or mocking. “...how often do dwarves eat?”
Balin looked at him oddly. “Same as everyone else, three times a day ideally.”
“Ideally,” Bilbo echoed.
“Aye, on the road it's likely to only be two, some days.”
“Right,” said Bilbo. “Thank you, Master Balin.”
Sitting by the fire slightly apart from the others, Bilbo inhaled the stew that Bombur had pulled together. Bombur was a good cook, to his credit - the stew was thick and flavourful and Bilbo could have easily eaten three bowls worth of it. That is - if there had been any left over once the Company was all served, which there wasn’t.
Which led Bilbo to confront the situation - the group had a limited amount of food, carefully calculated for the number of people traveling. Even with the ponies, they could not carry an infinite amount of food. They clearly thought that hobbits ate the same amount as dwarves. If he told them differently, they would probably abandon him in Bree.
If he only ate twice a day, he would get ill. Severely ill, Bilbo thought dimly, recollecting his vague memories of the Fell winter.
The thought of turning tail and running back to Bag End barely occurred to him. He’d agreed to go, he’d signed the contract, and now he was going to see it through.
He just needed to find more food.
Bilbo Baggins was an experienced forager. Most of the Shire was, really. By the time they reached their tweens, most hobbits could identify a handful of species of mushrooms and plants that could be eaten. Bilbo had always had keen interest in it, courtesy of his parents and a few battered books that had been dragged through half the Shire and beyond.
He’d brought one of them with him in his pack, though Bilbo hardly had to look at it these days. He knew its contents back to front. He’d packed it more for sentiment - it had been his mother’s before him, had followed her on a few adventures, and Bilbo liked to have that piece of her with him on this madcap venture.
Bilbo had devised a plan to survive the quest. When they passed through Bree, Bilbo made sure to buy as many provisions as he could reasonably hide from the others in his bags. And at any and all opportunities, Bilbo looked for what food he could find in the woods.
So while the Company fed him three times a day if he was lucky, two if he was not, he made up the rest with foraged plants and the food in his pack.
The benefit of surviving the Fell winter, Bilbo thought, was that he knew how much a hobbit needed to get by. Six meals a day was ideal, five was alright, and four was tolerable. Less than that, and things started to get very difficult.
The whole thing made him feel terribly uncomfortable. It wasn’t right to hide food from the others, even though Bilbo knew it was necessary. Hoarding food was not a hobbit-like thing to do at all. He didn’t like the feeling of sneaking around to stuff his face whenever he got the chance.
But, needs must. If the dwarves were to find out, he’d have to share, and he could not forage enough to feed fourteen. He could not tell them.
It was raining heavily that day, almost a week out from Bree. Thorin hadn’t let them stop for a proper lunch, in the hopes of finding some sort of shelter before nightfall. Wet, cold and hungry, all of the dwarves were in a fine temper, and Bilbo could hardly blame them.
As they trudged along in the mud, Bombur and Bilbo fell into step together at the back of the group as two of the slowest members.
Pulling his sopping wet hood lower over his head, Bombur muttered under his breath about hunger and skipped meals and how much he missed his damned kitchen.
Bilbo felt a pang at the thought of his own kitchen, warm and dry and blessedly well stocked.
Bilbo reached into his pocket and pulled out the handful of cucumber roots he’d dug up early that morning.
“...d’you want some, Master Bombur?” Bilbo said quietly.
“Where’d you get those?” Bombur’s expression lost its edge of grumpiness and frustration as he held out a hand. Bilbo passed most of it onto Bombur, keeping only a couple for himself.
“Dug them up this morning, close to where we made camp. Keep it between us, though. I don’t have enough for everyone.”
Bombur clapped him on the back, hard enough to make Bilbo stumble. “Aye, just between us. You’re a good sort, Master Hobbit.”
As far as Bilbo knew, Bombur didn’t tell anyone. Why would he? The dwarves might grumble but they were not at risk of truly going hungry the way Bilbo was.
So Bilbo relaxed and resolved not to tell any other members of the Company about his little stash of food.
His resolve lasted the all of two days. They had stopped for a midday meal this time, to Bilbo’s joy. He’d snuck off from the rest of the group to try and find more food to supplement his stores. The group had slowly gotten used to him disappearing once camp was set up, and mostly ignored him. So Bilbo was quite surprised to hear voices and loud footsteps coming towards him.
“Mister Boggins!” Kili cried. Fili was close behind him, pulling branches out of his hair. “What are you doing all the way out here by yourself?”
Bilbo sighed, hands full of blackberries that he’d collected with nowhere to stash them. A handkerchief would be very useful, just about now, he’d thought. Anything to wrap the bloody things up and carry them more discreetly. “Nothing important.”
“Oh, are those blackberries?” Fili said, slinging his arm around Bilbo’s shoulders. “Where did you find them?”
“Afraid I cleared out the patch,” said Bilbo. He saw the longing look in both of the dwarves' eyes and sighed. “Fine then, take them - I’ve eaten some already.” He didn’t mention that he’d scarfed them down like a wolfhound crouched in the bushes, with no manners or shame whatsoever.
They grinned and thanked him as they ate their shares, and Bilbo took out the handful of chokeberries from his pockets. The berries were a bit sour and made the inside of his mouth feel dry and odd, but they reminded him of summer days spent with his Brandybuck and Took cousins by the river. He wasn’t sure he’d ever liked the taste of chokeberries, but at the time, the point was less about the berries and more about how far you could spit out the pit.
“You probably won’t like these,” said Bilbo, holding out some of them to the boys who had already scarfed down the blackberries.
Fili took one without hesitating and popped it in his mouth. He frowned, and then spit out the pit. “Uh, are you sure these are meant to be eaten?”
Kili didn’t wait for a response before trying one as well.
“Mouth feels like velvet or something,” Kili said with a mix of disgust and fascination. He reached for more.
“They’re safe, we used to eat them all the time,” said Bilbo. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t offer you something I wasn’t sure of.”
“These are awful,” said Fili, eating more of them.
“I know,” said Bilbo, spitting out a pit as far as he could, for old times' sake.
When they arrived in Rivendell, Bilbo was overjoyed.
The dwarves complained about the green things and the lack of meat, and Bilbo tuned them out in favor of inhaling as much food as he could. It was lovely to eat without worry about rationing.
Later, well and truly full for the first time since leaving the Shire, tucked in a too large but very soft bed, he contemplated the journey up until now, and the journey ahead. He’d done well, he thought, having only just run out of whatever he’d bought in Bree a couple of days prior. Between that and the foraging, he’d made do quite well. He would eat as much as he could for as long as Thorin would allow them to stay here, and he was sure he could speak to one of the elves to replenish his stash before they headed out again.
“Bombur, I’ve found something for us,” said Bilbo. It was evening and Bombur was already half-way through making the food. He pulled out his bag and showed Bombur the several pounds of mushrooms he’d found. “...They can’t be eaten raw, we’d get sick. But if you’d like to throw them over the fire for a while, there’s enough for everyone.”
Bilbo knew that the rest of Urs and Nori and Ori were all well within earshot. He knew it might raise questions, but he couldn’t leave all those mushrooms behind, not when he was so hungry. If the only way to use the mushrooms was to share them, then so be it. Maybe it would help stem the guilt he felt at hiding food.
Bombur brightened considerably at the sight, and thanked him and added it to the pile of food to be prepped.
Bilbo still kept most of what he found to himself. He had to, he reminded himself, everytime he felt selfish when he wolfed down food in secret away from the others.
If he passed ground cherries, wild apples, and salmonberries to Fili and Kili whenever he found them, well that was different. Ori eventually got included as well. They were young and far from home and all three of them treated Bilbo like he was one of their own. It was ingrained in Bilbo like nothing else that if you cared for someone, you fed them.
If he passed any herbs he found, or tubers he dug up that were pretty much inedible unless cooked, if he passed on robin eggs and bolete mushrooms onto Bombur, that was just Bilbo sharing with the only other person on this quest that seemed to care about food as much as he did. It turned into Bilbo and Bombur swapping recipes. Bilbo told him about his Aunt Ella’s recipe for stuffed duck, his mother’s recipe for pear tarts, and the way his father made mushroom soup. He couldn’t find the words to let Bombur know what a serious business family recipes were in the Shire. He was trusting the dwarf with something dear to him, though the dwarf didn’t understand the significance. Bombur, in turn, revealed that he left a family behind in Ered Luin, and talked about cooking for his daughters and wife with a quiet sort of longing. As much as Bilbo missed the Shire and the sense of community and belonging he’d had, he couldn’t imagine what Bombur and Gloin must have been going through, leaving their children behind, half a world away.
He knew Thorin noticed him pass the food onto Bombur, and if he had to wager, Bilbo would say that Nori noticed too - nothing seemed to escape the thief’s sharp eyes. But neither said anything to him, so Bilbo continued on as usual.
As the Misty Mountains approached, the days got colder, the air sharp and bright. The forest seemed to change - there were more conifers and less leafy trees, and for the first time in years, Bilbo began to encounter many, many plants that he did not recognize.
Pulling out his mother’s battered old foraging guide, Bilbo poured over it by the light of the campfire late at night. He should sleep - the trail was getting steeper as they navigated into the foothills, and it would be another hard day of travel the next day. But anxiety was starting to grow in his heart.
He had not considered exactly how far they were traveling. Why would the Misty Mountains have the same plants as the rolling green hills of the Shire? They were a world apart and vastly different climates, and Bilbo felt so stupid to have not thought of it before. He’d been careless.
“...Is that how you find the berries?”
Ori’s voice pulled Bilbo from his rapidly spiraling thoughts. He’d forgotten Ori was on watch.
“The berries? Oh yes, the berries,” said Bilbo, shaking his head as though that would dislodge the thoughts of starvation. “Yes, it was my mother’s. It’s seen its fair share of adventures, as you can see.” He held up the broken spine and the slightly crooked pages.
“Do you mind if I take a look at it, Master Bilbo? I promise I’ll be careful with it.”
Bilbo handed over the book easily. “If there’s anyone here I trust to take care of a book, it’s you,” he said. “Keep it as long as you like. I know the thing near by heart.”
“You know all of these plants, by memory?” Ori said, flipping through the pages, careful not to dislodge any of them.
“My parents taught me about them, a long time ago, before they passed,” said Bilbo. “Lots of good memories of scouring the woods near Hobbiton for mushrooms with them both. And with a few older cousins too, but that was different - cousins are liable to make you eat something nasty for a laugh, you know?”
Ori nodded sagely. “You have to be careful, with older brothers and cousins and the like.”
Bilbo smiled. “Do dwarves not teach their children to forage? I notice you all hunt for food, but rarely forage much.”
“Well, dwarrow live underground,” said Ori. “It's not a common skill set. Thorin and Dwalin will bring back stuff sometimes, but they’ve both spent a lot of time traveling. I think they had to learn by necessity. And Oin knows his healing plants, I suppose. But the rest of us have spent most or all of our lives in a mountain.”
“Is this the first time you’ve really traveled?” Bilbo asked.
Ori nodded. “I was born after we settled in Ered Luin. I’ve never been anywhere else.”
“Nowhere at all?” Bilbo asked. “Wait - so Erebor isn’t home for you?”
“No, but it is for Dori and Nori. They grieve for it,” Ori quieted, something serious settling in his expression. “It's why I signed up for this quest. They’ve both given up a lot for me. They won’t admit it, but I know the cost of my apprenticeship. This seems like the least I could do. I’ll go along with them, protect them if I can, and I’ll record their deeds so they won’t be forgotten.”
Bilbo felt his heart squeeze at the admission. Ori, who was the youngest of the Company, who everyone felt protective of, had come all this way to face a dragon for the sake of keeping his older brothers safe.
“You’re a good sort, you know that, Ori? I think we’re lucky to have you with us.”
Ori turned a deep red but smiled at him. “O-Oh. That’s, well, that’s very kind of you to say - You know, I think we might be lucky to have you with us too.”
Bilbo knew he should turn back. With the food situation becoming more and more precarious, it would be foolish to keep pressing on. But how was he supposed to abandon them now?
Ori, it seemed, had wormed his way into his heart along with Fili and Kili and Bombur.
Besides, traveling back alone to Rivendell might be just as dangerous as continuing on with the group.
For better or for worse, Bilbo had the sobering realization that it was too late to turn back now.
He’d keep pressing on, would keep foraging what he could while he could, and would pray that the extra rations he got in Rivendell would last until they crossed these blasted mountains.
He stopped sharing with the Company. He knew it was risky to eat even the plants he did recognize - he didn’t know what look-a-likes to watch out for around here. He wasn’t lying to Fili when he said he’d never hand something over that he wasn’t completely sure of.
Soon enough, even that wasn’t a concern, as they started climbing higher into the mountains and suddenly everything was frost and snow and very little plant life at all. Bilbo was careful with the food he’d gotten in Rivendell, but it was running out. He’d never planned to go completely without foraging. His four meals a day quickly dropped to three which dropped to two and hunger was becoming an ever present companion.
He resorted to chewing pine bark to try and quell the pain in his stomach. It helped a bit, but it didn't give him any real sustenance, and Bilbo worried that the fog in his mind was getting worse along with his exhaustion and the pain of a hollow stomach.
Which was why, when Thorin yelled at him after days of barely eating (weeks, really, of careful rationing and never being really full), the last of Bilbo’s stubbornness vanished and he just wanted to go home.
He wanted to go back to the Shire, where he had friends and family and there was food aplenty, where no one had gone hungry since the Fell Winter. It was odd, that after all these weeks spent thinking about Bag End, the moment he hit his breaking point, he found himself thinking of the Great Smials in Tuckborough instead. He was struck by the memory of Took family gatherings held there every so often. The tables would be crowded with more cousins and aunts and uncles than you could really keep track of, and there’d be enough food to make the table creak under the weight. He remembered vividly being a small faunt, tucked between relatives, warm and safe, certain of his place in the world.
Bilbo certainly did not have a place here, Thorin had made that crystal clear.
Bilbo hated himself for snapping at Bofur, who was just trying to help, but he was hungry enough to be nauseous and it was hard to think straight.
Of course, then everything went to hell.
He was briefly distracted from his hunger by nearly becoming a meal himself to a terrifying creature in the caves.
They barely got a chance to breathe, let alone eat, before they heard the wargs howl and they were running for their lives.