Please read!
For context purposes, this story takes place 45 years before The Hobbit would have. Im no expert on what the human equivalent is for Hobbits and Dwarfs as apposed to humans but I have a rough idea. I've heard that around the age of 60 is when Dwarfs reach their teens. Hobbits are considered adults at 33. This means that the ages are as follows.
Thorin - 150, making him the equivalent of roughly 25-35 human years.
Fili - 32, making him about 8
Kili - 32 making him about 7
Bilbo - 5 making him roughly 2 or 3.
Thorin Oakenshield did not often venture outside the walls on the Blue Mountains, preferring to stay out of the sunlight and work in his forge. The only time he really left was to find work in the towns of men, which he despised. He was a prince! Rightful heir to the Lonely Mountain and yet he was forced to work as a laborer. Of course, he never voiced these opinions, ever since his sister, Dis, had lost her husband in the battle of Moria he was the sole breadwinner of the family.
Of course Dis could dig and earn her keep as well as the next Dwarf, however, with two rowdy sons in the height of their childhood to mind she simply did not have the time.
So here he was, leading the two boys, Fili and Kili, down the mountain to help them practice their sword fighting. Of course, they only had wooden swords for now but given their situation these boys were going to have to grow up quickly. One day, probably not for many years to come, but one day he would free his ancestral home from that dragon. No doubt Fili and Kili would insist upon helping.
"Uncle! Kili's not playing properly!" Fili complained, "He keeps fiddling with sticks."
"I'm trying to make a bow!" Kili pouted, "I'm no good with swords, this way, if I have a bow I can shoot orcs before they get near me!"
"Bows are for elves." Thorin sneered, taking the sticks and string from the your dwarf and replacing it with his wooden sword, "Swords, axes and hammers are for Dwarfs."
"Yes sir." Kili pouted.
Dis would scold him for being so hard on her boys but they had to learn.
"I know, Kili let's play the battle of Moria, I'll be uncle, you be the pale orc!" Fili declared, snapping a brach off a tree and holding it like a sheild.
"No way, I look more like uncle than you do! You be the pale orc!"
"Well you smell more like an orc."
"Hey!"
Thorin sighed as the boys dropped their 'weapons' and began rolling about in the grass tugging at one another's hair. They were only in their 30's but for mauls sake they were too old for this. Roughly he yanked them apart, holding one by each hand by the scruff of their shits.
He opened his mouth to scold the two of them but the words never came as the sound of cries echoed up over the hill.
"What was that?" Kili asked as Thorin placed them back on their feet.
"It sounded, like a woman's scream." Thorin muttered quickly, "Go back to your mother's I'm going to check ahead."
"Come on Kili." Fili whispered, taking his brothers hand and leading him away, back towards the opening of their mountain home.
He ventured away from the meadow and through the trees toward the traveling road that lead through the mountains. Perhaps some caravan of humans were unlucky enough to meet bandits or even mountain trolls. After a few minutes the smell of blood crept into his nostrils and he saw several shapes in the distance.
There, lying on the road was the body of what he at first thought was a child but soon realized was actually just a very short man. He'd been brutalized, his stomach ripped out and several chunks of flesh were missing. Not too far from him, curled up by a tree was a woman in similar condition, her back was a mess of scratches and bites that were bleeding terribly. He could only assume her stomach had almost been ripped open by the way her arms were wrapped about her.
Mountain wolves.
They didn't often kill people for meat but it seems some small pack had been desperate enough.
With a heavy sigh Thorin turned his back to head home, he'd tell the gate guards what he'd found and perhaps order somebody to come and give these small people a decent burial.
In the years to come Thorin would often wonder what would have happened had he not heard the small sound and simply kept walking. But hear it he had and it was enough to have him turn and see the woman was still alive, barely, she was looking at him with pleading eyes.
At first he thought she was trying to ask for his assistance but then she uncurled her arms and revealed a tiny bundle of cloth. The blanket was stained but Thorin could just make out a tiny face from within it. A child.
Swiftly Thorin bent down and tried to assure her but she spoke before he had the chance.
"B-Bil...bo." She whispered, flicking her eyes down to the child in her arms, "His n-name...is Bilbo."
And then she died.
Just like that she was gone and Thorin was left with the tiny child, even smaller than a new born dwarfling, looking at him with its tiny dark eyes.
Thorin had never been very good with children excluding Fili and Kili and even with them he was not the greatest of father figures. He took in the child's pale face framed with brown curls and spattered with the blood of his mother. It began to whimper and cry.
He had been called cold many time in his life, but Thorin Oakenshield was not heartless.
Gently he removed the boy from his dead mother's arms and tucked him into the crook of his elbow. To his surprise the child stopped crying and looked up at him with fascination.
"Bilbo." Thorin muttered, the babe gurgled.
Having no other choice he swiftly stop and began the short trek back to the entrance of the blue mountains. Wondering what on earth those small people were and why they were so obviously far from home.
When he entered the mountain with the babe asleep in his arms he received several stares but said nothing. Fili, Kili and Dis were waiting for him in the main hall, the boys had obviously dragged their mother from their home to come and find him.
"Uncle Thorin, what's that?" Kili asked, peering at the small bundle of blankets.
"This," Thorin sighed, uncovering the sleeping child's face so that they could see him properly, "Is Bilbo."
He quickly retold what he had seen and the story of how his mother had died just after telling him the child's name. Dis looked at the boy sadly while the two boys with sympathy.
"The poor dear." Dis cooed, taking him from Thorin, "I've never seen such a tiny child!"
"Is he sick?" Fili asked.
"I'll take him to Oin." Thorin offered, feeling strangely attached to the boy already and slightly concerned at his small stature.
-oOo-
Bilbo cried when Oin took him from the prince and began to look him over. Finally untangled from his blankets Thorin could see him properly, he was clearly still an infant but he had no trouble getting to his feet and trying to run away from the doctor on wobbly legs. He had brown curls and dark eyes and quite a lot of hair on his legs and feet, which seemed to big from his tiny body.
"No!" bilbo yelled when Oin tried to look at his pointed ears, "No! No!"
"Is that all you can say?" The physician rumbled.
"Yes."
Thorin tried to hide a chuckle.
"This boy is fine Thorin." Oin grumbled, handing him back to the prince, "But he's no human, nor Dwarf. What you have there is a Hobbit."
Bilbo curled back up in Thorin's arms and went back to sleep.
"A Hobbit who seems very fond of you." the doctor added.
-oOo-
That night, when Fili and Kili were finally asleep, Bilbo settled down in the bed between them, Thorin told Dis all about what Oin had said.
"Well that's that then." She said matter-o-factly.
"What is?"
"Well, we can't just throw him out in the cold can we?" Dis replied with determination, "And Hobbit's live far away, we'll just have to keep him."
Thorin blinked in shock at her words but didn't argue. He found himself strangely fond of the child already and it was true, who else could they entrust the babe to?
"I think Bilbo Thorinson has a nice ring to it." Dis added thoughtfully.
And there's the first chapter. I do not know how often this will update but I am hoping for at least once a week at the very least.
Yes there is a definite story to this, it not just a bunch of one shots.
And so enter the life of Bilbo, the newest Prince of Durin, the hobbit raised by Dwarfs!