What if The Fell Winter wasn’t just something the Hobbits went through but all of Middle Earth?
Especially the Dwarves in Ered Luin because they’re close to The Shire are they not?
What if one night over campfire talk, one of the Dwarves mention it and Bilbo has a reaction akin to how Thorin talks about Azanulbizar.
The Company notices the obvious change in Bilbo and question it. They give context to the fact that they hole themselves in the mountain until the Winter is over and while it’s the harshest Winter they’ve ever seen it didn’t really effect them because they’re Dwarves.
So Bilbo tells them about his experience.
How Hobbits don’t have mountains to wait out the weather in. How the crops and animals died within days. How the wolves invaded the streets. How many Hobbits died from frostbite, starvation or a gruesome torture at the teeth of the beasts.
How Bilbo was too young to help anyone when his parents, cousins, aunts and uncles died. How he was left alone to inherit what was left behind of his broken families and home.
The Dwarves looked at him differently after that. Not with pity but with familiarity.
Because Bilbo Baggins did know something about loss. And that was something Thorin saw in him now.
Ever since The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Renfield came out, I’ve been desperately craving a horror/comedy style of movie for the Lord of the Rings content that is never covered like:
Amaranth Brandybuck and Mirabella (Took) Brandybuck 💚
Yeah I couldn’t be bothered to go over with the ink pen so here’s the sketch before I colour it ☺️
Anyway Amaranth is the older sister of Primula Brandybuck (Frodos mum) and Mirabella is their mother and the youngest sister of Belladonna Took (Bilbos mum)
37 and 81 years old respectively (at the time of The Hobbit.
(More on their designs under the cut)
Yes this is again for that unreleased fic of mine, I’m getting there I promise 😔 so most of this is canon in my fic not the og(aside from the facts above)
Anyway, Amaranth is Mirabella’s oldest daughter and second oldest out of seven, she’s cheeky and more of a move-in-the-shadows kind of trickster.
She also has a massive crush on Dora Baggins but is too busy keeping her little sister away from Drogo.
She also has a primula flower and a bunch of amaranths in her hair, whereas Mirabella has a bouquet/crown of flowers and plants in her hair as a monarch.
The Tooks also mostly all share the marking which was inspired by Rabbits/Rabbit Syndrome (which I know is a real thing so no disrespect or misinterpretation to those with it) they have freckles and longer ears to especially resemble a rabbit.
On to Mirabella who is the youngest daughter and second youngest child of Geronitis Took.
And yes, you’re probably wondering why the hell she looks like a peg leg pirate with her tail chomped off. I do have an excellent explanation.
And it is involving a headcanon for my story which I will most likely write a oneshot for but I will give you the run-down.
And it all begins with that Fell Winter.
The infamous Fell Winter where Bungo Baggins became deadly ill. Frostbite, starvation, it was horrible and Belladonna couldn’t let their son Bilbo have to watch his father die.
So with three of her siblings, Hildigrim, Isengar, and Mirabella. They set out in the horrible weather with hopes to find medicine, a doctor, help, anything.
They search and search through Hobbiton, the Shire. Next, they head for Bree.
But their luck ran short, and the Wolves prowling through their land, maws still bloody from killing their livestock, set their predatory gaze to them.
Hildigrim, their big brother, had tried to draw the beasts away and eventually retreated with a branch to defend them with.
Belladonna joined him with a branch of her own as Mirabella protected their little brother Isengar.
It was a day Mirabella and her brothers would never forget, especially when they watched one of the Wolves snap one of Belladonna’s hands in its jaws and yank her into the fray.
She leaped after her sister in terror and desperation. And from that she defended her mangled corpse until she’d lost a leg and half her tail to those creatures.
By then their father had found them with some cousins and siblings and beat the monsters away with anything they could.
Mirabella, Hildigrim and Isengar survived that Winter thanks to their sister.
Anyway, thanks for reading that if you did, I might expand on it at a later date, but anyway.
Had a brain fart and need to record it: In the fell winter, wolves crossed the brandywine, yes? Now I have a question: are wolves in the habit of digging their prey out of their burrows? --bunnybriand or Four or whatever
Yeah, they did - it was one of the major events in the Shire during that winter.
The winter was also less harsh than the Long Winter, and snow and ice stopped in Eriador at the Gwathló river, and in Rhovanion in the middle of Mirkwood. Nevertheless there were problems, as food again ran short, and the Hobbits of the Shire were attacked by wolves and Orcs which crossed the frozen Baranduin river. Gandalf and the Rangers of the North had to provide food for the Hobbits to prevent them from dying of hunger. (x) (x)
As far as I know, the predatory habits of wolves don’t generally include digging - they hunt as a pack, so that means circling around, cutting off escape routes for their prey, and then either a one-by-one attack method or a bunch of wolves jumping the prey simultaneously. They do dig dens for themselves, but digging burrows for food is generally more of a fox habit than a wolf one.
Wolves primarily eat meat. Their favorite prey is large ungulates (hoofed mammals) such as deer, elk, moose, caribou and bison. Since many of these animals are larger than wolves, the only way wolves can catch them is to live and hunt in groups. Wolves will also catch and eat rabbits, mice, birds, snakes, fish and other animals. Wolves will eat non-meat items (such as vegetables), but not often. (x)
(Ignore the alpha/omega talk, crap’s already been disproven >>)
The question of whether wolf predation is additive (the number of animals killed are in addition to those which would die otherwise) or compensatory (animals wolves kill would die anyway) is a complicated one, as wolf predation effects vary with the prey species, time of year, area, and system. It is quite probable that wolf predation is both additive and compensatory, and the real question is how much of it is additive.
For example, wolf predation on deer is moderated by the severity of the winters. In a severe winter, wolves may kill healthy deer which would have survived the winter had they not had been made vulnerable by the deep snow. This would be an example of wolf predation as an additive factor. Conversely, in a mild winter, when the snow levels are low, healthy deer easily escape wolves. Therefore, the deer captured are primarily sick or weak. This would be an example of compensatory mortality, as most of these deer probably would not have survived the winter. This is why it is rare to find a starving deer in Minnesota wolf range. (x)
If most of the Hobbits had the sense to stay indoors (because they do have locks, if weak ones that are probably only one or two tumblers), then it’s likely that they would just risk starvation because they’d also be snowed in. I can see a few Hobbits maybe sneaking out to try and spread what they have in their larders around so their neighbors don’t starve as fast. Wolves can travel for dozens of kilometers a day, so it’s quite possible that they’ve hunted through the entirety of the Shire during the Winter, and likely that they had enough time before the Rangers and Gandalf came to even do so leisurely.
