The Princess and the Blacksmith

Untitled Part 1

Bilba crouched down behind a chair and listened to her Grandfather as he spoke to several of his counselors. It was boring stuff, crop reports, some noble or another complaining about some other noble or another.

She was constantly impressed by the fact any of them stayed awake during council meetings.

The group began to break up and she shifted lower, pulling into the shadows as best as she could. The last thing she wanted was for her Grandfather to see her. He'd want to know why she was dressed in a simple emerald green sundress with a matching ribbon pulling her hair into a ponytail, no jewelry or makeup.

In other words, not how a Princess of the Realm should dress.

Bilba rolled her eyes, picturing the disapproving look in his eyes and voice as though he were actually standing there staring down at her.

The corridor grew silent and she stood up, shooting a look in both directions. The large hall was silent and she darted forward, flinching as her bare feet left the thick rug and hit the cold, marble tile.

Pictures and various plants lined the hall, one wall held windows overlooking the grounds of the palace while the opposite one was filled with portraits of her ancestors in various, stuffy, formal positions and dress.

Most of them looked wildly uncomfortable in Bilba's opinion.

She rounded a corner where the door to the council chambers stood. It was closed at the moment, the meetings over for the day. Bilba carefully pushed it open and slipped inside, closing the large oak doors behind her.

Her Grandfather's large chair dominated at the head of the table, the chairs of the rest of the Council far smaller and less ostentatious. Bilba ran to it and darted under the edge of the table, pressing a small indentation in the corner of the front panel of the chair.

With a quiet grinding noise, the entire chair moved back several feet, revealing stairs leading under the floor. Bilba scrambled forward and darted down them, reaching the bottom before the chair slid smoothly back in place over her head.

The emergency escape tunnel was tight and narrow, made of dirt that she idly ground her toes into as she fumbled in the dark for one of the torches lining the wall. Finding one she lifted if off its bracket, found the flint hanging off the end and soon had it lit.

She moved forward quickly after that, shivering in the damp tunnels. She finally reached the end, the tunnel appearing to end in a blank wall. She placed the torch in an empty holder and blew it out before carefully putting her hands on the wall and pushing.

It swung outward, revealing a small storeroom beyond.

Bilba let out a small sigh of relief and stepped out. The place was silent; no sound other than her own footsteps as she walked out into empty halls and quiet rooms.

Bag End had been her mother's home, before she'd met the Crown Prince and married him, moving into the palace soon after. She'd wanted to keep her home and had successfully petitioned for it to be added to the palace's labyrinth of escape tunnels for the royal family. Bilba knew her mother had planned to regularly visit Bag End, perhaps even spend summers there but duties had gotten in the way, and then Bilba's siblings had begun to be born, and time had simply slipped away. Her mother, as far as she knew, hadn't been to Bag End in nearly a decade.

Bilba, however, came frequently. Often she would simply spend the day in the house, enjoying the peace and quiet. One of the perks of being the youngest of six children was there was little she was expected to do and few people looked for her. The one or two times someone had asked about her whereabouts when she'd returned she'd simply claimed to have been in her room.