Pressing Flowers

Authors note:Here is the first of my updated chapters. Many more to come. I am focusing on this specific story before moving on. I have a connection to this one at the moment so we're going to work on her for now. Please let me know what you think of this prologue, hopefully you enjoy my new style of writing, I feel it's matured a bit in my absence. If you have questions or suggestions please PM me. Thank you for your continued support - CC.

Prologue:

"Faster"his mind screamed at him… "Please don't fail me now! Run faster!"

Bilbo Baggins couldn't recall a time in his life where he had ever run at this speed.

Not that his life had even been that long at this point, all things considered. He struggled to find traction amongst the loose freshly turned soil. Trying to ignore the stones and fine dirt he kicked up as he ran. He was trying to escape the unrelenting taunting that carried across the glen.

"We'll catch you unnatural Baggins!" The voices cried, "Come back Baggins. It's time to get your present from the Breeders! You're of age now, you're ours!" haunting laughter echoed out, an obvious layer of malice saturated the voices.

The path carried him through the orchard, it was deep into spring now, the colors were a breathtaking array of colors; a sight he would have enjoyed if it wasn't for the all-encompassing fear he was empiercing. The seemingly unending stab of panic was the one thing pushing him forward. "don't stop, don't stop, please don't stop!" ringing through his head like the bells on the church of Yavanna on Saturday evenings for the call to worship. Bilbo tried to ignore the rustle of movement, hoping it was a startled animal, hoping it wasn't the other hobbits toying with him. He took a sharp left, hoping if he made it down Brandybuck hill he could make it into the Smial before they caught him. He had almost made it to the hill when something hit him from the side, taking the breath from his lungs and sending him tumbling down the hill. He went foot over heel, tumbling down the hill, his world spun round as he was tossed about by the earth like a rag doll, his sight was filled with nothing but green and the color of the twilight sky.

He hit the ground at the bottom of the hill with a loud and rough thud.

"Maybe", he thought "Maybe I can still make it!" He struggled to his feet. Though physically not rolling his world still spun, disoriented he tried to take off again, but took several steps and was set aground again. He started crawling, pulling himself as quickly as he could. Only making it several feet before he felt a large presence loom above him and felt a dull yet heavy crack to the back of his head. His last thoughts were hopeless, all that effort for what.

He had lost.

As he faded into darkness the last thing he was aware of was more looming figures, and dark and hateful words filling his ears.

"Unnatural! Unrespectable hobbit that lot is if you ask me. He's one of those "beings". The Baggins abomination that Belladonna spawned. "

Bilbo's mother always taught him that "unnatural" was a dirty word. Bilbo wasn't "unnatural" like all the other children said he was. He was a Baggins, one of the wealthiest families in the shire! He was a Took, one of the most influential families in the entire realm of Hobbits! His mother always taught him that no matter what the slanderers said, no matter what the hisses in the dark and the voices said about him he was 100% normal. He might be different, but he wasn't "unnatural". No matter what those voices in the market said, no matter what the breeders or the cullers said, he was normal.

But the others… they didn't care who his parents were. All they saw was his oddities, the ones his mother said made him a blessing of the Valar. His differences made him a target. They made him someone that couldn't fit into the stereotypes that followed along with his families. It didn't matter that Bilbo had been the bravest of fauntlings.

Bilbo was different. That was all it took for the other Hobbits to make him an outcast.

"Just ignore him", they would whisper behind his back, "he'll be given to the breeders soon enough. No one wants to court him, he's different after all. Who would want him? He can't even bed a lass!"they would laugh as they walked by him in the market. Leaving him to know that his fate would be. A life of pain and panic a life without love.

Bilbo ran home and wept.

Bilbo jolted awake. He tried to move but was unable to, his hands and feet bound, stretching him out and leaving him helpless. His eyes shot open and all he saw was darkness, a thick strip of rough cloth covered his eyes. Captured, helpless, he could do nothing but struggle and weep. Begging for freedom, begging to be released from his bonds. A warm caress of summer air brought one thing to light. He was naked. Oh god he was naked. They had captured him, and he was completely disoriented and vulnerable. His struggles increased as he felt hands on his stomach. The breeders! The breeders had captured him. He was completely at their mercy! They were going to take this from him, the one thing he had left, his purity, the most important thing to a carrier. Lord what if he ended up with child, what if they hurt the baby! What if they used him to death?!

It was at that moment that he felt something broad and hard at the pink untouched entrance that was not his mouth. His body tensed, he knew this had been coming, but god having it happen was even worse. As he felt the blunt tip push in to his body and heard the whispered threatening sweet nothings he sobbed. As a cloth gag was tied to muffle his shrieks in the strange area he was in. Confused, aching, and frightened he struggled to breathe. Bilbo Baggins could do nothing more than hold on and hope to the Valar that it ended, or better yet; he died.

"Time to give us a present, carrier. You know the laws." Yes he did, all to well. "We want a taste of what will be ours. Think Carrier, in 17 more years, you'll be ours to use forever."

Without knowing what else to do he did the only thing he could think of; he screamed.

The scream echoed through his bedroom, Bilbo Baggins jerked awake. Panting at the memory of his 33rd birthday. He had been defiled in ways he couldn't bear to think of, the leapt out of his bed and ran to the washroom not far down the hallway. Emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet just thinking about that day. The assault had been horrific, but the beating that followed had been something that he would never forget. They had bashed him with fists, mauled him with feet, and carved words so terrible even the most hardened of men would have shivered.

He had never been through something so traumatic, since that day. He hoped, with a shiver, that he would never go through a beating like that again.

The beating had been more than that; it had been an attempt on his life. When he had come stumbling home three days later to Bag End, naked, bloody, and with words carved into his flesh she had shed not a single tear. She simply gathered him into her arms and took to tending the flesh. He had been wrapped in bandages and bathed in herbal healing pastes for months after the assault. Thankfully he had not come up with child, but the scars would forever remain on his body and within his minds for many years to come.

After the unspeakable events of his coming of age, Bilbo was shut away in the confines of Bag End. Neither parent strayed far from young Bilbo, for fear that he would be snatched away again by the evils of the Shire. Bilbo grew to hate the other residents of the Shire, he grew to hate the confines of the walls around him. He took to hiding in books and searching for outs, hoping that one day he would find an out, that he would be able to escape the fate that he was sure would be his demise.

Bilbo was a carrier, a male who could bear young. Long ago it was a worshiped trait, a sought-after blessing. At one time it was something to be proud of. Views on love, and carriers changed over the years, jealousy from other races, and from within the society of Hobbits changed. As Breeders became more prominent and controlling, more animalistic than they once had been, carriers became more like prizes and slaves, less like the loved and cherished creatures they once had been. The laws stated at the maturity of a Carrier, they would participate in a mating chase, if they outran the Breeders they would be safe to remain pure and untouched. If they failed, any Breeder could test them. If a carrier remained unmated until their coming of age they would be gifted to the Breeders, and thus be used however seemed fit the hostile and vile creatures that Breeders had become.

Bilbo, still, was unmated. He had been fast approaching his coming of age, tormented by the Breeders more than not, especially after the death of his parents during the Fell Winter. Bilbo was preparing to turn 35 in just a few short months, they had been traveling to what they hoped to be the safety of the family Smial but had been turned away because of the presence of Bilbo. On the journey home Bilbo had been attacked by a large pack of wolves, and his parents had been slaughtered protecting Bilbo from the creatures. Bilbo rarely left his home after that, and the only creature that became remotely like family had become Hamfast Gamgee and his lovely little family. Hamfast had kicked him right in the rump after his parents had died, telling him there was still hope, keeping him fed and trying to keep him protected and healthy. Hamfast kept Bilbo up to date as to the coming and going of the always moving Breeders. He also was the one person who still gifted Bilbo with birthday presents. His most valued present came in the form of a small runt wolf pup.

On Bilbo's 46th birthday he opened his door to do his normal chores, about to putter in his garden as he normally did. Only to be greeted by a beaming Hamfast and a basket with a large blue bow on it. He had been extremely confused at first, that is until he investigated the basket and removed the wiggling blanket. What looked back at him was a large pair of amber eyes. Bilbo had slammed the door directly in the face of the grinning man, wondering what in hellfire could have possessed Hamfast to bring a wolf pup into his home! Not just any wolf pup, but one that closely resembled the killer of his mother!

It had been a very rocky start for the wolf up and the Hobbit. The creature looked unmistakably like the wolves that had slain his parents after all, and Bilbo found it very hard to look past the creature's appearance at first. Eventually he begrudgingly accepted the pup into his home. Hamfast had explained that taking care of the pup would distract him from the loss, it wasn't much harder than taking care of faunts. He eventually dubbed the creature Firik, and the 3 years they lived together were (and are) some of the best the best and happiest years in his life. Soon Firik was no longer a wolf pup and grew to be a giant hulking mass of a creature. His thick and satin feeling fur was onyx in color. His eyes the shade of amber held up to the sun. He was intimidating to others, which seemed to be just what Bilbo needed. With Firik around no one bothered coming near the pair, someone had once tried and Firik had nearly taken the breeder's hand off.

Yes thankfully no one normally bothered the pair. But little did Bilbo know that today was not a normal day. When they stepped out his door on that day, his last day of freedom before he was sacrificed to the Breeders, that his life would forever be changed.

The second he stepped out that door, Firik on his heels, to sit on his bench and smoke his pipe, is where our story truly begins. A story that will change Bilbo Baggins for both good, and bad.

TBC