Chapter Text
Serves 2
1 cup of millet
1 3/4 cups of water
1 1/4 cups of milk
1 tablespoon of cane sugar
2 tablespoons of honey
1 teaspoon of sea salt
2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
Fresh raspberries, for garnish
- In a pot, bring the millet, water, and milk to a light boil, stirring constantly.
- Add the cane sugar, honey, sea salt, and half of the ground cinnamon, mix well, and let simmer while stirring until the mixture takes on a nice mush consistency, about 10 to 12 minutes.
- Remove from heat and season to taste.
- Fill 2 breakfast bowls, top off with the remaining ground cinnamon, garnish with a couple of fresh raspberries, and serve.
Tom Grimm - The Unofficial Lord of the Rings Cookbook
***
The being has no name.
Not yet anyway.
He has barely a notion of self.
He doesn’t really remember what came before the star, and the fire, and the two girls that had helped him out of that crater, but he knows that it was a very different place than where he is now. There are vague feelings of warmth and light, and the notion that he was merely one part of a greater whole.
Merely one voice in a choir.
One note in a song.
It is not so here.
Here, he is alone.
Well, in the figurative way.
Here, he is made of flesh. Which he thinks he wasn’t back then. Here he cannot hear the music that came before anymore, in his first moments on this hard land, he can barely hear anything. The fire is so loud, and he is so confused.
So confused he doesn’t recognise the children talking over him as voices at all. They sound like popping in his ears, the crackle of fire. The whole world is the crackle of fire. The sparks jump in front of his eyes and he is left dazed, and almost dumb from the heat of those flames that had brought him to this place. Eventually though the sparks of the fire in his eyes and ears grew dim, and he is finally able to see his surroundings at last.
He is in a green place, a very green place full of tall things... he stretches for the feeling of a name, any in his thoughts. Trees. That is the word he uses in his mind, the tall, silent giants, covered with green foliage are trees. And around the bases, the roots of these trees, are smaller beings. Beings very different from the trees - for like himself now they are of flesh and blood.
They are tiny next to him, they have round - rather angry - faces, pointed leaf shaped ears, and great big hairy feet. And they make loud noise from their mouths, that made his newly formed ears hurt something terrible.
He wants to curl away from them, clamp his new fingers around his ears and pretend that there isn’t such noise in the world. But his body is still too new for that, and it will not yet obey all the commands of his mind. So instead, he just stands there.
He just stands there as the tiny people yell at...at the children who had rescued him from his crater. He is dangerous. They explain to the protesting children. He is not to be trusted. Because he is a stranger. Stranger. That is another word he did not recognise. And yet they are using it to refer to him, he is sure of that at least. So...it must be his name.
Or maybe just something very close to it. On this earth at least. As he comes to this conclusion, the voices around him have moved onto another subject entirely. Maybe not entirely. It is still to do with him, in a round about fashion at least. It is the punishment the children are to receive for helping him.
There is talk of being ‘left behind’. He doesn’t know what these words mean, but given how one of the girls gasps and begins to sob, he gathers it is something very bad. Then there are other small people, some who look like one of the girls. They are pleading. Pleading for mercy for their children. No, for themselves. No, not that either. For all of them. For all the family is to be punished for the crimes of the girls. Or maybe just one of the girls.
He doesn’t know, he is confused. And the fire in his head is starting up again and it is getting very hard to focus on anything. Two of the adult tiny ones are hugging one of the girls. A voice in his head provides the words that he does not have.
Mother.
Father.
These are words he realises that he does know, though he cannot remember where he has learned them from.
***
In the end neither girl, or their family, are ‘left behind’.
The stranger, still doesn’t understand what those words mean, but he is happy that they have not come to pass anyway. However the family of one his rescuers is still punished. Not the other one though, even if they had known she is involved, there would be no point in hurting her family. They are already dead.
He does not know how he knows this, but it fills him, this understanding of things that have come to pass like no other certainty ever has. Or so he thinks anyway. The young girl, Poppy’s family is dead. They were killed by misfortune on the road, it is why she walks along side her friends family, even though they have been sent to the back of the line.
There is fear in this situation, of being sent to the back of the caravan. Because one of the creatures... the Father, a voice in his mind supplies him with, is injured. A leg, a foot, broken. Broken, the Stranger thinks, because of him. Because of his presence and actions. And he feels...bad.
That is a word he still knows.
He feels bad about this.
And so, taking the long handles of their tiny little home on wheels he takes the injured father’s place. He pulls their cart along for them. For the children and the Mother, and the injured Father. It is, at the heart of things, the very least he can do.
***
They have been travelling longer than the Stranger can count. Of course he doesn’t know the numbers, or the calendar of this land. Or to be frank any land. So that probably doesn’t say a whole lot for how long they have been travelling.
So instead, he will say that it feels like a long time. Many times has the light in the sky, the light that feels familiar yet distant to him, sets and rises.
Maybe that is a better form of counting.
Many.
Many days.
Many nights does the Stranger walk as he pulls his saviour’s home behind him. The mud, he know that word now - the people around him introduce it to him by their complaints. That mud clings to his tattered robe, and his feet, and his hair, and deep into his beard.
He is tired, he thinks that is the right word. But he doesn’t know for sure. He wishes he had more words in his head to use, but there are still too few for him to properly ask all the questions that he needs to know.
“Okay, big fella,” says the male...the Father, from behind the Stranger. “The weather will turn sour soon, I think it’s time we all take a rest.”
No. No, he cannot rest, he has still has so much to do. Still so much to accomplish. He cannot remember what it is, but he knows that there is a clock. A clock in the universe that goes tick, tick, tick and calls him forward even when he does not understand why.
His chest has been rising up and down in an unrhythmic fashion, too fast, too shallowly, and he feels like he is somehow suffocating. Even though all he is doing is standing here and breathing. He doesn’t understand what is happen. But the Harfoot standing beside him does.
“Easy, east. Just take a deep breath fella, and don’t panic. Bend over, hands on knees and just breathe. Your having a wee bit of a panic attack, Nori gets them all the time, it’s no big deal. There now, just you breath, isn’t that better.”
Yes, it very much is.
“You don’t have to worry, we won’t fall behind if we stop now. Look ahead, see those brushes, that’s another cart. The caravan is stopping, so we have to stop too. Why don’t you head on in, get dry. Later I’m going to be teaching the girls how to make Millet Gruel. Would you like to watch?”
He does not entirely understand the question, nor what ‘Millet Gruel’ could be but he does not want to stand here in the mud anymore, with water about to come down from the sky over their heads and make it all worse. So he nods, the rabid pants of his breath under control at last.
And he leaves his stance at the head of the cart to follow the steps of the tiny Father inside of it. Perhaps it will be better to be...what is the word? Warm. Yes, that is most certainly the right word.
***
They shouldn’t all fit in the cart. In this tiny little hole of a house, but they do.
The Father.
The Mother.
The Girl with the dead family.
His Saviour.
The Smallest Child.
And him.
He is aware that he most of all, should not fit in this cart. And yet he does. It is almost as if it stretches to fit him. He can feel the force in his own fingers, and under his skin. But he has used that power before briefly, and he remembers the outcomes, the consequences.
He remembers what those consequences look like. The Father is still limping badly from one of them. He knows there have been none in the cart. Not yet anyway. So he doesn’t think, doesn’t believe anyway that this is anything to do with his power. He is not sure if the people here have power.
Of any kind.
But to be fair he hasn’t really gotten around to asking them. Words are still...difficult to him in this land. Maybe it isn’t magic at all. Maybe he’s just become really good at crouching. Maybe. Either way, he fits. And he knows he should know.
Outside it has begun to rain, horribly, terribly. He knows all these words, because the little family around him have used them quite often to describe the weather. Even when the sun is shining high in the sky.
Perhaps it is something to do with having to walk everywhere, while pulling all their belongings with them. The weather never seems quite correct for the situation at hand.
The voice of the Father breaks him out of his musing, and drags the Stranger’s mind back to reality.
“Now, it’s a simple enough recipe girls...and er, others.”
Says the Father of the little family his steel coloured eyes flicking up over the heads of the three girls to meet the Stranger’s eyes. He looks away quickly, focusing on the children primely instead for his lesson.
“But it requires several ingredients that usually aren’t easy for a Harfoot to get their hands on. But we, that is to say Marigold and I have been busy,” he catches the eye of the Mother of the family and shares a... conspiratorial... smile with her before looking back at the girls.
“Nori why don’t you pour the millet grain into the point. Ha, Ha, yes!”
He says at the excited looks on the girls faces.
“We’re making Millet Gruel today. They were growing some in the field we passed a week ago, Hobbick be on our side for once.”
Nori pours the millet into the waiting pot, whereupon the Mother - Marigold - covers it with the water they had collected from the rainstorm outside. The youngest child is told to pour the white liquid contained in the old metal bucket like thing sitting in the corner of their tiny room, into the pot. Once all these things are done, the Father waves his hand under the base of the cooking cauldron and a small fire springs from his fingertips.
Of course the Stranger notices none of these things, though he should really be paying attention to everything the little creatures do about him. But he is much too focused with turning this new word over in his head.
What or rather who was a Hobbick?
There is no explanation forthcoming from the Father, as if he just expects his audience to know without thinking who Hobbick was. Instead he lays out the different ingredients, wrapped in small bags of cloth and sacking, or tied up in bundles or leather or leaves. And as he does so he explains what each one is for his audience of children and the Stranger.
“Cane sugar, the last of our stock I’m afraid girls. The old roads have been a bit too quiet these last few years. Barely a trader goes by from the east, and they don’t usually stop for a Harfoot. But we have just enough for this dish, Mobius will smile on us this day.”
All these new names are so confusing, thinks the Stranger as he watches the Father tip the contents of the tiny cloth packet he had been holding open before the children into the swirling liquid of the cauldron. The Stranger has never before seen something quite like this powdery white substance the creature called... Sug-ar.
Next he holds up a tiny little clay pot picking its lid off with delicate care, and showing the contents to the stranger and the children. The older girls don’t look terribly impressed, having no doubt seen this display many times before, but the youngest child squeals with delight as she lets out a one word exclamation.
“Honey!”
“The very last of it my girl, the very last of it.”
Says the Father as he tips the ‘very last of it’ into the cauldron. Then he reaches for a small leaf covered bundle, and unfolds it with special care. He holds it out to the children and by extension the Stranger as well, so they can better see its contents for themselves.
“Now, do we all know what this is?”
A very small amount of brown, red dust like substance that the Stranger does not know the name to, thus feels no compulsion to voice so out loud. Words are still so hard on his new tongue, there is no point waisting time trying to describe something that he does not even have a name for. Especially when it comes so easy to the rest of the audience.
“Ground Cinnamon!”
The youngest members of the family cry as one.
“Aye, me girls, ground it myself while you were out mucking about in the strawberry patches of men.”
“But,” begins the Stranger’s saviour... Nori, that is her name. Nori.
“Where did you get the unground cinnamon from? That doesn’t grow in the fields around here, and the old marching trail traders don’t trade in that even when they do pay attention to us. I thought only men had that in their houses.”
Her father does not answer this question, in fact he ignores it entirely. Moving instead to show them the small jar of ‘sea salt’ he has managed to trade for on one of the old trails. This does not impress Nori, and she seems slightly annoyed to have been so throughly ignored. But perhaps at her own guilt at being the cause for her family’s current position at the back of the caravan, she chooses not to ask again.
The Stranger does not need to ask. He knows without thinking where or rather how the Father acquired his ‘unground cinnamon’. He stole it. From the house of one of the men the caravan had once passed by. He will not tell his daughters this. Because he is ashamed. But the Stranger knows. He always knows. That is why he does not ask.
The Father then takes half the ground cinnamon out of its leaf packet, and tosses it into the bubbling cauldron. Then he sprinkles the sea salt in the mixture, and takes up a spoon to mix it. Mix it well. He is telling his daughters that they have to mix it until it turns into a nice mush, but the Stranger is not listening anymore. He’s too focused on the Father’s hands. As they hold the great spoon, they seem to glow with a strange golden light. In fact it seems like the whole of him then seems to glow with a pale golden light. The pot as well, of course.
It startles the Stranger. For he does not know if it is just him, seeing beyond what the physicality of the world hides. Or is this glow apparent to all? He looks around at the others who are watching, at the children and the Mother. But he does not think they see it, not as he does. They do not see, perceive the truth of the magic being performed before them. And then Nori leans over to the Stranger, and whispers as loudly as she can without distracting her Father’s concentration.
“It’s magic, isn’t it.”
The Stranger blinks down at her dumbly, she cannot mean what she just said, she cannot see what he does. She grins, not truly understanding what she says next.
“He’s a right Wizard my dad, when it comes to cooking.”
Wizard.
He likes that word.
He thinks he shall keep it in his head for a while yet.
That is where everything becomes fuzzy again. There is the vague impression of sweetness, the sweetness of honey and sugar and the warmness of millet gruel in his bowl. He knows he enjoys it when he eats it, but he can’t say anything else beyond that.
The fire has come back into his ears again, so he cannot even properly hear the squeal of the children when the Mother reveals her hidden stash of raspberries to garnish their gruel with. He wishes he could have, but that is power that is beyond him - even now, as powerful and as wise as he has become now. He cannot go back. And relive that memory, that time, with all he knows of Harfoots, of hobbits now.
“Mr. Gandalf?”
It is not the voice of Nori, his little saviour, who speak him to now though the mists of time. It is another hobbit entirely.
The Person, now known to most in this particular corner of the land as Gandalf the Grey - When he wasn’t being called by far nastier names - looked up from the flowers he had been mindlessly contemplating. Looked up into the sharp silver eyes of the Gardener of Bag End.
Hamfast Gamgee, a sturdy young hobbit of mixed Harfoot and Fallowhide heritage, stared back with the same unimpressed expression that many of the lower class hobbits looked at Gandalf with. A child raised in the Took family, or with at least one Took parent, might have grown up on exciting tales of Gandalf’s fireworks. And longed to maybe follow him on an adventure one of these days. A child like Bilbo Baggins had been. But hobbits like Hamfast Gamgee, with who, the term ‘adventure’ meant less ‘fun holiday’ and more ‘danger’ looked at Gandalf with the same kind of wariness that his Harfoot ancestors had.
Back when he had not been Gandalf the Grey, but just a stranger in a strange land. And maybe in some ways he would always be that stranger. And that thought made him quite sad. Yet, as he sits there and listens to the young hobbit deliver his message from his Baggins employer - Bilbo had made breakfast for the three of them - a ray of long put aside memory rises within him then and he can’t help but ask the burly hobbit youth, as he rises from the ground and follows him inside then.
“Its not Millet Gruel, is it?”
The hobbit pauses just inside the entrance to Bag End, and squints up at him in suspicion. Possibly suspecting some kind of insult to Bilbo’s honour as a cook.
“Aye sir, but don’t let the plain name put you off. It makes a good hearty breakfast, and there’s not one alive or dead that makes a better pot of the stuff than Mister Bilbo, sir.”
The ‘sir’, does not sound respectful in the least, and it makes Gandalf smile even as he says...
“Oh certainly no one alive, Master Gamgee. Please lead the way, I find I am so very hungry this day.”
Hamfast’s round, harfoot like face scrunches up as if insulted by the notion that there could have been anyone in the world who was a better cook than Bilbo Baggins. It is strange, his face reminds him a bit of Nori’s and Poppy’s - the same round innocence, for he cannot be much older than they had been when they had helped the Stranger out of his crater. And it holds a similar complexion to the Mother’s, to Marigold’s. But the eyes are not Harfoot, not the grey steel of the Father’s - of Largo’s , but silver. Fallowhide silver. The same kind of silver of Belladonna Took’s eyes.
Odd, thinks Gandalf, for Bilbo to have a gardener with his mother’s eyes. But the boy is still looking at him as if he’s been given a great insult, which is not the impression Gandalf wishes to give. Thus he speaks quickly, his stomach already growling at the thought of the millet dish.
“I’ve lived a very long time on this Middle-Earth of yours, Master Harfoot. And I’ve met many of your kind, many with gifts far more wonderful than you can possibly conceive of. There was one who made the greatest bowl of millet gruel I’ll ever taste. Perhaps I shall tell you the story of it one day, when I’m not quite so hungry.”
Hamfast Gamgee snorts then, the same way that Bungo Baggins had always snorted at Gandalf. The exact same way.
“I doubt that sir, but you’re Mister Bilbo’s guest so I’ll say no more.”
As the hobbit nods then, though still looking a little suspicious at the wizards’s pointed words, he turns his silver eyes from the old fellow and leads the way to Bilbo waiting for them in the kitchen of Bag End.
Where Gandalf is greeted by the old familiar smell of honey, grains, and cinnamon. Not perhaps stolen this time. Although Bilbo is a burglar, so who can really say for sure.
The End