By: Dana
Summary: Five months in SR 1419 where Estella and Diamond become better acquainted.
Characters: Estella, Diamond; Freddy, Folco; other characters, both minor and major and original, are mentioned and involved as well
Pairings: Estella/Diamond
Rating: PG, maybe PG-13
Warnings: Pre-femslash and then femslash; past violence mentioned; angst
Author's Notes: This is the start of something that will prove to be very long. I was stuck, for a while, wondering how I might get my OT4-verse up and running - and then it hit me, I needed to write about Estella and Diamond in 1419, and once I had started on it the story (this story, anyhow) pretty much fell neatly into place. I will post this in two chapters, if only because I don't feel like posting all almost 10000 words of it in one go.
Please forgive me for the somewhat pretentious title. (The series title is equally pretentious, I'm sure.)
My beta would like to remain anonymous. Still, I would like to thank her for all her hard work on my story. Thank you, my dear. ♥
Series Index: Roads Go On and Years Go By.
This story is, of course, related to my In a Sunless Year stories, as it occurs within the same time period. I will not include it on the series index for that, though, and will leave it at this mention here.
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with J.R.R. Tolkien or New Line Cinema. Any and all characters and situations that have been borrowed are for the author's personal use only, and for the entertainment of others.

          Halimath

It's at the end of one ride, ages after that. No, not ages, just weeks. The Rushy Water runs quick, where the Brandywine would have flown thick and loud like golden ale. So Estella reaches out, takes Diamond's hand. Their talk, at one time, had turned to rivers and to swimming. And Diamond told Estella how she wasn't one to swim.

'Are you frightened?'

Diamond shakes. 'Oh. Just a bit.'

The water's cold, coming as it is from its source just south of the North Moor. They are further south than that, now, down below Long Cleeve. The sky above is clear and open, and Estella wades out. Diamond hesitates. But then she follows after, lifting her skirts with her free hand.

'See now,' Estella says, not looking back. 'Not a thing wrong with running water, Diamond. I told you, it wouldn't go and wash you away.'

A shaking laugh, just like her hand. 'Estella Bolger, you are positively queer.'

'Yes, well. I've always loved the river, you know, and though my father tried he couldn't keep me or my mother away. Have you seen the Brandywine at all?' The truth of that being that she had loved the Brandywine, and ever since a very young age. While Fatty, on the other hand, couldn't be talked into crossing into Buckland (even with him and Merry being very good friends, it was always Merry who came to Budgeford, and not the other way around), not even when Rosamunda threatened him that he'd be tied up and dragged along. She might have said that, but she never did anything more than make her laughing threats.

Diamond lets loose Estella's hand, and looks away. Estella turns and looks at her, the water washing against her legs, and she reaches out and brushes at the honey-light curls that stick out in a muss from right behind Diamond's ear. A lopsided grin, and Diamond pushes at her hair, gathering it all up and twisting it off, using the bit of ribbon she'd had at her wrist to tie it all up. 'Once before, when I was very young. I swam at Lake Evendim with my brothers, and I was good at it, too. Better than Tolly, even, so they thought me more fish than Took. We went so far, we saw where the lake turned broke open into the river, and Serry made talk about a proper walking trip south to the Buckland. He and Berry did attempt it, later on, when I wasn't so young. But anyhow, we'd been out of the Shire, and when I brought it up with our parents later on, well, I wonder if my brothers ever went trekking north again, or if they kept their sights on what was inside of the Shire's bounds.'

'And then you grew out of it – grew out of swimming, that is. However did you manage that?'

'I can't say. But I did, and I haven't much given the water a second glance, well, unless it's been raining or if I'd been thirsty, or if I'd been in need of a bath.' At that, she grins.

Estella almost laughs. 'And what about you?'

'About me?'

'Yes, you. Are you now a proper Took?'

Diamond laughs. 'Oh, I do suppose I am for the most, now that I've grown out of such foolish things and fallen back into my own fool head. But sometimes, I rather think I'd like to be queer.' Diamond smiles, that shy lass who had blushed at their first meeting, though Estella rather thinks Diamond is capable of more than just that.

'Just like a Bucklander. Or a Bolger. It is great fun, being queer, let me tell you. You really ought to try.'

          Winterfilth

Time goes on, as time is wont. They share stories and smiles, and Estella likes to think that Diamond, out of any North-took, understands. Estella is glad of that, given that she spends more time with her than she does with any of her closer North-took cousins. They are sitting together at the windows, waiting on teatime, and Estella had been retelling the only North-took story she knew. The one of Bandobras and the battle at Greenfields.

And Diamond gives a soft, snorting laugh, then runs one hand back through her loose hanging curls. 'Oh, is that what they're telling in the stories, now?' Estella looks at Diamond, and Diamond looks back at Estella, bemused. She gives a nod, tucks an errant strand of hair back, then stands. 'Oh, we've time enough before tea, I think, for a story of my own. Come along, please.'

So Estella stands, grinning despite it all, and Diamond beckons her to follow, so she does. They go from the parlour, to the corridor beyond, and a walk and then a turn and they're following along the front corridor, the one with the half-dozen wide round windows that look out over the front yard. 'What did you mean, Diamond?' she asks, but only when they've crossed by the grand double doors, and when they've turned again, and are now heading deep inside..

'Well, any proper North-took knows about the Bullroarer's sword, though I suppose that was too much of a story to go telling all your cousins and your uncles and your aunts, so they had to tell it some other way. Well, he had a sword, and he used it at the Battle of Greenfields, back in 1147, when he fought against the Orc chief – well, for all common knowledge insists his name was Golfimbul, I can't say what truth exists in that. It might just be that they wanted the name to fit the story. Anyhow, Bandobras did stand against him, I should tell you, but it wasn't a club that took that Orc down. It was a sword, Bandobras' sword, and it took that Orc's head clean off.' She laughs, and gives Estella a sly look. Estella can't say if it's truth or not, but she doesn't think she minds. 'Still did manage to send it flying a good one hundred yards, before going down a rabbit hole, so it is still how our fair game of golf came to be around. But it wasn't a club that took that Orc's head, Ella. It was a sword.'

Ella. Diamond hasn't ever called her that, and Estella smiles then grins. 'I – well. That is positively preposterous, but I'd not mind hearing more. Is this blade still around?'

'Great-great-great-grandfather's sword is in my father's office. Here, it's just this way.'

There are other things in the office. A portrait of Master Faragrand, looking off and pulling at his lapel, that had him looking almost as uncomfortable as his wife Beryl had been just that morning, when Estella had mentioned the riders from the south at tea. Books, more books than she'd seen since she'd last been to Brandy Hall, and she wondered if there might be more than she'd find in the Hall library, though she doubted she could. But there was Bandobras' sword, up on the wall behind Faragrand's wide desk. 'When Tolly was old enough, he'd take it down and act out battle stories with our brother, Berry, but Da would put a stop to it and tell them they had wood swords to play with, and they should be so lucky to have them as they'd not cut off their own heads. When he was nine, and Tolly fifteen, and I'd not been born yet, mind, Tolly almost took off Berry's hand once when they snuck back in after one of Da's warnings – near took off his Berry's pinky finger, instead, and left a nasty scar. Tolly'd not have been able to reach it if he hadn't been too tall for his age. Da blamed himself, and Tolly blamed himself, too, as it had been his fumble that had caused the mess. But Berry grew up proud of that scar, and he'd always say that he was lucky that Tolly hadn't as good of an aim as old Bandobras had.'

Estella startles. There are tears on Diamond's cheeks, and Diamond wipes at them then snuffles, and tries her very best to smile. 'Forgive me,' she whispers. 'I do suppose I miss him, after all.'

They hadn't talked about it, not much. Estella reaches out, wants to touch Diamond's cheek but brushes her touch at Diamond's wrist instead. 'We all have loved ones that we miss. And your brother – '

'My poor dear Tolly has had his good and his bad, and he has always been too stubborn, and I won't forget how he and Berry fought at my twenty-third, how they fought and how neither of them would stand down. And now Tolly's gone, gone away, when all we need best is for him to be here. It's where he's needed, anyhow, and we've all been – heartsick, in our worry. Ma hasn't made mention of it, and Da goes on like things are as they should be, but it's been hard on Berigrand, and Serry, too.'

Diamond's back is to her, and Estella finds herself at a loss, doesn't know what to say. She puts her hand on Diamond's shoulder, feels how Diamond tenses, and then Diamond turns, looks her in the eye. 'Seems it's not only hard on them,' she whispers, and Diamond grins faintly in return. But there was something hard in her eyes, something desperate, something that Estella remembers well herself. Cutting off her hair, dressing like a lad, and leaving all she knew behind to follow after Freddy, because it really was all that she could do. And she had found him, and she recalls crouching in darkness, waiting for a Ruffian to trip a line or otherwise walk into a trap. Necessity of months has made it so she's better with a blade in her hand than she is with a bow and arrows, though she does seem to have rather atrocious aim. And she'd be with Freddy still, if he'd have her, but he'd rather her be safe...

Her hair is growing out, and for all she'd wanted to change, it seems that nothing really lasts.

Estella knows that desperate look because it's been her own, and because she still sometimes wakes early, or doesn't sleep at all, and recalls hiding out under stars in darkness, and running for her life. She knows what it is to be wanted, and she'd rather not be safe.

But, she did make a promise, for all she knows the desperation in Diamond's eyes, just as she knows the desperation in her own.

Diamond lets out her breath, pushes it out carefully, and she smiles carefully, too, as if it might break. 'Yes, well, that does happen. And I do care about Tolly, for all we are too much alike. I – your brother, Estella. Freddy will come back,'

'I do like to think he will. He hadn't ever wanted me around, and he did make me promise him that I would stay here, that I wouldn't follow after him again. And – '

'And?'

'Well, it's more than just that. But he did make a promise, and I'm the one who let him go off. Not that he'd listen to me, not that he ever has listened to me, not after he's made up his mind.'

'Ella – '

Diamond's looking at her, like she knows she hadn't just been speaking of Freddy. But Estella smiles and then shrugs. 'So, is this how the story really goes? And if we're in our own story, now, how do you suppose it shall end?'

'Well, I'm not much of a believer in a story's ending, and needing them. The way I see it, Ella, the very best stories should never have to end – but I do suppose a change in chapter shouldn't hurt us, at least this time.'

It is no surprise, really, that Estella finds the North Tunnels' library familiar: at some point, she remembers the first time she ever had set foot inside the grand library. Indeed, the first time she'd come to North Tunnels at all. Their first meeting, of a sort, and no, what Diamond remembers as their first meeting isn't quite the same.

She had, at the time, been quite young: only twelve, and that meant that Diamond hadn't even turned a full two years. And Estella found herself in the library, looking for a bit of peace amidst the chaos (you see, Aunt Emerald was having her fifth, and for all that Estella delighted in babies and young cousins, she was feeling put upon and her parents had been ignoring her, anyhow, and Freddy had been, too – but why should Freddy pay any real attention to her, when he could be off playing with their North-took and other Bolger cousins, instead? She didn't feel hurt, not really, but she did feel somewhat betrayed), and she always had been fond of the library at home, though it was not near as large; and it wasn't that the library here was even near as grand as those at Brandy Hall, or even at Great Smials. Father didn't care for that sort of thing, not really. She wasn't even sure what he did care about, and as she was a child at the time, she didn't really care.

She was probably too old for her age, and she was at the North Tunnels library, breathing in the scent of old books, with her satchel of artist's bits beneath her arm. She put that down, and picked up one of the old books that had sat upon one of the lower selves, and she sat down in one of the comfortable chairs, and began to read.

She hadn't ever read this one before, and she loved it for that.

Her father, with his dislike of going abroad (he hadn't been across the Brandywine is a good number of years – it was mother's friendship with the young Mistress (that is, Esmeralda, as Menegilda was still very much alive) that ever took her there, and Estella along. Still, if reading wasn't very much a thing a lass ought to do, at least it was more proper than tagging along after her brother and the male cousins, and being one of the pony-riding knights that would take down the Evil King, or would slay the Evil Dragon, and save the Fair Princess. She was tired of being the Fair Princess, and begrudgingly, but maybe just to shut her up, Freddy had given her own wooden sword, and one of the hand-crafted wood-handled ponies that the Bolger craftshobbits were rather well known for.

But Estella hadn't minded. She made a much better knight, the way she looked at it, and Freddy must have though that, too.

Anyhow, she wasn't any good at her needlepoint. Her talents were wasted on that.

So, she was in the library at the time, when Tolagrand North-took – that is, Tolly, who she hadn't ever seen without a tear in some part of his clothing, or dirt on his cheeks – came into the library, too, with a squirming toddler in his hold. He looked (and this was no amount of exaggeration on Estella's part) as if he was facing the end of the world.

Then he saw Estella, and his eyes lit up. 'Freckles! There you are!' The toddler made an unhappy sound, and pulled on Tolly's hair.

'Tolly. Wan' down.'

Tolly groaned in frustration, made a show of disentangling Diamond's persistent little fingers. All Estella did was scowl. Freckles – she hated when they called her that, and Tolly did love to call her that and almost all the time. She didn't even have many freckles, either, so the name really didn't make that sense. 'Freckles, I'm looking for Serry,' and then he bounced Diamond on his hip. 'Have you seen him about?'

Estella looked at him, shifted the book on her lap, and said, 'Well, aren't you meant to be watching him? How could you let him get away?'

Tolly frowned. 'Well, he's quick, and he's little. And I was looking after Diamond, too.'

Diamond was fussing, and Estella closed her book and, with a sigh, stood. 'Well, I suppose I could look after Diamond for you, if you'd like, so you can find your Serry. But,' and she put her arms out, and Tolly deposited the wriggling child into her arms, and she pulled her in close. She lifted one eyebrow at him, and took on her best mothering tone – the sort her mother often used against her father, and was the one that most often had Rosamunda getting her own way. 'Won't Aunt Beryl be cross at you, Tolly? Thinking you're shirking your duties, and all.'

Tolly made a funny face. 'Now, Freckles, you're hardly being fair. I've other things do to, you know. I told Freddy that I'd get back to him – we had a game on, and then mum came along, and – '

Diamond giggled, delighted, and pulled on the ribbons in Estella's hair. She seemed fit to squirm right out of Estella's arms, though, and Estella had to keep a firm hold. And Estella turned, and smiled in return at the small, smiling face. 'I think she likes me better than she likes you, Tolly. Now, that can't be fair, either.'

When she looked up, Tolly was frowning. 'Freckles – '

'If you want help finding Serry, then you'll call me Estella – or Stel, at the very least.'

'Yes,' he said, 'Stel. We could make a game of it, if you like – well, we could go looking for the Young Prince, who was.' Tolly paused, looking thoughtful, mouth pursing and then falling open. 'Ah, well, the Evil Dragon didn't fall, not like we'd thought he had...' Freddy, at the time, had played a rather convincing Evil Dragon, so Estella tapped her foot impatiently, bounced Diamond which made Diamond giggle, and scowled at Tolly.

'That one again? I thought you'd have a new game.'

Tolly shrugged. 'Well, you could play the Good Knight this time, if you wanted.'

Estella paused, contemplated. Then, she smiled at Diamond. 'Well. I should like that, and I think our Diamond likes the sound of it, too. But you'll need to hold your sister, as you please. A Good Knight needs to keep both her hands free.'

Tolly nodded, somewhat desperate. Diamond was reluctant for Estella to loose herself from her hold, but Tolly bounced her once on his hip and settled her – still, with one of Estella's dark ribbons in her hair, then shoved into her wet little toddler's mouth. Estella loosened the second ribbon, let her curls down, and then she did her hair up again, and gave Tolly a piercing look.

'So,' she said, 'where did you see him last, the Young Prince?'

At this point, Diamond interrupts her (not the Diamond of before, but the Diamond who has until just then listened to her patiently as she's gone on and on). Then Diamond laughs at herself, and with a smile she apologizes. 'Oh, forgive me,' she says, and she does sound apologetic. Estella doesn't seem to mind, and smiles at her, takes up her cup of tea and sips at it. They are sitting together in the best of Mistress Beryl's parlours, and the drapes are drawn back, letting in pale sunlight and oh, Estella feels like a foolish tween that's falling, but Diamond does seem to glow. But that seems brighter than the candles that light the room.

'But you found them, I think. No, I remember that, though I can't be quite sure. But I do remember...' She smiles still, and shakes her head. 'Oh, it seems like such a foolish thing.'

And Diamond holds her hand out, looking down at her palm. She shakes her head again, but then she looks at Estella, that smile all but slipping off her mouth. 'You know – '

'What do I know?' Estella smiles in return, puts her tea cup back down and then reaches out with her hand, and puts her hand on Diamond's. And Diamond's hand is warm, and she twines their fingers for a moment – but only for a moment, and then Diamond pulls away. And Estella watches her, carefully, and says, 'I've been foolish as well. Now, what could you possibly mean?'

'I remember, I think, when I pulled your hair free of its ribbons.' Then she looks at Estella, reaches up, slides her fingers back along her jaw. Lets her fingers slide into Estella's hair, lets them wrap about the long pale ribbons that Estella currently hold up Estella's curls. Estella sits there, perfectly still, and Diamond works the ribbons free with little trouble. Then she smiles, and laughs, as Estella's curls come tumbling down.

'You've been a good friend.' Diamond doesn't quite smile, then, though she does lean close, presses her mouth against Estella's. And Estella tenses, but only for a moment, as Diamond's hand gathers up a bunch of her hair and holds on tight. Estella opens her mouth to kiss Diamond, because it doesn't quite feel right, doesn't quite feel complete. Diamond is as warm as her hand had been, her mouth tasting faintly sweet. She slides one arm about Diamond's waist, can feel the faint beating of her heart.

They kiss like that for a while, but then Diamond draws back and lets loose her hold in Estella's hair – and Estella's arm slips from where it had nestled, snug.

'I am suddenly,' she says, and smiles, 'not as angry at Freddy as I'd been.' And she had been angry, when he'd thought to send her here, when he'd thought it would be for her best. She remembers, though, how Freddy had said that Diamond still owed him a kiss, and how she should keep that in mind. And she wonders, has she stolen that away?

But Diamond only grins. 'Oh. Well. I'd always thought his decision quite wise.'

The hour is late but Estella wakes, suddenly, the soft click of the door as it opens and then another soft click as it closes. She turns, muddles in her head, but it's Diamond who stands there in the slant of pale moonlight, Diamond who seems to be made of it, and starlight, too.

'Diamond – '

'I couldn't sleep,' she says, a ghost's smile on her mouth. Estella nods at her, then pulls back the covers and doesn't speak again, wonders at her presence, as Diamond climbs into the bed, and then the both of them pull the covers up tight. Diamond rests her head near Estella's shoulder, but Estella turns and looks at her, now lying on her side. And Diamond smiles at her, then shuts her eyes.

'You don't,' Estella says, 'mean to sleep.'

'No,' Diamond answers in all honesty. 'I had hoped we could talk. Just that, Estella, and don't you think it's anything else I'd be wanting... well,' and she laughs at herself, grins a wicked grin that only lasts a moment before it fades into something more prim and proper. 'Well, it might not be the only thing I'll be wanting.'

Estella feels warm, and creeps closer, and Diamond does the same. Estella thinks of Merry, and shuts her eyes and then Diamond's fingers tangle in her curls, and she smiles at that. Then she opens her eyes, and Diamond smiles at her, and Diamond rolls over onto her back. Estella does the same.

'What do you mean to talk of?'

'About my brothers. About my dreams.'

'Diamond...'

'I told you, before, how Tolly and Berry fought at my twenty-third – it happened, you see, because Berry'd known that Tolly would, one day, go away. And Berry, I think, worried that he would ever come back, or maybe he knew that he wouldn't and he didn't know how to deal with that. And I have been – heart-sick, and I have thought too much of it, and I have talked with Berry, but he's not said a thing. It might be that Berry knows Tolly won't be coming back, and if he knows that, it's only that he saw it in his dreams. And I have – I've seen things in my dreams, as well. I've seen darkness in the east, and white towers that glimmer in the light of day. And I saw you, too, three months before you ever came to Long Cleeve.'

'Diamond, what – '

Diamond sits, looks at her. The covers have fallen down, and Estella sits as well, looks at her – her breath is gone, for a moment, as she wonders as Diamond's curves, and then the muss of her curls.

'The Men came, and I didn't know that would happen – but Tolly left, and Berry knew that he would, no matter he dreamt it months and months before Tolly went away. And you – ' she reaches out, touches Estella's cheek. Leans close, closes her eyes, and presses her brow against Estella's shoulder.

'Three months before – I was waiting on you. And I know you're waiting on your Merry, for all you've told of me – for all you wonder if he'll even be yours. Three months, and I only just kissed you...'

At that, of course, she looks at Estella, touches her cheek once more, and kisses her again. Nearly knocks Estella over, and Diamond wraps her arms about her, holds on tight. 'It's not yet at its end,' she says. 'The troubles have not yet gone away. But the end is near, I think, and you – soon enough, you'll go away.' She frames Estella's face with her hands, smiles at her. 'I can't let this chance of mine just... slip away.'

'Now, Mistress North-took – '

'Now, none of that, Ella,' and Diamond smiles at her, then grins. 'I'm not quite as young as you think me, and you've been looking after me and, oh, for months, now. The troubles haven't gone away, no, and you are worried and for more than just your brother. I think – I wish I could see all ends, for all it would likely cause more trouble than not. But you'll see him again, I know.

'Diamond...'

A kiss, and they don't touch but at the mouths. When Diamond draws back, pale hair falls down over one cheek, and she laughs at herself then shakes her head, and pushes at her curls. 'I'll stay here, if you don't mind. Do you? That is, mind?'

'No. Oh. No, not at all.'

She thinks she'd be perfectly content, with Diamond sleeping against her, content in a way that she hasn't felt in a very long time. They'd fit the bed, fill it, though there'd somehow seem like too much space was left over. But Estella knows she can't go thinking of that.

'Diamond – '

'I did make a promise,' Diamond says, but Estella doesn't know what she means, what promise she must be speaking of. Her breath is warm against Estella's cheek, and Estella turns and looks her in the eyes. And Diamond smiles, pushes her hand against Estella's cheek. 'You've your brother's eyes. As bold and as bright. I gave you his kiss, and I suppose I should feel bad. But I don't. It all feels perfectly... right.'

She slides her hand up Estella's leg, presses against the rough scar up high on Estella's hip. Estella's breath falls away, and then she catches it again, kisses Diamond, kisses her hard. She takes back that promised kiss, and now it does make sense. She takes that kiss, gives her own in return, and treats Diamond's promise with as much care as she had her own, though she hardly feels restricted by it.

There's more she might take, more she might have. And Diamond does give her all of that.

          Blotmath

'They're coming,' Diamond says after breakfast, though she grins at Estella and Estella wonders at what Diamond must mean. 'But no matter. You're mine for now. Let's go out riding, if you please.'

'Oh, very well.'

They do, and come back, and Estella regrets it being gone, misses it, the feel of riding free. She's honoured Freddy's promise, and for all that Diamond's been very good company, Estella's been restricted by it.

The end of it comes, as Merry and Pippin ride up from the south, set on taking Estella back home. 'You'll come back, won't you?' Diamond says, and takes hold of Estella's hands. She looks at Merry, then Pippin, but she smiles at Estella, smiles at her and squeezes both her hands tightly.

'You're always welcome.'

'Oh, I know.'

And Estella hadn't meant to, but maybe it was Diamond instead, and the kiss is not as long or as deep or as messy as it might have been, and Diamond laughs through the tears in her eyes when she draws back, still clutching at Estella's hands.

End Notes: The Shire Calendar by dreamflower02.