Rosie had been fond of Bilbo Baggins' tales when she was a lass. She had early, brightly formed memories of the softness of the thick, green grass of Bag End's front garden under her skirt, her eyes half closed as she drifted beyond the Shire in the warm haze of sunlight. Half her attention focused on tales of dwarves and gold and dragon's fire; the other half on the steady *clip-clip* of gardener's shears nearby. Sam would always linger as close as possible, fooling no one – he could barely hold up the weight of the shears on his own – but his father had given them to him, and the bench in Master Baggins' garden was always set amongst the longest grass.
She'd been fond of the tales, yes – epics of adventure in which a hobbit was the hero; but the fairytales she'd listened to in the cradle of her mother's lap for as long as she remembered were what she *loved*. Princesses being rescued (or even better, rescuing *themselves*), the reciprocation of a love against all odds – age, death, ugliness. . . These were the things she found herself clutching tight to her breast as she ran across the fields of the Shire, singing out nonsense songs and feeling as if if she ran a little faster she would take off and leave the ground altogether, and her heart would burst for the joy of it.
Yes, she preferred those stories -- *her* stories. Where everything was clear and simple, and always with happy endings. She was fond of the adventure in Bilbo's tales – flying with the eagles and fighting off wolf attacks with fireworks – but she couldn't tell who were the heroes and who were the villians. And that didn't give it a very happy ending, true or no.
She sighed, clucking and hushing softly as Elanor squealed at the movement, flailing her tiny fists.
“Come on now, sweetling, time to get up,” she whispered, and winced as she heaved herself up from the small cot set flush against the wall of the bedroom. “No wonder he can't sleep at night,” she murmured, rubbing the small of her back gingerly.
It was early – no later than half an hour past dawn – and despite the gap of several hours since she'd first lain down in the bed, her heart still leapt painfully in her chest at the sight of the two of them, barely shifted at all. Frodo's left hand was tightly laced with Sam's, the contrast of light and dark in their skin all the more obvious in the early morning light.
Elanor grumbled softly.
“All right, all right,” Rosie murmured, bouncing her daughter gently on her hip as she tiptoed out of the room, sweeping up the old rag doll – it had been hers, as a child -- from Elanor's cradle and placing it in her chubby grasp. “Here's your dolly then.”
Rosie thought that maybe she should feel different than this – the brief surge in her chest seemed to be from something other than pain. If her mother was here she'd tell her to be jealous. Tell her to stop what she was doing right *now* and leave the kitchen, leave the smial. Run back home to her mother, her childhood.
But it was her mother's voice that still rang in her ears, in the brightly woven shell around her heart. *Fairy tales aren't going to get you anywhere, Rose-lass. You're a woman now. You have you're own roles to play.*
But what kind of tale had she slipped into?
*Slipped* into, that was wrong – Sam's voice echoed even closer, even deeper than her mother's . . . *“I should warn thee before your heart's all set. Mr Frodo's more important to me than air or water, and that's not a feeling that can be put away in a box.“*
And she *hadn't* wanted it to be put away in a box, had she?
There were boxes in her fairytales, boxes given as gifts never to be opened for the chaos they contained. Rose was no fool – she knew the difference between reality and fantasy, despite what her mother might have to say about it. They'd come back from their adventure changed, and that was real. But Sam's box of earth, that was real too, for all the tales she heard of lads trading their most valuable possessions for magic seeds.
And Frodo . . . Frodo seemed to be another box to her, one with big tangled ball of darkness wrapped inside, and oh, if she could just find the key she could unravel it and his thread could weave with theirs, where it belonged.
Where it belonged.
Rosie felt a tiny hand grip her ankle and she glanced down. “Hello lassy, what're you after? Hungry, are you?”
She swooped down to pick up Elanor from where she sat on the floor-- rag doll still gripped in chubby fingers – and groaned a little at the protesting ache in her back. “At least *you* got a good night's sleep,” she murmured to her daughter as she sat carefully, unlacing the front of her bodice and freeing a breast. Elanor latched on eagerly.
Sighing softly, Rosie leant back against the wall. “What do you think, then, my little elvish flower?” She brushed Elanor's fine baby-locks from her forehead. Elanor hummed happily, and Rosie laughed.
“You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,” she whispered, leaning over her baby and closing her eyes the breathe in the fresh scent deeply. He heart felt like a butterfly, long, elegant sweeps of delicate wings floating about inside of her. “Well, *one* of the most.” She began to sing softly.
The song continued beyond Elanor's breakfast, filling the kitchen brightly as she prepared the family's more solid foods. A joyful shriek from her daughter brought her attention to the doorway and she smiled softly at the figure half-hidden behind the doorframe, looking as if he were about to enter a dragon's lair.
“That cot-bed of yours is mighty uncomfortable,” she said breezily. “My mother used to tell me tales of a princess who could feel a pea through her mattress, but I'll wager you're hiding pumpkins under that one.”
~