"Bonfire night, the stars are bright, every little hobbit all dressed up in white. Can you eat a biscuit, can you smoke a pipe? Can you go a-courting at ten o'clock at night?"

"Fastred, stop singing this instant." Rosie stuffed a sausage in a roll into the boy's mouth to quieten him. "You'll wake Elanor."

"Mmph mmphfth mm." Fastred pulled the sausage out of his mouth. "She shouldn't be asleep anyway, she's missing her first bonfire night."

The air was smoky, shot through with tiny sparks from the crackling leaf-piles. Sausages cooked outside tasted very different, and much better, than the ordinary sort, and everyone was tucking in greedily.

"Come on El, wake up." Fastred tickled her, she just grumbled and swatted his hand away.

"Leave her be, lad," Sam chided. "Come on, I'll pig-a-back you down close to the big fire if you like."

The two of them galloped off, leaving Rosie, Elanor and Frodo on the hill, faces lit by the spotted fires on the fields below.

"It's an early party for your birthday, since you won't be here come Thursday," Rosie said after a time of quiet.

"Don't, Rose." Frodo put his hand over hers. "Let's not talk of it yet."

"All right, but you don't get off with that forever," she warned. "I've got a lot to say on the subject."

"I'm sure you do." Frodo kept his face as serious as he could, then hugged her. "I hope, in the interests of poetic justice, that Elly grows up as thorny as her mother Rose."

"You're terribly funny. I mean that," Rose said dryly.

Some clever hobbit decided to throw a handful of little squib crackers onto one of the fires, sending up a popping line of sparks.

"It'll end in tears if they keep mucking about like that." Rosie paused. "Oh, no, I've turned into a responsible mother, like my own before me. Whatever can I do? I'll go jump in the millpond, wash all the logic off."

"What's this about the millpond?" Merry asked, climbing up the hill to flop down on his back beside Frodo, shortly joined by Pippin and Diamond, Estella wandering up a few moments later and sitting down on Merry's legs. He grunted in protest but she paid him no heed.

"I hear the four of you were causing trouble at the bakery yesterday," Frodo said. "You were adding extra bits to the gingerbread men, and stealing all the currants out of the buns when old Rondo Softolive's back was turned. I think you've managed to find the only two lasses in the Shire as wicked as you."

Diamond laughed. "The history books will tell of Thain Peregrin, hero of the free peoples, and the floggings he got for making all the gingerbread men excited."

"Rondo wouldn't flog me. Used to have me run messages for him, whenever I stayed with Frodo. Said I was the best helper he had."

"That's just because he doesn't know about the chocolate cakes we used to sneak," Merry pointed out diplomatically.

"Have you decided on a wedding day?" Rosie asked, rubbing Elanor's back as the little girl began to stir. Estella shook her head.

"No, it won't be for a while yet. We're all still too silly to settle down and be married. Anyway, they haven't made a bed big enough for us, yet."

Pippin threw a handful of grass at Estella and called her a few choice names. Merry threw more grass back, with the same names.

"Rose here is a living testament to the fact married folk are capable of silliness, too."

"That's quite enough from you, Mr Baggins." Rosie handed Elanor to him. "She's fretting, you're the only one who can calm her in these moods."

"It's the gem, it fascinates her." Frodo touched the white stone on its chain. "You're too little for it yet, Ellyelle, but when you're older it can hang around your pretty neck. Your mother will mind it for you."

"Don't you need it though, Frodo?" Merry asked. Frodo shook his head, stretching his legs out and curling the toes.

"Not anymore."

"I want more sausages," Pippin and Dinny declared at the same moment.

"Yes, rather," Estella agreed, climbing off Merry. "Want us to bring you up any?"

"We'll come down soon," Frodo told her, resting back on his elbows and watching the silhouetted figures run around the fires, their calls and cries to each other indecipherable at this distance. Elanor settled in against the crook of his shoulder, still talking in her baby-talk. He reached out, playing with the tips of Rosie's long curls, tracing the line of her ear.

"If we were in a picture book, I think this would be the last page," she said, her voice tight, soft. "Here on the hill, watching Sam play with the children he helped build homes for, burning the leaves of the trees he tended. I love him like I love sunshine and air."

Rosie turned to Frodo then, blinking tears out of her eyes, shining tracks in the golden light. "And you, I love you like stars and water. I would talk a thousand hours if I thought it would do any good, but there's nothing I can say, is there?"

"Yes, Rose." Frodo nodded. "One thing. You can say good-bye."

He didn't cry, his face calm and smiling, as if his eyes had seen secrets Rosie couldn't dream of. Kissing away her tears, Frodo moved so that her head was resting on his lap, his palm smoothing her hair down as they watched Sam chase Jacky and Fastred around the fire.

"It isn't fair," Rosie said. "It isn't fair you gave so much and fought so hard just to lose it anyway. It isn't fair that the hero doesn't get a happy ending, doesn't have a reward when the journey's done with."

"I don't think I've been cheated, Rose," said Frodo, stroking his hand down her back. "I've had you, and Sam, and El, haven't I? But nobody can live at the crossroads forever, and it's Winter's time to walk. Shh, don't cry. After all, I had a pretty good year."




Choose a path:

West of the moon

or

East of the sun

~

Pretty Good Year | email Mary