Transcendental!
"Not another one," Frodo groaned, dropping the sheaf of papers back onto the desk and shaking his head.
"Another what?" Rosie asked curiously from where she stood in the doorway, absently rolling up yet another ball of yarn (the feared four had been playing Shelob's Lair again).
Frodo startled a little at the sound of her voice, hand fluttering at his throat for a moment (coupled with an expletive Rosie liked to think was never spoken in her household) before his shoulders relaxed again. "Nothing." A somewhat sheepish expression crept over his features, efficiently thwarting any attempt at nonchalance.
Rosie snorted, sauntering into the room and pouncing on the discarded stack of papers, beating Frodo's desperate grab for it by a hair's breadth. Returning back to the doorway, she made a show of straightening the papers before holding them at eye level, humming and hahhing a moment before beginning to read.
"...And the profound Love of Sam and Frodo transcends all things..."
Rosie snorted again, this time in an effort to restrain her laughter. She lowered the papers a little, favouring Frodo's flushed face with a raised eyebrow. "Sounds terribly romantical," she said, clasping her hand to her breast for effect. "Where did you get this?" She didn't recognise the flowery hand, nor the thick, creamy paper.
Frodo muttered something, turning away from her to shuffle the papers on his desk into a slightly different arrangement of chaos.
"What? You didn't write it, did you?"
"No!" Frodo exclaimed, looking quite horrified all of a sudden. "They came from Minas Tirith - Aragorn sends them along every few months."
"He writes them?" Rosie said incredulously.
"No!" Frodo said again, unable to supress a giggle of his own. "The artisans of the city do. And the bards, I suppose."
Rosie flipped a few pages further into the bundle, scanning the elaborate penstrokes absently. "Well they've obviously no--" She stopped suddenly, standing up a little straighter to peer closer at one particular section of text, re-reading the lines she'd passed over moments before.
Frodo fumbled with his paperweight for a moment before making a rather nervous beeline to where she lounged in the doorway. "What--"
Rosie jerked the papers out of his reach without looking up, turning away and reading closer. A moment later she laughed. "Well!" she exclaimed, once again arranging the papers into a neat stack and handing them to him. "You never told me you got up to that kind of thing in Minas Tirith!"
"I--" Frodo gaped, glancing down at the papers clutched to his chest then back up at Rosie's retreating form.
"Romantical indeed!" she said. "They've obviously never had to clean up your shirts and drawers." She turned around halfway down the hall, finger raised mock-sternly. "Not to mention your weskits! I thought you liked marmalade roll enough to get most of it in your mouth."
"But--"
"Rose!" Sam's voice came from somewhere in the kitchen garden. "You wouldn't be able to bring me out some water and a clean shirt, would you? I seem to have had a slight mishap with the fertilizer."
Rosie rolled her eyes and shared a grin with Frodo. "You should send them some of the stories from around here," she suggested, winking. "Though, they'd probably never believe half of them."
~
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