FELL WINTER

A/N: This is a bit of a departure for me, in that unlike last year's holiday offering, I don't plan on killing the principle characters at the end. :D In answer to the Of Cabbages and Kings forum's seasonal story challenge, I offer this little nugget from my plot bunny hutch.

For those unfamiliar with the Lord of the Rings fandom, we're in the Shire, a week has passed since the chief villain's henchmen (Ringwraiths, or Nazgรปl) have simultaneously attacked our hero's abandoned home and, forty miles distant, hotel room (they get around, those henchmen). At least, that's where we are now. We won't be staying here. Read on...

Evening, 16 Winterfilth 1418 Shire Reckoning [7 October 3018 Third Age]

"It'll come to no good, mark my words," Gaffer Grubb declared in the smoky Green Dragon's common room. Sensing a tale heard many times but longed for again in these chill winter days, Hobbits young and old pricked their ears or scooted closer to the old farmer.

The old Hobbit puffed his chest smugly, pleased that he had their attention.

"Not since the Fell Winter have we heard that Buckland horn," he went on, scratching idly at a dry patch of skin below his left ear. His grand-niece was always after him with creams when the weather turned, as though she had no notion of an old man's need to scratch. The shrieking wind and rattling shutters put him more in mind of the Fell Winter of 1311 than anything those odd Bucklanders got up to, though he wasn't even a twinkling in his father's eye back then.

"That were a week past," the miller's apprentice pointed out, and several curly heads bobbed in agreement. "Ain't nothin' come of it yet."

"It'll have to do with that Baggins business, I've no doubt," the Gaffer said, casting a sour look at the lad. He wasn't too keen on Ted Sandyman, nor the cheeky boys he hired down at the mill. "Them Bagginses are more Tookish than they lets on, takin' up with that no-good conjurer and what-have-you. Why, it were after that bad winter, when the wolves come across the Brandywine, that some lads and lasses just like you up and wandered off on 'adventures.' And who was flittin' about, fillin' every young wooly-headed rascal with fanciful tales? Why, Gandalf was, I'll be bound. You'll recall he was behind old Bilbo's disappearance over yonder in Hobbiton, like as not. Both times the queer old gent took off. Probably turn up as the culprit again, now young Mister Frodo's gone out to Buckland. And now the horn's gone and blown." He nodded knowingly. "That old goat's involved somehow, or my name's not Boso Grubb."

"But he were helpin' us, weren't he, was Gandalf?" the lad questioned, a little unsure. "Leastways, 'at's what my dad's sayin'. Him and some Big Folk brought food back 'en and..."

"Don't mention the missin' young'uns, do he, your dad, eh?" Gaffer Grubb snapped, quelling the upstart's further challenges with a beady-eyed look.

"Weren't one of the lasses gone missing one'uh yer kin, Gaffer?" a more helpful youth supplied.

"Aye, that she was," the old Hobbit nodded with satisfaction, settling back in his chair and seeing to the repacking of his pipe. The sweet smell of Old Toby wafted briefly from his pipeweed pouch before the other smells of the common room overwhelmed it. "Old Petunia Grubb, her name was. Well, she weren't old then," he chuckled. "Barely past her tweens when that Gandalf got his hooks into her with his talk of faraway places and battles and kings. Nonsense talk's what it was."

Pausing for a long moment to carefully light his pipe, Gaffer Grubb surreptitiously scanned his audience from beneath his eyelashes. Young, they were. Heads full of cotton if they thought the lands beyond the Shire held anything but danger and discomfort for an innocent lad or lass. Better they be reminded the truth of it, then.

"Had it from my dad, Corbus, that our fair Petunia thought highly of that Mister Gandalf person, and listened to all his tales with her eyes all wide and shinin'," Grubb began. He paused again to puff his pipe and blow a smoke ring. "Corbus being her elder brother by five years, you recall. Why, he told me she snuck clean out the hole in the middle night with his best pair of woolens!"

"Oh ho ho!" Fredacar Longbottom guffawed, slapping the tabletop with his palm. "How long he hold'at grudge fer his lost drawers, eh?" The listeners erupted in appreciative laughter with the farmer.

"Never you mind," Grubb snapped.

"Now now, don't take offense," Longbottom chortled. "Ain't yer family's fault some'uh that Fallohidish blood found its way to yer auntie. We all got our worrisome relations, and no mistake." Winking, he took a long pull off his tankard. "Leastways, yer da kept his trousers, didn't he? Lass didn't run off with them, did she?"

Casting a sour look at his neighbor and chief rival in the pipeweed market, Grubb grumbled, as all knew he would, "Aye, she did. Cleaned out his closet, leavin' her dresses in their place."

Longbottom nodded sagely, endeavoring to keep a straight face. "Didn't leave'im nekkid in that cold, cold winter, then. Good lass."

Glaring at the farmer and shifting purposefully to draw attention back to his tale, Grubb went on, "Anyways, our Petunia did like those tales of old Gandalf, but she thought they was lackin' in a lady's presence, so it's said. Not enough girls in'em, you see. So one day, not long after the early thaw put an end to anything nasty crossin' the Brandywine, let alone them awful wolves, she decided she'd put on her knapsack, fetch her a sturdy walkin' stick, and see about writin' her own adventure."

Gaffer Grubb shook his head. "Last anybody here saw of her, was that curly head of hers disappearin' over the Brandywine Bridge. Stayed a night in Brandy Hall, they say, then off into the sunrise the next morn."

"She go to Bree at all?" a lad who'd undoubtedly heard the tale many times before prompted.

"Why, indeed she did," the Gaffer beamed appreciatively. "We heard rumors of her makin' it as far as the Prancing Pony, then she just... vanished," he whispered dramatically. Leaning forward, looking at each pair of appropriately shocked eyes in turn, he added, "One day she was there, then the next..." Grubb shook his head. "That's the last any of them seen her, either."

Sitting back once more, he nodded and idly puffed his pipe. "Young lass alone, wanderin' about with naught but a stick... That's what comes of gettin' them fanciful ideas, you know. If she had any adventure worth talkin' of, ain't nobody ever heard it."

A/N: Or did they? ;) To be continued...