In a hole in a ground there lived a Hobbit.
I watched as Bilbo wrote the words that would start off a magnificent story onto the page of the book he would later give to Frodo. The ink dripped onto the page, forever marking it with the memory of the adventures we shared with Thorin and his company. I remember it as if it was yesterday… but people say sixty years doesn't seem that long ago. I can still remember that old wizard that gave us a kick out of the door, when we knew nothing of him but his fireworks that we used to let off on mid-summers eve.
I do miss those days, I didn't think I would, but the adventure flows still, like the blood through my veins. It was around this time, if I remember correctly, that Gandalf showed up on our doorstep with the idea of taking us on an adventure. Sixty years ago that was a prospect that I didn't want to consider. Adventures were, as I had come to believe, horrible, nasty things that made us late for supper. Little did I know that supper would be the last of our worries when we ventured towards Erebor, or the Lonely Mountain as it was known after that terrible dragon, Smaug, took it as his own.
I think it was time I did remember exactly what happened during our adventure. After all, Bilbo will want my experiences too, I presume. He will write them all down, as he had promised all those years ago, and when the time is right we will present it to Frodo…
On the day our story begins, I remember quite rightly, the sun, as it had been for the past week was high in the sky. The smell of fresh grass wafted through the windows of our Hobbit hole. Bilbo was outside as usual, smoking his pipe. I was sitting in the pantry, which as of late, had become my favourite place to sit and read my books. It was strange, Bilbo told me, that I should be the one to be hidden in the pantry reading fantasy books. When we were children, it was he who would run off into the woods looking for elves and came back all muddied with sticks in his hair. I still remember my mother yelling at him for treading mud into the carpet. It is me now, who is convinced that one day I will have my own story. Maybe it is because Bilbo is nearly ten years older than I that I must relive the childhood that went too fast.
I flip the page of my book, reading about the struggles of men and the wars they have fought, when the door clicked shut. I breathe in the smell of fresh onions that are hanging just above my head and close the hardback.
"Bilbo?" I call, standing from my seated position in the pantry. I follow the small hallways of our Hobbit hole until I find my brother with his nose pressed up against the kitchen window. "Bilbo?"
He jumps back and turns to face me, then lets out a breath he had obviously been holding. "Rosa, I thought you were someone else."
"Why did you-" I stop myself then walk over towards the window. All I see is the rolling meadows of the shire. "Is everything alright, Bilbo?"
He turns from the window and takes a bun off the table which I had placed my book upon moments ago. "Do you remember the name Gandalf?"
"You mean the old wizard who sets of those wonderful fireworks? Of course I remember him, how could I forget." I too turn from the window and take a seat at the table.
"He asked me to go on an adventure." He looks aghast as he says the word adventure.
"Well, what did you say?" I press, pulling my book closer to me and resting my chin atop it. "Don't tell me, you told him no. You said that adventures are horrible things that make you late for supper?" He turns, his mouth set in a line. "You didn't give him that speech, did you?"
"Of course I did, what do you expect? I can't very well just up and leave you here and go off god knows where…" I sigh and roll my eyes at him, poor Bilbo, always thinking of me.
"I'd come with you of course, you wouldn't have to worry about me. There would be no way that I would let you run off out that door without me." I think back to the stories I have read in books, all of the people in them went off on an adventure. Maybe, if Bilbo would have said yes then we could have had our own story. "I take it we won't be seeing Gandalf anytime soon?"
Bilbo turns to answer, then stops himself and then sighs. "I didn't want to seem rude… I invited him for tea whenever he likes." I chuckle at my brother and then open the book to the page I had closed it on.
"Maybe we will have our own adventure after all," I smirk. Bilbo just totted and turned towards the pantry, muttering under his breath.
