"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."
-J.R.R. Tolkien

Where the Missing Arrow Lands
Chapter One: "Off the Beaten Path"

"Dead, I tell you. Completely without life."

Gandalf the Grey paused on the pathway leading towards a certain hobbit hole and raised a bushel of eyebrows to his left. Waning afternoon light fell onto the whole of the Shire, casting the green hills with a pleasant yellowish haze. The wide brim of his hat blocked the majority of the sun from his eyesight, yet he still narrowed his gaze onto the two hobbits that stood at the shore of The Water.

"Without life? But her chest is rising and falling!"

"Stop staring at her chest! How uncouth of you, brother dearest. If only mummy were alive to hear your words. Unbecoming, she would say! Unbecoming, indeed."

Gandalf suppressed an amused smile at this, taking a moment to ponder which was more humorous: a hobbit being admonished over glancing at a bosom, or a hobbit finding itself harried over the simple mentioning of the word 'adventure'. Still, with all of his years in Middle Earth and all his wisdom, there was no possible way the wizard could have known that said adventure was just about to become a little more colorful.

He peered up the pathway that would eventually lead to Bag End, immediately detecting the broad silhouettes of two dwarves on ponies fading into the Shire's scenic horizon. For a moment the wizard found himself within the rarity of being torn between two curiosities, and faltered a step. He pressed his lips together and deliberated quickly—join the dwarves and see how Bilbo was faring under the weight of playing impromptu host to an amassing company of dwarves, or to take a moment and squelch his inquisitiveness over what had the two hobbits flustered about.

In the end, Gandalf decided that two flustered hobbits was a little better than one and proceeded to adjust his robe, straighten his posture, and reposition the grasp on his old wooden staff. He stepped off the beaten path and onto plush greensward, careful not to completely take the hobbits by surprise.

"Primula and Fastolph Peatfingers of Brockenborings," he greeted cordially. "Just what sort of tomfooleries have you two gotten yourself into?"

The hobbits in question jumped at the sound of his voice, blinked up at him for all of two seconds before looking back at the other, exchanging an immediate and unspoken agreement.

Primula and Fastolph Peatfingers of Brockenborings were timeworn hobbits now, but had been thought of as rather peculiar even as younglings scuttling about the last time Gandalf had laid eyes upon them—the twins had been known for making odd remarks about odder things, perpetually on the same odd brainwave. Still, their tufts of bright red hair remained unchanged, as did their penchant for finishing each other's sentences, but they now possessed bodies so potbellied from years of skillful baking that folds of skin had blossomed underneath their eyes and chins and cheeks, looking more like flesh-hued heads of talking cabbages than anything else.

Gandalf quirked his mouth at the thought, noting the excessively generous spread of a picnic before him, now utterly forgotten. Instead, their attention was fixed on the very strange sight of a small, drenched body that had washed ashore.

Fastolph nudged his sister, peering back at Gandalf with a beady eye. "A stranger, sister."

"That's no stranger, Fastolph," Primula said, waving him off. "That's a wizard."

"A wizard? Nonsense. Haven't seen a wizard in about seventy years."

"Fastolph," she chided. "That's Gandalf."

The brother cocked his head to the side. "Gandalf?"

"Yes," she reaffirmed primly. "Gandalf. Are you going to repeat everything I say?"

"Are you?"

"But I haven't."

"But you will."

"If you say so."

"I do."

"Grand!"

Much to the wizard's amusement, Fastolph tapered his eyes until they became mere slits. "What's a Gandalf again?"

Primula pointed a chubby finger behind. "That's a Gandalf, Fastolph. No need to stare."

Fastolph looked bemused, but then revelation erupted on his face. "Oh. Gandalf! With the smashing fireworks, right?"

"Right!"

Gandalf sighed wearily, taking a step forward to peer down at the riverbed. He immediately hitched a breath, realizing himself that there was, indeed, a body before the two hobbits. How peculiar, he thought to himself—and how very unexpected. The wizard bent his angular frame forward to gain a better view, brows furrowing and nearly rendering him sightless by their own abundance, but his steely blue eyes caught every aspect of the body that had washed ashore.

"By the Valar," he muttered in near disbelief, "What have you two discovered?"

"We found a girl!" Fastolph crowed.

Primula nodded sagely. "Indeed, we found a girl."

"You repeated me," Fastolph grinned victoriously. "I told you."

Gandalf's sharp gaze roamed the length of the body, eyes swiftly analyzing and never settling on a feature for more than a breath's length. The more he looked, however, the more startled he became, a sensation more synonymous to troubling than disbelieving.

It was a mere girl, of all things. Small, but not quite as undersized as a hobbit. She was thin with the appearance of someone who had lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time, and there were various shallow lesions across her face, which gave the wizard not only the impression that she had encountered troubled times, but that the bruises along her knuckles read that she was more wild-hearted than timid; there were stark callouses on what fingertips he could see. Dark, earthy hair fanned the riverside from several unraveling braids, revealing small but very tapered ears. His brows furrowed all the more.

"Hmm," Gandalf mused. "How did she get here, I wonder?"

Fastolph, in the wizard's periphery, eyed him. "How did you get here?"

"Me?" Primula mistook to whom her twin was speaking to, and sounded aghast. "The same as you, Fastolph. There once came a time when mummy and pappy loved each other so much that they–"

"Silence," Gandalf interceded rather sharply, too disquieted with the girl to notice otherwise. "The both of you."

The wizard had yet to look away from the girl, and suddenly his hand shot out and pressed his fingers along her neck. A heartbeat later he withdrew his hand, exhaling heavily, the multitude of wrinkles on his face deepening in thought.

Primula shuffled her feet excitedly. "Is she dead?"

"No," Gandalf said, nearly lost in reverie. "She is merely unconscious."

Fastolph eyed the girl. "Who is she?"

"No, no," his twin corrected. "It's what is she."

"Why, she's a girl!"

Primula scoffed. "Of course she's a girl, but what manner of girl is she? A she-dwarf? She-elf?"

"Well, the she-thing clearly isn't a she-hobbit, no matter how little a thing she is, for she is not as little as we are!" Fastolph puffed out his chest, nearly ejecting several brass buttons from his vest. "But lo! Look at those dainty feet! How crude."

"Yes, quite. Terribly uncouth."

Gandalf inched closer, kneeling onto the plush grass. He leaned against his staff, resisting the urge to take a page out of Fastolph's book and cocked his head to the side in unabashed bewilderment. Instead, a curious twinkle entered into his eyes.

He reached forward, very carefully lifting an eyelid to reveal an unseeing eye, the iris a color that reminded him of memories long past—that of a sea in sunlight, not a shadowy blue, but something much lighter and veiled in green. She was adorned in a grey homespun tunic with leggings and undershirt beneath, each muddied and bloodied and torn. A belt was cinched loosely around her waist, pocketed and too large for her thin frame. Her feet bobbed with the current of the river, her body swaying as a warm breeze rippled through the water. Her boots, Gandalf noted, appeared of Rohirrim design, a reddish brown that came below the knees, a thick and hardy leather with knotwork scrolling along the shafts, the toes rounded with light plated steal.

He sighed when he retracted his arm, studying the girl as ever before, coming no closer to any conclusion about her fate.

It was her left arm, however, that the wizard found to be both equal parts intriguing and troublesome. The entire length of the appendage was wrapped tightly in a bandage, from upper arm until it had been bound securely around her palm, tied off at the wrist. The wrapping gave no indication of what lay beneath, no marring of blood dotting the length of it, no pink tints of a healing wound around the edges, but merely a drenched swatch of cloth. Gandalf eyed it, puckering his lips, a habit whenever his thoughts were legions away.

Then, once more, wizard found himself reaching forward—ignoring how his instincts firmly told him that such action could be deemed foolhardy—to remove the wrapping. Instead, his ever-whetted curiosity and urge for further knowledge burned within his fingertips. He was in the midst of slipping his fingers beneath the bandage when he felt a presence closing in on his direction.

Or, rather, many presences.

Gandalf sighed, having sensed that he was no longer alone with the two Peatfingers twins who were currently jabbering with the other, and began to straighten.

As if on cue, a large, trapper-style hat abruptly appeared from behind a hedge. Gandalf could almost tangibly feel the lighthearted grin spreading across Bofur's face from behind his back, and nearly grinned himself when the dwarf spoke.

"Oi, Gandalf! Fancy meeting yah here. Spending quality time with the locals, aye?" he asked, bounding forward, the remainder of the dwarven company in the midst of catching up.

"Greetings, Bofur," Gandalf nodded, smiling when the dwarf stopped at his side.

The furred hat immediately flopped to the side, the dwarf below soon following as he craned his neck, peering at the girl still afloat on the riverside. Bofur glanced from girl to wizard, wizard to girl, then to the Peatfingers twins who were gawking wide-eyed and opened mouthed (with maybe just a little bit of drool involved) at the dwarf, then back once more at Gandalf.

Before anything lacking tact could be said, Gandalf thrust his wooden staff to Bofur, bending to remove the girl from the shoreline. He was very careful with her, tucking an arm beneath her knees and supporting her back with the other. Her head rolled back, her saturated hair dripping steadily from each tendril and swaying as the wizard began to move. Her lips began to part from the turbulence of being carried by a wizard.

Bofur had yet to peal his eyes away from her.

"Well, sew my britches together and call me Borghild, you've gone and found yourself a little slip of a girlie, Gandalf," he said, then looked forward once his comrades had congregated along the thoroughfare, all smiling in greeting to Gandalf. He hollered to them, "Oi, fellas! Gandalf's got himself a girl!"

Gandalf muttered, "Honestly, Bofur."

"She looks as though she had a drunken tumble into the river. Know I've had plenty myself back home. Wotcha going to do with her?"

"I think it's prudent we at least bring her to Bilbo's and tend what needs to be tended. I'm quite curious as to the reason why a bruised and bloodied woman washes ashore in the Shire, of all places," Gandalf answered, more to himself than anything. "Yes, quite curious."

Bofur raised his brows. "She coming with us?"

Gandalf held a breath as they neared the pathway leading towards Bag End and the start of their adventure, glimpsing down at the girl. "Like many things," he said, "that remains to be seen."