Author's Note (A/N):
Hello everyone. Welcome to my second Lord of the Rings story! I don't know that it will be very good, but give it a try, will you? This is something of a sequel to my previous story, Of Hobbits and Elfkind. You mightn't necessarily need to read that to understand this, but it is highly recommended. Besides, this one might not be as good…
Unlike its prequel, this story will be split up into two separate fanfictions: One for Lace, one for Alexis. I've done this for several reasons… I am too lazy to explain. If you have me on Author Alert (is that what it's called?) You'll see them both pop up in your e-mail, or you can click my username and find the other one there once I have written the first chapter for the other story.
THIS is Lace's story.
Some notes so that I don't get in trouble later:
It'll be slow updating at first I think. Still really ironing out the plot. Lol!
I might start writing about things I don't really understand that well. I promise I'm studying Middle Earth geography, lore, history, etc, but there is… THERE IS SO MUCH! They should really offer it as a class in University. Anyway if I make a mistake according to the original text (As I have done countless times in the last story xD) I apologize annnnnd… just ignore it :D
Uh do I need to say I don't own it or something? I think that's all covered by the fact that this is a Fanfiction website.
That is all! Enjoy and Review pleaaaaaaaaase!
One more thing… warning, the epilogue of OHaEk is in this first chapter, so you'll have to re-read.
Chapter One:
Back Again
The book lay open upon the desk. Of course it did. The Professor had been working on it tirelessly for so incredibly long. All round the book were notes and papers and scraps, doodles and drawings, nonsense, languages, the occasional lecture paper.
Lace walked slowly toward it. She knew she wasn't supposed to look. But the Professor had gone out. And the door was unlocked. And she had been missing Middle Earth more and more as of late …
She pulled herself up onto the stool before the desk and began to leaf through the pages. They were typed up neatly with a type writer. The book still wasn't finished. She looked round. Some of the notes were her own (The Professor had taught her to read and write). Some were Alexis' . For they had told the professor of all their journeys. The Professor loved the idea, but the girls begged not to be put into the story. They wanted to read it from outside the world, and not be hurt in the knowledge that they were no longer there with the ones they loved.
Lace sniffed away a tear as she turned another page. She had to know.
Frodo … what happened to him…?
The Professor was very nice, of course. He had adopted Alexis and Lace, let them live in his home. He had his own son, Christopher, who was lovely himself. But the girls could never feel like they really belonged. Not while they remembered the life they had once lived.
Lace turned another page and squinted at it. A note was scrawled at the top of the page:
Though I write these words by the light of the day, please read them by the light of the moon.
She frowned at the words for a moment, then looked up at the window. The moon was shining rather brighter than usual tonight…
She looked back down and placed her finger on the first line of the page and began to read aloud.
Then, something seemed to pull her backwards …
All at once, the candles in the room blew out, leaving whisps of smoke in their wake. The room fell starkly silent and pitch black. Lace could see nothing and hear nothing. Then, the air around her changed, becoming less close, and the smell of grass and wood filled her senses. Something tickled her feet, growing up from the ground. She shivered with sudden cold.
Lace blinked her eyes against the dark and found that they were beginning to become accustomed to the lack of light. Indeed, a new light source was illuminating the scenery around her, falling on trees and leaves, bathing the blades of soft grass beneath her bare feet in a blue light.
Shocked, she looked up to see a large, bright moon overhead, shining through the gaps in the treetops. She was in a forest, and it was still the middle of the night. She drew her arms around her shoulders, shivering in her nightdress. But there was something different. She looked down at her feet and felt her heart swell with happiness.
She was a hobbit again!
She danced around with outstretched arms and grinned. Middle Earth! She had returned home at last! So long, of course, as this was not a dream or imagining of her mind.
But where in Middle Earth was she? She did not recognize these woods. Indeed, she felt ashamed to admit, that after being dragged all over the countryside, she could not tell one wood from the next. For all she knew, she could be in Fangorn Forest. Quite the same, she could have been in Mirkwood, from where Legolas hailed.
As she stood pondering, it seemed to her that a great drowsiness was coming over her, and a low thrumming had begun to ring her ears, so low she hadn't noticed it at first. It was like a voice singing to her. But it did not sound like any human or hobbit voice she had ever heard. It was ethereal… strange. All at once, she found her knees begin to shake with weariness and she crumbled to the forest floor. She fought to stay awake, grasping onto the last rays of consciousness. Something hard and scratchy slithered up through the grass and closed about her ankle. She was shocked, but too tired to scream. Was it a snake?
She looked around with horror to find that it was the root of a tree. Looking upward, she found herself sitting below an enormous willow tree. Her heart suddenly leapt into her throat. She knew this tale, of course, and now she knew where she was. She was in the Old Forest, on the borders of Buckland. And this must be the cursed Old Willow Tree whom had taken Frodo and his friends into its midst with a spell when they were travelling to Bree. Lace herself had escaped this fate by travelling around the forest, keeping to the road. She quite remembered thinking she daren't go into the dark depths of these woods, but now here she was, and the root of the tree was pulling her closer and closer to the trunk, where it would certainly swallow her up.
Then, a voice rang out, clear as a bell, through the fuzziness of her brain. This voice, too, did not sound real at first, but she did not fear it. Indeed, the cheerful voice was not speaking, but singing its own tune:
Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
Lace's spirits rose as she felt the root pause in its dragging of her. She also felt quite awake now; the thrumming had stopped, and the voice had brought her back to her senses. She began to wriggle out of the tree's grasp.
From beyond her vision in the darkness, the voice rang out again:
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o,
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!
Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Tom's in a hurry now. Sun has gone away.
Tom's going home home again water-lilies bringing.
Hey! come derry dol! Can you hear me singing?
The tree relented, and Lace rolled away from it, pushing herself up, trippingly, to her feet. She squinted around the forest. Surely the voice was calling to her, can you hear me singing?
"Where are you?" She cried. "Please help! I'm lost!"
And then she saw a glow in the trees, appearing and disappearing behind the solid trunks, and the voice sang,
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow;
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
Hop along, my little friend, up the Withywindle!
Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle.
Down west sinks the Sun: darkness leaves you groping.
When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open,
Out of the window-panes light will twinkle yellow.
Fear no alder black! Heed no hoary willow!
Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you.
Hey now! merry dol! He'll be waiting for you!
She strained her eyes against the dark and saw that the glowing light was a lantern swinging to and fro. Its bearer skipped and jumped through the trees. And she did see a bright blue jacket and yellow boots! She ran through the thicket of the trees, but when she arrived where she thought the light was, it had gone. She now stood at the top of a slight hill. Before her wound a vague path, guided here and there by stones on the left and right. She began to descend, and before her rose a round, stonework house at the end of the path. The roof was thatched and planked, and a merry smoke rose from the chimney.
Quickening her pace to a trot, Lace reached the grand door in no time and knocked lightly on the wood. With a creek, the door opened to a homely front room, mainly round in shape. A fire crackled cheerily on the hearth, and food was laden on the table.
"Hey dol, Merry dol, me hearty!" Came the jolly voice she'd heard in the forest. She looked to find a man entering the room from a back storage room. His long brown beard reached to his belt, a hat with a wide brim sat upon his head. He wore his blue and yellow still. His cheeks were red, his nose long, his eyes enormous and brown. So this was Tom Bombadil.
Lace bowed. "Thank you for saving me before," said she, and grinned at him. "My name is Lace!"
"Aye, aye. Make yourself welcome, little lass," Said Tom with a skip in her direction. "A homely house is merry old Tom's house! Goldberry's gone away but here you may stay, with food and wine and company." He gestured to the long table, garnished with pretty candles and a white cloth. There were grouse and fresh vegetables, cheese and milk and creams and pies and fruit so large and colourful they scarecely looked real. Several bottles of wine glowed in the candle light with stone cups and plates. Lace's eyes widened. She could not deny that her adventure in the forest had made her rather thirsty, if not hungry.
"Ah, and I doubt you'll object to one more young friend to be joining us for supper?" Tom piped up as he led her by the back to a chair, in which she sat.
"Hm?" Said Lace vaguely, still staring wide-eyed at the feast.
There was a knock on the door, hard and solid, and the door was pushed open to reveal a tall figure clad in white. Long hair and a beard of the same colour fell all round the elderly face of a man who stood before him. He swung his pointed hat from his head and bowed.
"It seems you have been expecting me, Tom," Said the old man.
Lace cried out and leaped from her seat, rushing to the old man and embracing him. "Gandalf!" She said, her face growing hot with emotion. "Oh, Gandalf."
The wizard was surprised to see her, but he gave a short, sharp chuckle. "I might have expected to find you here, Lace. Tom often finds the lost and brings them to his home for feast and drink."
"I was very lost, Gandalf," Lace agreed, tears welling up in her eyes as she looked up into the silvery ones of the wizard. "But I do believe I'm back!"
"That you are, my dear," Said he, and clasped her firmly on the shoulders, a grand smile upon his face, "That you are!"
They sat at the table and feasted and drank. Lace was invigorated such as she had never been. The food and drink seemed to be blessed. Lace spoke of how she had traveled back to England, met the Professor, and somehow come back here to Middle Earth. They sang many old songs, and Tom regaled her with tales of his own, and stories of the forest, and of his lovely wife, Goldberry.
Then Tom went out to gather more wood for the fire and Lace turned eagerly to Gandalf and asked the question that was burning in her heart. "And what of Frodo? How is he? Where is he now?"
Gandalf lit his pipe, having had his fill of the food, and leaned back in his chair. "He is as well as can be expected. We stayed in Gondor for some time, and then traveled back in this direction. I was with him until a few hours before I came here. He and I, and Samwise Gamgee of course, and Merry and Pippin, stayed for a time in Bree, at the Prancing Pony. But the land is troubled. There's trouble afoot, and I'll not be surprised if Saruman is behind it all."
"Saruman!" Said Lace. "He is still about?"
"Oh yes," Replied Gandalf grimly. He had taken interest in the Shire long ago. He is not the threat he used to be, but it seems as though he has caused rather a lot of trouble in these parts. " He shook his head. "Merely a shadow of a wizard."
Lace was deeply troubled. "But Gandalf, doesn't that mean that our friends are in trouble? Surely we should go to them at once!"
But Gandalf simply puffed on his pipe darkly and said, "Not I. My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so."
"What can you mean, Gandalf?" Lace cried, horrified.
"I am going to stay here and have a long talk with Bombadil; such a talk as I have not had in all my time," He said, nodding to the door that lead outside to where Tom was gathering wood. "He is a moss-gatherer, and I have been a stone doomed to rolling. But my rolling days are ending and now we shall have much to say to one another."
She nodded. "Then I should be in the way here," she said. "At any rate, I for one would like to be off to see my friends. They may need my help."
"I think that is a good idea," Said Gandalf with a nod as the front door opened again and Tom, whistling, came in with a faggot under each arm. The wizard turned to the man. "Tom, I wonder if you might spare a pony for this lady; she is going away now."
Tom looked at her joyously. "A grand pony have I for you, miss Lace!" He said with a clap of his hands. "And I shall lead you to the edge of the forest if Gandalf wouldn't mind staying behind for a spell."
The wizard waved his hand. "I shall be quite content with my pipe," He replied.
So Tom took her outside to the stable, where he pulled out a chestnut pony that was just Lace's size, and a great dark horse, which Tom himself sat astride. "Now then!" He said. "Follow old Tom, he'll lead you out to the Bucklands in no time atall! Heed no nightly noise, nor the wind blowing through the trees. You'll be safe with me."
Tom lead her winding throught he forest. It seemed to her to be a maze; she had soon lost her sense of direction and no clue as how Tom knew his way through so easily. They sang together with Merry dols and the like, riding along a clear water which Tom said was called the Withywindle and that it connected to the Brandywine river. Lace saw several glowing wolf eyes peering at them through the darkness, and heard the screech of bats and the creak and groan of trees, but never were they bothered. The entire forest seemed to know Tom.
After a few hours of riding, at last, the forest opened up and Lace saw the Old Forest Tunnel up ahead.
"This is as far as I go," Tom said, though not sadly.
"Will you be alright, going back in that dark place?" Lace asked, though she felt foolish immediately, for she knew that her being with him made no difference. "Lonely, maybe," She added with a flush.
Tom laughed. "Oh, no, no, Tom always has a friend to call on. The stars tell me their stories and the moon sings along with me."
She smiled. "Thank you for everything," She said, and inclined her head. "I hope to see you again!"
"You can be sure of it!" Said Tom, and he turned his horse around, whipped his hat off his head for a bow, and left her, singing at the top of his voice,
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.
Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.
Lace rode her pony through the tunnel. It was a short hole of cobbled stone and grass, and it was not a moment before she was on the other side.
She was met with shining lights of houses, the sound of the rushing Brandywine, and the voices of hobbits.
A shadow drew near her. She looked down to see an official-looking hobbit.
"Hallo then!" He cried at the sight of her. "Have you just come from the Old Forest? Surely not! You must be from around these parts. Don't you know the rules? You should be inside by now!"
"Rules?" Lace repeated, confused. "Who are you?"
"I'm Shirriff Hob Hayward," He replied with dignity. "Who might you be, and what are you wanting? The Chief's orders are to stay indoors at night!"
But Lace was not interested in rules and orders. Who was this Chief? She thought, confused. "Did Frodo Baggins and his party come by this way?" She asked him, with all confidence. She didn't much care for the police back in England, and she didn't much care for this Shirriff.
"They did, not too long ago. Said they was heading towards Frogmorton," He replied, giving her a scrutinizing eye. "Dressed all up in armor for battle they were, too. And that Samwise Gamgee brandishing his sword and the four of them scared Bill Ferney clear out of here! They're a strange lot, I've always said, that Baggins, just as his uncle was. Not right in the head, I've always said so. Always off on strange adventures, well who knows what they're really up to! It's no business of mine what goes on beyond the borders of Breeland, but then, the Shirefolk have always been strange ones..."
But Lace had stopped listening long ago. She reared up her pony.
"Now, stop there, young miss!" Said Hob suddenly. "Nobody's allowed to be on the roads in and out of the gate! Rules of the –"
"Blast your rules," She said irritably. "Stand back!" And she yipped at the pony and spurred it onward and past Hob Hayward, toward the road. She rode along the river until she came to the bridge and stopped short at the gate that had been put up there.
"For heaven's sake!" She cried, "When did this get here?" And with a bang, her pony's hooves crashed into the wood, causing it to crack and crash, and she rode on through, with a gaggle of hobbits running at her tail. She kicked the horse faster and faster, over the bridge and out of their reach.
She followed the road for some time, until the sky became rimmed with the red of dawn. Before long, she saw the swamplands of Frogmorton. The road lead on high country, overlooking the village. The path was lined with small brown and white mushrooms. She turned the pony down the path leading to the town and addressed the first hobbit she saw.
"Did Frodo Baggins come this way?" She said eagerly.
The hobbit, a gossipy Bounder, replied in a frightened voice, "Yes, he and his funny friends. They were taken to the Shirriff's house last night."
Lace clenched her teeth. Did that mean they were taken to prison? Indeed the land had become troubled. She dismounted and rushed to the building the Bounder pointed to. She burst into the door, her eyes wild with anger. "Let them go, you ruffians! Or I'll have you by the throat!"
The hobbits that had been in the front room here looked around at her, surprised. They gave her a once-over, and Lace suddenly remembered she was wearing a night dress.
"Lace?" Came a cry from an unseen room, and there was the pounding of feet on the floor. She turned her eyes to see Merry Brandybuck and Peregrin Took rushing into the room with wide eyes and mouths open. Sam Gamgee appeared behind them a moment later and stared at her. Then Frodo Baggins pushed his way through them, rubbing his tired eyes. He suddenly looked very awake indeed at the sight of Lace.
The colour drained from her face.
"F-Frodo?" She said.
The others seemed speechless.
Then, Lace screamed at the same time as Pippin, and the five hobbits rushed together in a big clump, embracing and kissing and crying.
Well, that's the beginning of it I suppose! Sorry that there wasn't much of Frodo in this chapter. Is that alright?
Ummm I thought I had more to say but I don't think I do now. Please review and set this story as an alert so you can get all the chapters as they come out! (Whenever I get around to writing them, hahaaaa). If you've read this far, thank you very much! I don't know how long this story will go on, but if nobody likes it and it just plain sucks, I won't continue it :p
Will try to get around to Alexis' first chapter tomorrow, so check for that!
By the way, Tom Bombadil's original song was altered a little for this story:
Changed from: Evening will follow day to Sun has gone away;
Soon you will be groping to Darkness leaves you groping.
Now then. PLEASE REVIEW, ALERT, AND COME BACK REAL SOON!~