My young cousin was always a wise lad, and he told me a long time ago that no good deed comes without a price, even if the results are worth the price you paid. I thought I understood him: every gracious thing I did managed to give me minor grief or sacrifice and major rewards. How he realized this better than I did, I'll never know; I'm seventeen years his senior, and he's a rather carefree sort of creature, but he still manages to understand life itself in a deeper way. He's never seen the world; I've seen all of it, and feared it. He is young and unafraid; I am scarred and broken. He is Frodo Baggins, the rich heir of Bag End, the envy of most lads and object of affection of many lasses in West Farthing, the most educated creature in the Shire.

I am Bixbite, the inferior female cousin and bearer of the One Ring of Power.

While Frodo is the heir of my home, I am in truth the rightful owner here. My father, Bilbo Baggins, was married for only a duration of eighteen short years before my mother, Thorn Bracegirdle, passed away. She named me Bixbite for the vibrant red gems that decorate the finest of dwarvish jewelry. Father often told me she named me right: beautiful, rare, fiery, eye-catching, unique.

I feel anything but beautiful. Rare? That's accurate. Eye-catching? Only for the gossips; I happened to be in a compromising position for many months at one point. Unique? If I wasn't unique before, I had it thrust upon me.

Somehow I couldn't achieve greatness: that was Frodo's calling in life. Mine was to achieve . . . well, difference. Pain. Discipline. Frodo never had to work for his wisdom; it took me seventeen additional years and countless scars to match him.

I suppose I always had one advantage over anyone, one I never recognized until those fatal moments of despair and agony.

~0~

Father came to me when I was twenty-nine, at first. Mother had passed much to the sorrow of us both, and I was heir to Bag End. Father and I would spend evenings together, reading and writing poetry, singing and eating good food. I always loved our food.

As I said, he came to me while I was twenty-nine. He could never remember my birthday—April fifteenth or thereabouts—so we celebrated both of ours on the date of his. It was the evening after a small party in honor of my father's birthday, and the guests were all gone home sometime after midnight the night before. Father and I slept in until noon, but managed to fit in all seven meals before retiring before the fire with some cake and tea, a good book on each of our laps in the hefty, green chairs before the hearth.

He smoked, and I didn't, as was customary between male and female hobbits. But, unlike most lasses, I did not court, and I found needlepoint a rather tedious and—if you'll pardon the mild disdain—useless pastime. I chose to be with Father.

I was lost in a book of the Elves. Father had just recently begun to teach me Elvish, and while this story was difficult to shove through, I found it rather fascinating: it recounted the history of the great Elvish city of Rivendell, of the forests of Lorien, of the mountains beyond the northern border of the Shire. Father and I shared our wanderlust, and I couldn't be taken from this story no matter how loud he shouted my name, or so I soon discovered.

"Bixbite Baggins!"

My eyes shot wide open, and my head snapped up. He settled back in his chair, perhaps having stood and nearly taken the pipe from his mouth. He humphed good-naturedly as he sat, and I set the book aside with great reluctance.

"Yes, Father?"

He smiled at me, blowing a lovely ring from his mouth before replacing the wooden pipe. "My girl, I miss your darling mother very much."

I smiled at him sympathetically; I remembered her well, and knew my father understood her better than I ever did. And that must have hurt him, to lose her: she was kind to me, if not sometimes a little more stern than Father. And she was beautiful—alabaster skin, black curls, and beautiful eyes. I never really got the color until I looked deep into them: forest green, tinted with brown, so it didn't look like either at first glance. I received one of those from her, and a gray-blue eye from my father. I fit into the Tookishness best with my eyes.

I stopped daydreaming about my mother when Father continued in a shakily assertive voice. "I'm afraid, Bixbite, that I miss her so much that I will never marry again."

"Father, that is nothing to apologize for," I interjected. I reached over and laid my hand over his knee. "I'm at peace here with you, and her love remains."

He smiled and shook his head. "My dear, that's not the point. I may be well preserved for now, but that won't always be." Then his eyes got that glint in them, the one local gossips referred to as the Tookishness. "But I'll see to it that I live well past the age of the Old Took, I can promise you that." I laughed, but he grew solemn again.

"I am not ungrateful for you." I drew back, knew something was off. "Truly, I wouldn't have wanted a son in your stead, but I'm afraid you cannot inherit Bag End."

"Father!" I cried. "Why ever not?!"

Father's eyes grew slightly weary at this, exasperated. "It is not done this way. Women simply aren't . . . well . . . strong or self-sufficient enough to be alone, much less to inherit a home such as this. And my dear, you've expressed to me often that you have no desire within you to be betrothed."

I chuckled nervously. "Of course not, Father. I can take care of the hole, I promise!" I reached forward again, clasping his hand in hopes of sympathy from him. "There will always be a Baggins here, under the hill."

"So there shall be," he muttered, glancing back at the fire. "And I will tell you what I have devised. Are you familiar with my cousin Frodo?"

My brow furrowed as I searched my memory, but I knew no such name.

"No, Father."

Father inhaled and exhaled shakily. He didn't like conflict, and while I didn't either, I could hold my own better. "His parents passed away some three years ago. He has been living at Brandy Hall, and I have taken it upon myself to adopt him. He shall inherit the Hill."

I bit my lip to keep my jaw from dropping, and I sank away from Father. He reached for me, but I hardly cared to respond. He tried to reassure me: "Well, he's a perfect choice. You'll love him! He's only thirteen at present, but he's a good lad. Very well educated, well-liked where he's from, and he's a Baggins."

"Frodo Baggins." I wanted the name to slip off my tongue as sweetly as it probably did most of the hobbits that knew him, but it whispered out ridden with sorrow.

Father probed me for a better response, but I had nothing as I processed. I'd always wanted to be Mistress of Bag End, carry on my father's legacy, if not his line. I knew I couldn't do the latter alone. Perhaps Frodo would have to do what I could not.

"Father, I cannot emphasize how much this plan hurts," I said at last. Father's eyes slipped down; I reached forward to brace up his jaw. "But you are right. This is for the best, and I only hope I shall learn to care for him as I ought."

That brought the glimmer back to Father's eyes, but as he rambled off on how Frodo would be brought to the home and what a wonderful time it would be, I collapsed inside. Almost of age, and the moment I received any freedom I would be someone's new stewardship. I would probably become the housewife equivalent in the home now.

I only hoped Frodo Baggins was no obnoxious tween or harsh taskmaster.

Thus, welcome to another of Sev's very strange stories. :D If you've read my profile, you know where this came from, but chances are excellent that you haven't, so I'll explain myself: this is a fem!Frodo/Sam pairing story, taking half of its content from the Lord of the Rings novels. Yes, Frodo is still in it, but that is because I didn't have the heart to go through a whole story without him. Besides, he's very important to the plot, as you have hopefully noticed.

The rating of this story is due to highly thematic elements. There is no sexual content, and there will not be any swearing, but highly thematic and hopefully very traumatizing. As I said, the first half is bookverse (of a 64,000 word story), and the last half is my own work. This concept was based both on the fem!Frodo/Sam idea and a Ring/Frodo concept that I liked, just not in the story type it happened to be placed in.

Happy reading! Please review; I love to hear from you guys! :)