Welcome! I'm aware that I write strange stories, but bear with me: they shall become more sane in the future, I just have to regurgitate my weirdness into the world before I start acting civilized with fanfiction. :D
This story was inspired by my thought of, "What if a girl from our age wasn't a warrior and wasn't as thin or pretty as a stick? What then?" And I am obsessed with Frodomances (my apologies to those that find such things an abomination), so I decided to mash the two together. This story is not as weird as Frodo, My Precious, and not as angsty as One Ring to Desire Him, and not as long or as fantasy-ish as Blood of Malice.
It's just it. :) So enjoy! Review, if you would please-suggestions for improvement are appreciated, as are any other thoughts such as "Wow . . . uhhhh this is kinda interesting" even if you have nothing else to say except for something denoting that my stories are strange and disorienting. :)
Read on if you wish, turn back if you don't want to experience this rough draft. My stories will be edited, i promise. :)

So maybe I asked for an adventure, but like all readers that want to go on an adventure, I didn't think to come back and never see the world the same way again. I never asked for scars, love fought for and lost; I did indeed lose it.

That all starts on a fairly normal day. I finished my four-year degree some months ago, and now have a rather relaxed life with only a job and a little apartment to look after. With any luck, I only have nine more months before I can afford to start paying rent on a real home, and start attending that expensive college in Vermont that I dream of. With that in mind, changes in the near future doesn't even occur to me. Leastwise, not the nearer-than-nine-months future.

I'm nothing particularly special, I know. So I'm quirky; I have a few oddities about me that I've not seen in anyone else, but hopefully so does everybody else: an obsessive nature, clinical gaucheness, over a million words written in dedication to storytelling, a keen intellect when I want it, and a huge bush of red hair on the top of my head. People tell me I resemble the young Hermione, that I'm a genius (whether or not I believe them is different), that I'm a good writer, and my parents that I'm introverted; I know what the world thinks I am, and know they don't often care.

In short, I suppose I have a good life. It just never occurred to me.

My flaws are easy for me to see; I don't know about anyone else. I often lose motivation to a mental illness that has been claiming me for some time, but still managed to graduate from college. I only hope I can make it through an MFA as well.

It's the middle of a cold, anticipatory March, and summer is just around the corner. Being a redhead with an unusually indoors-oriented nature I don't anticipate summer. I can't wait to move somewhere cold, Vermont if not Andorra, or Ireland, or even Alaska. I walk around outside that evening after work, breathing in the campus air a few blocks down from my apartment. I left student housing when I left college, but there were still apartments dotting the little city, only a few miles from my parents' home. I'm a bit of a homebody, and didn't want to go anywhere.

But I still love to read. Even if it does take me places, those places I know I can be safe in until something bad happens to the character. But there's always a happy ending, always.

My breath rises into the air in a cloud of steam as I turn for the campus library. Then, even as I walk with dread in expectation of both strangers and acquaintances inside, I realize I have a Kindle at home that I haven't used for some time, one that happens to have the Lord of the Rings series on it. This would provide a perfect opportunity to continue being an introvert and avoid interaction, kind and wonderful as the college staff are. I spin on my heel and walk briskly back to my apartment.

I usually rent apartments on higher floors; I feel powerful and safe up there, as though it's a mountain cave. And it gives me the exercise I need, for I mildly resent anything—especially exercise—that takes me away from my reading, writing, or homework. Resultantly I do not date much.

My keys jangle in my hands as I shuffle through my thick coat pockets for them. I turn back and inhale once again the clean, freezing air. For March this isn't bad: snow still dots the brown grass and stale concrete like splotches of milk on a breakfast table. But this table is huge, and spreads into the city as far as the eye can see. I stare up the hill at the most beautiful building in the city, a white temple, pristine and erect like no other building in town. I smile initially; it's such a beautiful thing, and it has such an air of sacredness to it, as though it's built apart. And it is, I know.

I turn into my apartment. I must leave the winter air for my slightly warmer apartment, but I do not mind: it's pitch black in here. I give my eyes a few moments to adjust while I shed my wet shoes, and I flip on a couple of dim lights to search for my Kindle. I take off my socks as well in favor of a warmer, dry pair.

Then I notice all the crumbs on the floor. I rub the ridge of my nose; for some odd reason I'd agreed to host a group of students here, friends of mine, for dinner. But I did not associate with friends much, and forgot from time to time that I had any. I turn to sweep it up first, then go to look for my Kindle.

I do find it rather quickly, sitting invitingly on my dresser, but then I realize I'm going to want something to eat. It's late enough, about 6:00 or so (although all my clocks that I regard for time read 18:00), that I won't get out of my bedroom to eat again. So I make something to eat and dress in something comfortable, then slide into bed with a full plate of apples and sandwiches as well as a full glass of cranberry juice.

Lord of the Rings has been my "obsession" since I was 15. That strikes me as unusual, and has since I was obsessed for a few years, when I realized my obsession would not end. I've had over a dozen in my lifetime, starting at the age of 18 months old, and they always orbit a single story character.

I suppose, then, that you could say I'm not a Lord of the Rings fanatic, but a Frodo follower. I never read the Silmarillion; the stories of Middle Earth were not what interested me, but of the meek little hobbit that destroyed himself to save a world that hurt him. I took an MBTI personality test once, and came out with the same results as Frodo. He has similar mental illness to my own. I associate with that; besides that, many ideas and drawings and stories have come from this obsession that has lasted for so many years. It's an obsession I don't understand but follow very closely.

Sometimes I become self-conscious about it, but not as much now that I'm alone. Now I know I can love the character and hopefully not bother anyone in the process.

I start reading the Fellowship of the Ring. But I skim the first couple of pages until I hit the first mention of Frodo. I have these passages memorized; I know where they are, and I jump some more until I hit his first interaction with anyone. I leap from page to page, swallowing only information that concerns him. In my obsessions, surrounding one character alone, I must learn more about this character than there is to learn. That takes me into film bonus features and things, watching the actors as well, as though that will help. It does to an extent: there's only so much information you can learn about a character.

I set the book down periodically and shuffle in place; I try not to be a fangirl, but I haven't a doubt I am one. I'm a little too terrified in general to think I could confront any characters, were I to meet them. The actors do not frighten me—they are people, and I have no business with them, save my status as a "film geek" and a desire to meet as many film associates as possible. But characters! The thought is rather frightening. I know I would not think of Frodo the way I do if I only knew him.

Most of my stories about Frodo are romantic ones, inserts of strange characters that never could have existed. But since I don't know how to write another sort of person—or at least didn't when I wrote these stories as a teenager—they were all based on me. I know that perhaps hobbits would accept me as attractive: I'm a soft sort of person, physically. I've made sure I'm not overweight, but I'm not aesthetic, and I'm not thin.

Some people think I'm thin, but the people that know me best know better. Those I date that are particularly obnoxious tell me that I'm comfortable to hug. I growl at the memory—they shouldn't know. I resent embracing them at the end of dates; physical comfort is all they strive for, but it isn't all that I am.

I reach the Council of Elrond and sigh a little bit. I haven't touched my food save one apple slice; I wonder if I were to join them in their world if I would be accepted. Not as I am, but adjusted to the life of a hobbit. I would love to be a hobbit, would love to know Frodo and be there in his trouble. Knowing what I do about the story, though, I don't know what I would change if I didn't already know the journey back to front, there and back again.

While I sit there I wonder if I should continue reading or if I should watch The Fellowship; somehow the films appeal to me more.

I glance down just to finish the chapter, skimming it for pieces of Frodo. By the time I'm finished, I speculate that I ought to eat before doing anything. But once I'm finished with my food, I receive a text from my mother, reminding me that it's my brother's birthday in a few days. I smile and text her back, telling her I've got everything worked out. I send her the file with plans in it. He's coming home from a two-year stay in Bosnia this week, and we're planning big things for him.

Even as I move to watch the movie I'd planned to, I receive another text from one of my friends, William. He's ready to propose to his girlfriend, and he's excited to tell me; we've been talking for years, and if he's anything he's a genius romantic. I congratulate him with more exclamation points than I can count and follow up on some of our running jokes.

I yawn and set the phone aside. I'm tired tonight, as I often am: I wake up at 5:30, usually, and try to get to sleep as quickly as possible. I quickly write a few paragraphs in the story I'm working on, one of 92 series ideas I've had and stored, and slip into bed.

As I go to rest, I think about Lord of the Rings. I sigh when my mind wanders from the beginning right to the end, from one perspective of the Shire to the other. I think about Frodo's smile, how bright and happy he was when he lived in the Shire at first. Then comes the Ring. I don't cry during movies, but as of late I find myself sniffling when I watch the last scene of Lord of the Rings; I wonder how I can feel so powerfully for a character. Then I remind myself that it's just what I am: I care about people I don't even know, but that makes it harder to love the ones around me.

I shake my head—Frodo deserved better. I want to help. I want to change his fate. I did so in the fanfiction I wrote, but it hasn't made the impact on life it has on me. I sigh and shuffle a little in place, going back through my analysis of everything Frodo went through, the injuries he had and the trauma of loneliness, realization, bitter wisdom, and the crushing of what hopes he might have had. That last one hurt the most: he just wanted to see the world. He did see it, and it broke him.

I shiver in place. That ending only ever taught me that there are only happy endings for some people, that your hopes are wrong and that you are corralled by darkness. Tears trickle to my eyes, and I close them. It must have been so hopeless to be Frodo Baggins.

Eventually I fall asleep, still thinking about that darkness, that pain, and how sometimes I want to succumb to hopelessness as well. I realize I'm now a little ostensibly jealous of Frodo, able to slip away from everything and still have saved the world in a way no one else could have.

I yawn as that thought enters my mind again as it has for the past seven years: I wish I could meet him.