A/N: This vignette took place before Bilbo adopted Frodo.  Frodo was still living with his mother's relatives in Buckland. He is twenty in this story, and Merry is six.

Of Rabbits and Shapes of Stars

"What story do you want to hear tonight?" asked Frodo as he sat on the bed beside Merry.

"Rabbits," answered the six-year-old eagerly, thumping his small hands on the quilt.

"I told you a rabbit story yesterday, Merry," Frodo reminded him with a laugh. "Don't you want to hear a story about other kinds of animals? Squirrels maybe? Or foxes?"

"No!" insisted Merry adamantly. "Rabbits. And a wolf."

"Rabbits and a wolf, eh?" said Frodo. "Now I think they can make a great tale, don't you?"

"Yes," said Merry seriously.

"Very well," Frodo said. He thought for a moment, closing his eyes, hugging his knees close, his brows knit in concentration, fully aware that Merry was watching him with bated breath. After a while, he opened his eyes, smiled and said, "I'm going to tell you the story of an orange bunny named Rudo Fluffytails…"

He never knew how his parents came up with their bedtime tales. Did they rehearse them during the day, giggling and whispering between themselves, imagining what his reaction would be once they finally told the story? Or did they just make up the story on the spot and see where each tale was going to take them?

"This is the tale of Obo the greedy snail," began his mother, taking his right hand and starting to nibble softly at his fingers. "He likes to eat cabbage and you can find him at his favorite spot on the head of cabbage nearest to the hedge, doing nothing but nibble, nibble, nibble all day."

"But there is Polo the hungry caterpillar," added his father, taking his other hand and gnawing on it. "And he too loves to eat the head of cabbage nearest to the hedge and there you can see him doing nothing but nibble, nibble, nibble all day."

He giggled and looked at his mother—who was still nibbling at his hand—and his father—who had nearly reached his elbow.

"So Obo nibbles, nibbles, nibbles his way across the cabbage leaf…" His mother's lips crept up his arm and he shrieked in laughter.

"And Polo nibbles, nibbles, nibbles his way from the other side of the cabbage…" His father's lips were coarser, drier than his mothers and they tickled more.

He was already breathless with laughter.

"Until Obo sees Polo's head peeking out of a ragged cabbage leaf…" His mother raised her face from his shoulder and scowled at his father. "'Hoy, you there!' Obo shouts at Polo. 'What are you doing on my cabbage?'"

"'What do you mean your cabbage?' shouts Polo back."

"'I saw it first!' says Obo." Her eyes were on him, and she gave him a wink that made him smile.

"'And I came here first, you slow-coach!' says Polo." His father gave him a conspiratorial look.

"'Don't you dare call me slow-coach!' says Obo angrily."

"'Slow-coach, slow-coach!' Polo sings."

"Just then, along comes the farmer," his mother went on with an ominous voice. "He stoops to pick the head of cabbage nearest to the hedge and he sees Obo and Polo, who are still quarrelling."

"'Ugh,' growls the farmer. 'There're a snail and a caterpillar on this cabbage.' He picks a stick and flicks Obo and Polo to the ground."

"Whump! Obo hits the ground," his mother collapses on her back on the bed, pulling the blanket over her eyes.

"Whump! Polo falls beside him," his father threw himself beside him, curling into a ball.

He looked first at his mother, then at his father. "Are they all right?" he asked anxiously.

"Of course they are," his mother assures him cheerfully. "In fact, after Obo comes out of his little house…" She pulled the blanket back from her head.

"…and Polo unrolls his fat little body," added his father, stretching luxuriously.

"…they see the biggest head of cabbage in the corner of the garden," continued his mother.

"'Hey, what say you if we race to that head of cabbage over there?' says Obo."

"'I'm sure to win that race, slow-coach,' says Polo. 'Let's start!'"

His mother placed her lips on her shoulder again. His father did likewise on his other side. "So the greedy snail and hungry caterpillar begin to crawl to the cabbage…"

He laughed as their lips made a slow progress up his neck, creeping hot and moist up his jaw line. He put up his hands to cup his mother's and father's faces and closed his eyes when they kissed him on the nose and on both eyes.

Years later, alone on the big bed he used to share with his parents, he often lay with his eyes closed and remembered the feel of their lips on his hands, the warmth of their breath against his skin, their voices and their laughter ringing in the dim light of the fire. More often than not he would have nightmares afterward, dreams of caterpillars and snails. But when he woke up panting and drenched in cold sweat, there was no one to soothe him back to sleep, and he spent the night trying to stay awake.

"Orange, Frodo? How can a rabbit be orange?" asked Merry incredulously.

"Because Rudo is a special rabbit, you see," explained Frodo. "Although the other rabbits don't know this. They won't play with him. They won't even speak to him if they pass him in the burrow."

"Why?" Merry wanted to know.

"Because he doesn't look like the other rabbits, of course," said Frodo. "They think Rudo is ugly because his fur is orange. They tease him all the time. 'Look! Look! A hopping carrot!' they will say, pointing at Rudo."

"Can't he do anything about it?" asked Merry.

"Oh, he's tried everything." Frodo nodded. "He goes to a rabbit healer and asks for a potion to change the color of his fur. He takes the potion everyday, but all he gets is a belly ache. Once he tries shaving his fur, but it grows back more orange than before. He even rolls in the mud, so that his fur will become brown. But when it rains, the mud is washed away, and he is orange again.

"Rudo has no friend. Most of the time he plays all by himself…"

And those games they played in bed, and the songs they sang. He often wondered when his parents had the time to craft each one of them. Did his mother string the words together when she was kneading bread dough in the kitchen? Did his father scribble silly verses in the margins of his ledger? Did they play the games themselves when they went on their usual boating trip in the Brandywine? He never asked and he never found out.

"Is she married to Cousin Sig?" he asked his father. He was sitting against the headboard, holding a cup of milk in both hands.

"No," his father replied, his eyes agleam. He was lying on his side, head propped in one hand, looking smugly at his wife and son.

"Is she Grandaunt Melia ?" asked his mother. She was on her side, looking across the bed at her husband, her brows knitted in thought.

"No!" roared his father, laughing. "You're getting colder."

"Does she have a yellow hat with a green ribbon around it?" he asked, giving his mother his empty milk cup.

"No," said his father. "That's twenty questions already. And the two of you call yourselves hobbits?" He shook his head censoriously. "It's Cousin Violet Goodbody!"

There was a chorus of groans from him and his mother while his father gloated in his triumph.

"But you broke the rule, Father!" he protested hotly afterward. "We agreed that we only play with third cousins or those thrice removed at most. Cousin Violet is your fourth cousin from your father's side."

"She's my third cousin twice removed from my mother's side," argued his father.

"Frodo's right, Drogo," backed his mother. "We agreed to reckon the relationships from our fathers' sides tonight or have you deliberately forgotten that?"

"Did we?" his father's look of sudden recall was not at all convincing.

"Oh, Father!" he groaned before squealing and leaping in to wrestle the older hobbit.

And there were nights when the absence of moonlight made the stars shine all the more brilliantly and he would lie in his mother's arms, his father's hand coming from behind his mother's shoulder, pointing at the sky and tracing figures edged with the glittering dots of light.

"That's a mushroom," his father said, outlining with his stubby finger the rough shape of a lopsided mushroom.

"No, no, no!" said his mother. "That's a cart. See there?  That's the wheel there." He watched as his mother's long fingers traced a shape in the sky. "There. Doesn't it look like a cart to you, Frodo?"

"I think it looks like a paddle," he said sleepily, his finger drawing the outline of a hobbit's roundish boat paddle.

Back and forth they would argue and he would fall asleep still smiling and his dreams would be full of stars.

If his parents ever left him alone in his bed after they put him to sleep, he never knew it. The memories that he cherished the most of his childhood was of falling asleep with his parents' warmth around him, their familiar voices talking softly above his head on the pillows. Once, when the noise from a thunderstorm jarred him from sleep, he curled into his father's arms and watched the light-shredded night sky that peeked through the gap in the curtains. His father's body looked like gentle hill tops that filled his horizon, sheltering him from the angry shriek of the wind and the answering roar of thunder. He felt so safe, so at home.

Years later he often had dreams of falling down deep, dark chasms. He would flail his arms and legs, trying to find something to hold on to, only to clutch at emptiness and grasp at coldness. Waking suddenly with a scream caught in his throat, he would usually find his fingers clasping handfuls of blankets on either side of him. Blankets, and nothing more.

"But sometimes, Rudo gets so lonely and bored of playing alone that he goes to watch other rabbits play," Frodo went on. "He will hide behind a bush and look at the other rabbits playing in-one-smial-door-and-out-the-other."

"Rabbits play that game too?" asked Merry.

"Of course," answered Frodo with an authoritative nod. "Who do you think taught hobbits that game?"

Merry frowned, but he was not going to dispute that knowledgeable nod of Frodo's.

"And one day, while he was watching the rabbits play, Rudo spots a wolf tiptoeing behind a bush and looking hungrily at the rabbits."

Merry's eyes grew wide as he held his breath in anticipation.

"The wolf is an old one, who cannot run fast because he has weak, aching legs like your Grandpa Rory's, and his eyes aren't so keen anymore. But he isn't a stupid wolf; that he isn't. He knows he cannot run after the slim, swift-hopping rabbits. That's why he sets his eyes on Melo, the fattest, softest, slowest rabbit in the group."

"Oh," breathed Merry, his eyes large, savoring the horror.

"Rudo is of course afraid of the wolf," continued Frodo. "He is so frightened, in fact, that he can only watch quietly in his hiding spot, although he knows that he has to warn the other rabbits.

"Finally the wolf jumps out from behind the bush, snarls loudly…" Frodo snarled ferociously and Merry gasped and clutched at the quilt. "…and starts to run toward the rabbits.

"The rabbits scream and run this way and that in panic. The wolf wastes no time and begins to chase poor Melo, who is already hopping as fast as his chubby legs can move. The other rabbits can only watch in fear…"

Merry's hands shook slightly on the quilt, echoing the tremble of his lips.

"Melo's fur is brown with a bit of grey, and he looks a lot like the ground, and the tree bark and the shadows of bushes, so when he gets tired he can hide behind a clump of ferns or brambles. Because the wolf has poor eyesight, he cannot easily find Melo, but he can still smell the rabbit and every time Melo has to run away again before his feet have had enough rest. He is hopping more slowly now and the wolf is closing in…"

"Oh, Frodo," squeaked Merry.

"But just then Rudo throws himself in front of the wolf and surprises the wolf. Rudo yells 'Aaah! The wolf!' and begins to limp away."

"Why…?" began Merry.

"Because he wants the wolf to start chasing him instead of Melo," explained Frodo. "The wolf is not stupid. He thinks 'Hmmm, an orange rabbit! An orange lame rabbit! That will be easier to chase. He cannot hop fast and he cannot hide behind bushes.' And so he starts to run after Rudo.

"What he doesn't know is that Rudo can run very fast and he only pretends to limp to get the wolf's attention. Once the wolf begins to chase him, Rudo hops as fast as he can, sometimes leaping over dead logs lying on the ground, and big puddles on the grass." Frodo's fingers made wide leaping motions on the quilt over Merry's stomach and chest.

"Rudo leads the wolf far far away from the rabbits and their homes, far far away into the other side of the meadow. Finally the wolf is too tired to go on running." Frodo panted and wiped imaginary sweat off his brow and collapsed in mock weariness on the bed. "He decides that the orange rabbit is not worth chasing anymore and he slinks away into the forest to rest.

Merry smiled in relief.

"Rudo looks back and laughs happily when he doesn't see the wolf anymore. But when he looks around, he finds that he doesn't know where he is. He is lost. And the day is getting darker. He needs to find his home, but he doesn't know where it is."

Merry winced in sympathy.

"Finally Rudo sits under a tree and starts to cry." Frodo covered his face with his hands and began to sob softly. Merry bit his lip.

"But suddenly he hears a voice speaking to him," Frodo went on behind his hands. "'Hi, little rabbit,' it says. 'Why are you here alone? Why are you crying?'"

Frodo removed his hands from his face and looked sideways. "Rudo looks up and sees an old rabbit. An old orange rabbit!"

The expression of surprise and wonder in Merry's face was indescribable and Frodo smiled to see it.

"Rudo tells his tale to the old rabbit. The old rabbit says 'Oh, since you cannot go home, why don't you come and live with us. I will be proud to have such a brave, clever rabbit in my burrow.' Rudo says 'Oh, thank you, sir. I'd like that very much, if it isn't too much trouble.' So he follows the old rabbit to his burrow and finds that all the rabbits in that hole are orange! Orange, just like Rudo." Frodo made the last statement in a shrill, happy note. "So Rudo lives in that burrow for many, many years. He has a lot of friends and is never again lonely."

Merry let out a long, happy sigh.

"Do you like the story, Merry dear?" asked Frodo as he pulled the quilt closer around Merry.

Merry nodded. "Yes," he said. "I do."

"I'm glad you do. Now you can give the tale fairy a kiss and go to sleep." Frodo leaned into Merry's face and the younger hobbit gave him a quick kiss on the nose.

Merry snuggled into the warm nest of blankets and quilt and sighed drowsily as he felt Frodo's hand making gentle rubbing motions on his back. "When is Mum coming home, Frodo?" he murmured.

"Oh, in a day or two Merry," said Frodo. "Your Uncle Paladin will drive her and your father home by the end of the week."

"I miss her. And Dad too," mumbled Merry into his pillow. "I slept on their bed this afternoon, but it's not the same when they're not with me."

"I know, dear," sighed Frodo as he lay down beside Merry and held his younger cousin close, deeply inhaling the scent of Merry's freshly-washed hair.

He closed his eyes and his lips curved into a smile amid Merry's curls. In the meantime, cousin he thought I'm glad you're with me, close and warm beside me. For once I dream of the stars again and remember how it feels to be safe.

~fin~