AN: I've had this idea and OC for LOTR for a while and I've decided to make it into an actual thing. This may be a long story and it's my first Lord of the Rings fanfic so constructive criticism is welcome :)

The first few chapters are set 10 years before the Fellowship of the Ring and Bilbo's 111th birthday. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter One: Stranger

The Hobbits of the Shire were wary of people from abroad. They felt that they disturbed the peace, like when Gandalf appeared and he and Bilbo went on an adventure which changed Mr Baggins forever. Outsiders where usually not welcome.

And Gandalf had bought a hobbit-hole, and many of the hobbits found this very strange. When they asked him why he had bought it he simply said that it was for a friend of his and that his friend would be living there for a while.

Now, the Hobbits had already branded Gandalf as a 'disturber of the peace' and any friend of Gandalf's would definitely be branded that too. The Hobbits were both curious and frightened and it had been some time since Gandalf had bought the small hobbit-hole and everything inside it was quiet, until a week ago. Some of the Hobbits had seen movement inside the little burrow...

Someone new had moved into Hobbiton, and it looked like they weren't planning on leaving any time soon to the annoyance of those who feared that the person would likely cause trouble. The Hobbits had not even seen the new resident since they moved into Hobbiton which worried them further and some began to create stories about how the new person looked.

"I heard he only comes out in the dead of night! That's why we haven't seen him." said one.

"Oh yes, I've seen it. It's got glowing orange eyes, I saw from the window while I was walking past its house. Nothing good can come from this thing, I'm telling you." said another.

What didn't help the Hobbits is that they were so shy, none of them wanted to knock on the stranger's door and welcome them to the Shire and they lived in fear of what lived inside that small hobbit-hole, and the rumours became even more ridiculous. The younger hobbits joked about there being a dragon living inside it.

The Hobbits began to avoid the area where the new resident lived, out of fear that someone unsavoury did live there but they did wonder when the person would leave their home. And life carried on as usual in Hobbiton but there was a sense of uneasiness at the back of everyone's mind.

~~~ The Week Before ~~~

It was midnight and it was cold and a stranger clad in a cloak with a large hood covering their face, entered Hobbiton unnoticed.

The stranger was tired and every step they took felt like one hundred steps but the stranger had felt like this before and it wasn't long before they reached their new home.

'Just a little further...'

Now the rain started the pour and the stranger walked faster, looking frantically for a yellow door among the small hills of Hobbiton. The village at night and in this weather didn't look as charming as Gandalf had explained to the stranger when they asked about it. There were now puddles everywhere and the stranger could feel their shoes become soggy and muddy and now not only was the stranger weary, they were also uncomfortable and irritated. But then if the stranger had arrived in Hobbiton during the daytime, the hobbits would have stared and asked questions, and that was the last thing the stranger wanted.

After a while the stranger found the place they were looking for. There was a little hill just bordering Hobbiton and on top of the hill was another smaller one with a yellow door with two tiny windows either side. Immediately, when the stranger got to the yellow door, they took a key from their pocket and opened the door, quickly stepped inside and shut the door and locked it again.

The stranger then sighed and leaned against the door and closed their eyes. Their legs ached and felt like they would drop off any moment and if they wanted to; they could have just fallen asleep by the door. They could hear the rain now falling harder and the sound of thunder echoed through the Shire.

The stranger sighed again and stood up straight, and then undid the tie that kept on their soggy cloak and it fell to the ground with a soft thud. Underneath the cloak was not some unpleasant wanderer, but a young woman. She was about the same height as a hobbit, but when you looked at her feet you would see that they were not big and hairy like a hobbits', she wore boots and her feet were quite small. She looked almost like a hobbit-sized version of an elf. The woman had pointed ears and a heart shaped face with prominent cheekbones and her eyes were a shade of olive green but because she had been walking for so long and she was exhausted, where was darkness around the bottom of her eyes and the woman was quite pale.

Her hair was a wet and matted mess. It was a light brown colour and half of it was scraped back into a small bun but little strands of hair hung by her ears and the rest of her long hair hung loose and it was very wavy, but tangled.

The woman, after taking a few moments to recover slightly from her long journey, began to look around her new home. She was standing in the entrance hall which was quite empty apart from a coat stand near the door. The woman picked up her damp cloak and hung it on the coat stand and she knew it would probably leak and make a mess, but she was too tired to care.

On her left was the living room. There was a window in this room and the woman shut the curtains to prevent prying eyes. The other window she assumed was in the kitchen, which was on the right of the entrance hall. She was thankful that there were only two windows since it meant that there was less of a chance of the hobbits spying on her.

The woman was then in complete darkness once she had shut the curtains, but luckily she had brought a tinderbox with her on her journey and proceeded to light a few candles that were in the room. There was a table with two chairs by the window and on the table was a chamberstick, so to not waste candles she placed one of the candles into it to take with her around the house.

Aside from the table there was a fire place with two single sofas in front of it. There weren't any paintings or decorations in the living room so it did look a slightly dull but the woman didn't mind. This was her new safe haven and it didn't need to look pretty.

She then walked to the kitchen and like the living room it was quite bare. Just a table with four chairs, a stove, a few cupboards and a little door leading to the pantry. Remembering that there was a window in this room, she shut the curtains. The woman then looked at the pantry door.

'Why would there be anything in there...' She thought. This house was new; it would be stupid for there to be food in the pantry. '... let's look anyway...'

But when the woman opened the door to the pantry, there wasn't a lot but there was enough food to keep her going for a week or two. There was a small amount of cheese, onions, mushrooms, salted beacon, bread, eggs and jam.

Then she remembered Gandalf. Of course he would leave something for her, but she did feel bad that he gone out of his way to do this much and she told herself that she would replay him somehow. She could have easily bought or grown food herself but then she remembered that it was very late in the night, and the drained feeling in her legs reminded her of the exhaustion from her journey.

Perhaps he knew.

Holding the candle, the woman wandered out of the kitchen and into the room to the north of the entrance hall, and this seemed to be the rotunda. To the right was the bathroom and it was quite small, and again it wasn't greatly decorated and as she looked in she noticed a hand pump which was there to draw water for the bath and wash basin. The basin was chiselled out of stone and the bath was scooped out of the ground and lined with stone tiles, but what was interesting is that it had a plug and she assumed it had a natural outflow.

She was extremely lucky. Most of the poorer hobbit-holes had bathrooms outside and having the bathroom inside was defiantly a perk since there would be less of a chance of the Hobbits observing her.

Then she walked into the bedroom and there was obviously a bed in here and she had never been so happy to see a bed in her life, however the woman gave a frustrated huff. There was apparently a third window. But it was no issue because the curtains were quite thick and the woman walked over to the curtains and shut them and she set the chamberstick down on the bedside table.

The woman then threw herself onto the bed and she kicked off her boots and snuggled up to the pillows and she was well aware that her clothes were soaked from the rain but again, she was far too tired to care. Being an elf she couldn't understand why she was so tired... But then she did have tiny legs... which possibly weren't good for walking major distances...

And then the woman realised how gloriously comfy the bed was, and sure enough the woman soon fell fast asleep, defeated by exhaustion. She didn't dream of anything and not even the thunderous rain outside woke her from her slumber.

In this little house, in Hobbiton, in the Shire, the woman was safe for now. No evil could enter here. But the shadow in the East was growing, and peace was ending. The Dark Lord was regaining his strength and his minions would soon arise. But at this moment, the young woman could rest.

But who was this young stranger who had entered the Shire unnoticed?

Well, her name was Arian.

AU: I think future chapters will definitely be longer so think of this as a kind of prologue. I just wanted to introduce Arian and her appearance. Some of you are probably wondering "but if she's an elf why is she tiny", and don't worry, I will go over that but it may be a lot LOT later when I reveal what Arian is.