A/N: Alright, I'm back again and having way too much fun with this story. The story telling begins!
Just so everyone knows, the story will probably mostly be from the movie timeline but I'm going to put stuff from the book in there too. Just for kicks.
And also, just in case someone who is reading doesn't know this, I used the first four of Sam's children for this story. The first child is Elanor the Fair, then Frodo Gardner, then Rose, and the youngest is Merry. I only stopped there because the next child would have been named Pippin and that would be too confusing. I'm going to say that… Elanor is ten, Frodo is eight, Rose is six, and Merry is four, about. Which would mean that Pippin would be born as well as Goldilocks but they would be too young for stories.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Lord of the Rings.
"Once upon a time there was a young Baggins that lived quietly in his hobbit hole. He lived with his uncle and they got into all sorts of mischief together. The hobbit's name was Frodo." Pippin suddenly broke out of his narrating voice and added, "He's my cousin you know. Twice removed on his mother's side."
"We know Uncle Pippin," Elanor said in exasperation, shaking her head. "Daddy told us." Pippin made a face.
"Well, Daddy must tell you all sorts of things!" he snapped and rolled his eyes, feigning annoyance. The children giggled a bit but fell quiet in expectation.
"Now, Frodo's uncle, Bilbo, was going to have a birthday party. He was going to one hundred and eleventy." The children all collectively gasped. "Frodo was running all about preparing gifts for the guests and planning the activities and who would sit where while his uncle just sat around and watched."
"Bilbo was mean," the littlest, Merry, exclaimed, wrinkling his nose in disapproval.
"He wasn't mean. He was old," his brother, Frodo, snapped, rolling his eyes.
"Can I tell the story?" Pippin wondered. The room was once more silent. "Thank you.
Now, you all probably have only heard of Gandalf the Gray from stories from your Dad, but he used to be a widely discussed topic in Hobbiton. Everyone knew about Gandalf's scandalous past and were eager to talk about it." Pippin had to choke back a laugh at his word choice. Scandalous? "And he was an old friend of Bilbo's so he came for the party a few days early. Bilbo was surprised to see him but accepted him into his home. After yelling at him a while because apparently the old hobbit was too lazy to check who was the door before yelling at them."
"How did Bilbo know Gandalf?" the oldest, Elanor, wondered. Pippin grinned.
"You mean your Dad hasn't told you that one yet?" Pippin asked and nearly beamed. "Well, we can hear that one another day. For now, let's keep on track, alright?"
The children nodded. Pippin wondered how often he was going to have to get their attentions back throughout this story.
"So, Bilbo and Gandalf talked about stuff and caught up. And those horrible excuses of Hobbits, Bilbo's cousins, came and bothered them but then went away again because Bilbo and Gandalf were real quiet and they thought no one was home. And then Bilbo and Gandalf continued to talk mysteriously about a Ring that Bilbo had won from a creature named Gollum. The Ring held a mysterious power and Gandalf didn't want Bilbo to keep using it." Pippin might have continued if he wasn't interrupted again.
"Uncle Pippin, this is boring!" Rose declared and heaved a heavy, pointed sigh. Pippin grimaced along with her and nodded his head.
"It's is dreadfully dull, isn't it?" Pippin agreed and hummed to himself. "Unfortunately, some of it is necessary." Rose gave another sigh but waved her small hand to tell him to proceed.
"So, to speed things up a little, Gandalf and Bilbo talked a lot. I would quote them but I wasn't actually there." The children nodded in understanding. "And as they sat there, talking and talking and talking, the day of the party was upon them! Bilbo had to hurry off to be on time for his own party and Frodo went after him, as they share the same birthday after all." Suddenly, a dreamy look came over Pippin's face and he sighed. "And then there were the fireworks."
The childrens' attentions were officially won. They leaned forward in eagerness, eyes shining and little lips quivering.
"Fireworks?" they questioned shrilly. Pippin nodded.
"And what a wonderful batch of fireworks they were," he said and gave another wistful sigh. "Gandalf had brought his famous fireworks to celebrate the birthday and Merry and I spotted it right away." Pippin leaned back into his seat with a blissful expression. "I rummaged through that stack oh so quickly until I found the one. The perfect one to set off without Gandalf knowing, giving Bilbo the best surprise of all! It was large and red."
"Red?" Frodo asked, forgetting that he was the second oldest and not supposed to get wrapped up in the story.
"Red," Pippin affirmed. "And it had a gold trim and it was shaped like a dragon's head."
"Dragon's head?" Merry squealed and his little eyes danced. Pippin could tell that he was going to grow up as mischievous as the Hobbit he was named after.
"Yes, a dragon's head. I knew it was the one the moment my fingers touched it. It was as if it were magic, the way it called out to me and begged to be lit. Merry and I set it off under a tent so that Gandalf wouldn't see, but it only sent the tent flying up into the sky! It soared up into the darkness and nearly brushed the stars!" he cried and pointed up to the ceiling, eyes dancing nearly as much as the children's were.
"Did it explode?" Elanor wondered with surprising curiosity. Pippin laughed but his eyes shone with disappointment now.
"It didn't explode but it went pretty high. And boy, that's not even the actual fireworks!" The children leaned in even more, hanging on to his every word. "True to the way it looked, the fireworks erupted into the shape of a fiery dragon!" The children were still surprised. "It swooped down low on the guests blowing gusts of sparkling fire and chased after Bilbo and Frodo and finally flew off to the night sky! Everyone thought it might come back for more and hid, too afraid and confused to look!"
"But it wasn't really a dragon!" Rose cried and her little hands were curled into fists. Pippin was broke from his excited memory state and quickly put on a smile.
"Of course not! Weren't you listening? It was only a special firework Gandalf had made. It wasn't real!" Pippin gave a little laugh and mussed her hair affectionately. "You are a silly one!"
"So what happened next?" Elanor asked. Pippin laughed.
"Gandalf caught us, that's what happened." Rose gasped.
"Was he terribly angry with you?" she wondered. Pippin nodded and sighed.
"Of course he was! We tampered with his sacred fireworks!" Pippin's face contorted at the memory of the wizard's wrath. "He yanked us by our ears to the unwashed dishes and we washed the dishes until he was satisfied."
The children all squirmed as they imagined their parents making them do the dishes.
"So that's where I heard Bilbo's speech. I had to get some soap out of my ear to hear him properly but I heard him all the same. He said lots of complicated things… I think they were compliments but I'm still not sure to this day."
"They were probably mean," Merry insisted, still sticking by his theory that Bilbo was the villain of this story.
"And then," Pippin continued, leaning into the children again, "He did something spectacular. It was something not even the best of pranksters could have ever pulled off. Bilbo Baggins, a much respected Baggins if I might say so, vanished into thin air." The children's eyes widened as they tried to imagine it. "One moment he was standing up on that platform, talking about a holiday and the next," Pippin snapped his fingers, "He was gone."
"What did he do?" Rose demanded.
"Was it magic?" Frodo tentatively added. Pippin's face looked sad as he answered.
"It was a magic… of a sort," he answered. "Gandalf, of course, knew what had happened and he rushed to Bag End to go meet Bilbo before he could leave!" The hobbit children furrowed their brows, not sure what Uncle Pippin meant. "Gandalf, by some force of the Valar that nobody could ever explain, knew that Bilbo had used the ring for his disappearing act. Luckily, he caught Bilbo before he left, because as well all know Gandalf simply can't be wrong!"
"Uncle Pippin?" Elanor ventured, "Did you not like Gandalf?" Pippin pondered the question. He thought of the Mines of Moria, the Palantir, and the ever popular 'Fool of a Took' comment.
"Of course I did! Now stop asking silly questions!" Pippin cleared his throat.
"Now, Bilbo had promised the ring to Frodo and Gandalf had to convince him to keep that promise. Bilbo finally gave up the ring and left to go visit the elves, or so he said. Really, none of us in Hobbiton thought he would make it past the Shire without croaking. The hobbit was one hundred and eleven years old! It would only be natural for him to suddenly die!" The children gasped in horror and even Merry's eyes shone with tears. Pippin hurried to fix his mistake. "Not that that would ever happen to you lot. Or your Dad, or your Mom, or Uncle Merry, or myself."
"What about Uncle Legolas?" Merry asked. Pippin nearly laughed.
"Uncle Legolas is perfectly safe. Now can I continue?
So Bilbo left, leaving Gandalf to stare at the ring and ponder. Which is something he does quite often. He ponders and ponders things. So, finally Frodo managed to beat away the other party guests with his walking stick and found Gandalf sitting in his Uncle's house.
'What's going on?' he asked in his high falsetto. Gandalf looked over at him and said quite seriously.
'Keep it secret. Keep it safe," in his low and booming voice."
"Frodo's voice was high pitched?" the little Frodo wondered, thinking of his own voice. Pippin nodded smugly.
"Very. Now, Frodo was very confused at this point and a little frightened.
'But Gandalf!' he cried. 'What do you mean?' Gandalf just sealed the ring up into an envelope, threw it at Frodo, and then made himself some tea. He was well acquainted with Bilbo's kitchen. Once his tea was done, he and Frodo sat down and had a nice talk. Gandalf told Frodo that he suspected that his Uncle's ring was The One Ring."
"What is that?" Elanor wondered, eyes narrowing suspiciously. She suspected that Uncle Pippin was really just making up the whole thing. Pippin's face grew serious as he answered Elanor's question.
"The One Ring was what everyone called Lord Sauron's ring," Pippin said. "Hasn't your Daddy told you?" The children shook their heads in silence. Pippin wondered if he should really tell such young hobbits this story but decided he would edit it for content. "Once, a long, long time ago there was an evil Sorcerer. His name was Sauron and his heart was black."
"Like Bilbo's?" Merry asked innocently. Pippin shook his head.
"Much, much worse than Bilbo ever could be," he whispered and Merry shivered. "He made many rings of power. He gave some to the elves, some to the dwarves, but he gave the most to men. Because the race of Man was weak."
"King Aragorn isn't!" Elanor snapped stubbornly.
"No, he's not. He was one of the last, good men in the world. And he still is. But this was before King Aragorn; it was his ancestor's time. Now, when Sauron made these rings he made one more. One was the Ring of Power and it was far greater in strength than any others. It listened only to Sauron and this way Sauron began to…" Pippin paused, not wanting to frighten them too badly. "Do bad things." The children were too afraid to ask what bad things they were.
"Frodo was very frightened, and he frightened easily too," Pippin began the story again lightheartedly. "But he knew that Gandalf wasn't sure yet so he kept the Ring for him until Gandalf could find out. And so Gandalf left and Frodo was left to wonder. But not for long."
The children waited patiently for Pippin to continue, but Pippin hopped up to his feet.
"Fancy some cakes?" he asked and began to brightly head to the cupboard. "I'm starving!"
"We want to hear the story!" the children demanded.
"What happens to Frodo?" Rose asked and Pippin laughed.
"You'll hear the story. Now take a cake and eat it and we'll keep going," Pippin promised. "It's going to be a long day of storytelling."
A/N: Hopefully this lives up to expectations so far! (is nervous) Please review
