A/N: Oh god I just feel this whole thing is incredibly cringy and awful, and yet I upload it anyway...I am also painfully aware that about half way through I started writing in the style of Tolkein, and I blame that on the fact that I'm reading The Fellowship of the Ring at the moment...but oh god, please don't kill me too much. I tried to edit it to sound a bit more normal, but...generally not happy with this chapter. I promise it'll get better.

Chapter 2

I hated wearing dresses. I acknowledged it was an important day, being Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday, and Frodo's coming of age, but to me that did not equal wearing a dress. To my mother however, it did. After returning to the smial dripping wet, she bustled me into the house, complaining about me 'not putting in my fair share', and after half an hour, managed to get me into a semi-okay looking dress. I still wasn't happy about it, but if I wanted to get out at all today before the party then I had to put up with it.

Either way, I was made to help with the taking of food down to the field near Bag End as it was ready, I was sent to different hobbits houses to deliver messages, and by the time I managed to escape from the errands I couldn't find Merry or Pippin anywhere in the fields, and so reluctantly trundled back home.

Thankfully everything that needed doing had been done, and so while mother finished taking the last of the food down, I was told to go down to the party field with my little brother Fosco as it was already getting into the swing of things, with some people having been there for hours already.

It wasn't until a couple of hours later that I saw Merry and managed to get away from telling the little children stories of dragons, most of which I had heard from Frodo, of which he had heard from Bilbo, and so were probably very vague and clumsy on details. Merry laughed as he took me away from them and off to where he had been sat with Pippin.

Pippin stood up and grinned, pulling me into a hug, "You look beautiful!"

"Oh hush." I said laughing, hoping my cheeks hadn't turned too red.

Merry nudged me, laughing, "He's right, you know. You scrub up okay!"

"Oh well thanks!" I shook my head, joining in with the laughter and picking up a glass of ale from the table.

Another couple of hours passed with much merriment and dancing, chatting to other hobbits, greeting Frodo and Bilbo and eating of course, until the sun began to set and the day became night. Merry and Pippin looked at each other and nodded, and stood up grinning sneaking off into the shadows, pulling me along with them. They came around to the tents where the 'backstage' section of the party was happening. Pippin was already exploring around the back of the tents, babbling away to Merry.

"I saw him put them somewhere around here, and I know it was near the food tent." He said.

Gandalf was starting to set off some fireworks, much to the delight of the children. The silver star-like light twinkled in the sky before raining down on the fields quite harmlessly.

"We're missing the fireworks." I told them, but neither were listening to me.

"Here!" Pippin suddenly exclaimed, and Merry gave him a leg up into the cart of Gandalf's fireworks.

The two of them decided on the biggest firework there and then went back into one of the tents, Merry taking out a match to light it. I rolled my eyes and stepped back a step or two while the two of them suddenly realised how unstable it was.

Suddenly it went up with an insane roar, along with the tent, and blasted in the sky in an explosion of orange sparks. They then all came together and formed a huge dragon, which swooped across the fields, causing all of the hobbits to duck out of the way of its huge wings. As it spluttered and disappeared there was much applause from everyone, and Merry and Pippin looked at each other and then me with great excitement, as if they had accomplished something massive, which was also shown on their faces by the soot and smoke. As Gandalf approached I made my swift exit around the side of the tent, back into the party before I could get caught up in the blame.

I managed to find Frodo amongst the crowd who pulled me up onto a table laughing, and took me by the hands, dancing around to some cheery music being played by several drunken hobbits down below. I grinned and laughed with him, hitching my skirts up so that my trousers underneath became visible, much to the disapproval of the other hobbit girls who were near.

Then Bilbo clapped his hands and everyone fell silent so he could give his grand speech. He rattled off praises of hobbits and what this day meant to him, and then ever so suddenly he became strange. Strange for Bilbo, that is. And then he vanished, as if into thin air, and the whole thing was terribly odd. All the hobbits seemed very perplexed by this but Frodo the most seemed bothered, if not very worried by it, and soon disappeared from the party.

This was not the day that brought the change of my life, and indeed a few of us from the Shire's, but it marked the start of it, and so this is why I mention it now. It was the last time that Bilbo was seen by any of the hobbits in the Shire, and it was the day that Frodo was given the ring by him, or so he tells us.

I cannot tell you much more of this day, or at least anything interesting concerning the story, for I did consider going to see if Frodo was okay, but on my way past Bag End I saw Gandalf's stick in the door, and I knew that if anyone should speak to Frodo at this time it should be him.

It wasn't until a good while later that the story really begins.