I'm finding that the hardest part of these crack pairings isn't justifying the romance in itself, it's justifying the two characters meeting in the first place. That's why it took so long to assemble this story. Maybe I should just have them meet in an inn next time.

Wine to Vinegar

It was a generally acknowledged truth that Lobelia Bracegirdle was the most beautiful girl born in Hardbottle in living memory. It was also generally acknowledged - though in a lower voice, in case one of her numerous relatives was listening - that she was the worst-behaved one. At thirty-one years of age, Lobelia showed neither interest nor talent for the skills valued in a young hobbit girl; when she cooked she burned things, when she mended socks she left uncomfortable budges, and when she cleaned the floor her mother had to watch her like a hawk, lest she scrubbed it quickly and then ran off before anyone could point out all the spots she had missed.

"I don't know what to do with that girl!" said Mrs Hardbottle to her husband one evening when Lobelia had once again run off after dinner. "I really don't! She'll be the death of me."

Mr Hardbottle finished litting his pipe before answering.

"What has she done now?" he said.

"I told her to do the washing-up," said Mrs Hardbottle, "and I suppose she did, after a fashion. But you'd think a girl of thirty-one would know that it's not enough to drop the plates in the water and pick them up again! Now I'll have to do it all over again. And tonight when I was going to finish that jacket for our Dora's new baby, it could be any day now..." She collapsed into the armchair next to her husband's with a bitter sigh.

"Don't be too hard on her, dear," said Mr Hardbottle with an apologetic smile. "She's young. It's no wonder she was in a rush to go and see her friends."

"That's easy for you to say," said Mrs Hardbottle. "You've always been too soft with her. She's almost of age, and old enough to know better! People will say I haven't raised her properly. Who's going to marry her, I wonder, the poor fellow will be in for a shock when he finds out her idea of house-keeping!" And Mrs Hardbottle looked around proudly at her own well-ordered home.

"She's no bad girl," said Mr Hardbottle, sucking on his pipe, "she's young and high-spirited, that's all. I'm sure she'll settle down just fine. Leave the dishes for tomorrow, dear, I'll help you with them then."

If Mrs Bracegirdle's thoughts were occupied with her daughter, the opposite was very much not the case. Lobelia's full attention was at that moment being paid to one of her friends, who was talking about the dwarves he had met in the inn last night.

"...and they ran into goblins in the mountains," he said. "Only a small band, fortunately, but one of them got a nasty hit on the head all the same. Then they had to take a road further south than they had planned so as to not run into trolls."

"Goblins and trolls, eh?" said another young hobbit. "They really do exist, then?"

"Of course they exist!" said the first speaker. "What did you think Bandobras Took fought against, windmills?"

"I always thought they were a sort of fairytale," said a hobbit girl with big blue eyes. "They seemed too horrible to be true."

"There are plenty of horrible things in the world," said a third boy. "There just aren't any here."

"Close enough, though," said the first boy. "They say there are trolls up north; one of them might wander in here if he got hungry..."

The blue-eyed girl shivered.

"Stop it, Tom," said the second boy, "you're scaring the girls."

"I'm not afraid of trolls," said Lobelia haugthily.

"That's easy for you to say here and now," said Tom, "but I bet you wouldn't be as brave if you were out alone at night and heard a strange noise behind you."

"Don't be silly," said the third boy. "There aren't any trolls or goblins in the Shire. Any strange noise you hear behind you is more likely to be someone's pig who's escaped."

"Outside the Shire, then," said Tom, somewhat flustered.

"Why would Lobelia be outside the Shire alone at night?" said the third boy.

"That's the trouble with you, Ned," said Tom, "you haven't got any imagination. It doesn't matter why. All I'm saying is that if she was, she wouldn't be so sure of herself."

"I would, though," said Lobelia, "and I'll prove it to you any day of the week, Tom. Just say the word."

Lobelia made good on her word three weeks later, when she had obtained her parents' reluctant permission to go on a camping trip with her friends. The company was the same as the night the idea had been raised: Lobelia, Tom, his brother Hugo, Ned, and the blue-eyed girl, whose name was Daisy, and who was less than thrilled about the whole thing.

"I'm sure our parents wouldn't have let us go if we'd told them we were going outside the Shire," she said nervously.

"Of course they wouldn't," said Lobelia, "that's why I told you not to tell them." Seeing that this response only served to make Daisy more nervous, she added, "It's not lying, really. They never asked, did they?"

"At any rate, we aren't going to leave the Shire," said Ned, "so don't you worry."

"We aren't?" said Hugo. "I thought that was the point."

"No, the point was that Lobelia would be alone outside the Shire," said Tom. "She wouldn't be alone if we were going with her, would she? We'll just camp at the border."

And so they did. They reached the northern outskirts of the Shire on a gloriously sunny day, and spent they rest of it searching for a place to stay and, once they had found it, setting up their camp. All of it was done at a comfortable pace, with plenty of breaks for eating. Daisy's uneasiness melted away in the sunshine, and she had to admit that this trip was really very pleasant, especially with the way Ned kept smiling at her.

When the sun started getting close to the horizon, Lobelia left her friends and, as agreed, set out northwards alone. Tom's last words rang in her ears as she walked. "If you run into a troll or goblin, scream and we'll try to come and help you!" Tom was stupid, she told herself. If she ran into a troll, how exactly would they be able to help her? Five hobbits wouldn't have better odds than one; that would only give the troll a bigger dinner. Actually she could probably deal with it better herself; trolls were big and clumsy and she'd be able to hide from it easily. Or even better, she could keep sneaking up behind it and calling out, and trick it into searching for her until the sun got up. How surprised her friends would be when she showed them the troll-turned-to-stone the next day!

Lobelia Bracegirdle was a very confident young lady.

That night, Lobelia woke up suddenly in the certainty that someone was watching her. She didn't panic. Her first thought was that one of the others, probably that idiot Tom, had sneaked up on her to try and scare her. Well, two could play that game. Feigning that she was still asleep, Lobelia padded the ground next to her hand until she found a small stone. Perfect. She grabbed it and threw it with all her power into some nearby bushes. Without waiting to see what reaction it caused in her unknoown onlooker, she snuck behind the trunk of the tree she had been sleeping under and, as quickly and silently as she could, moved behind the one next to it, and the next one...

...only to run right into the arms of one of the Big Folk.

He seemed to be almost as surprised as she was. He grabbed her and held her at arm's length.

"Why, this is a sight I have never seen before," he said. "A hobbit girl, sleeping all alone in the woods at night! What are you doing here, little one? Have you run away from home?"

"Let me go and I'll tell you," said Lobelia, more agressively than she had meant to. She did not like being called 'little one'.

"Certainly," said the man, and released his grip. Lobelia looked up at her attacker. How tall he was! His features were hard to make out in the faint moonlight, but she thought they would be fairly handsome. He had dark hair, and on his grey cloak a silver brooch glimmered.

"I've fulfilled my part of the bargain," he said. "Now tell me what you are doing here."

Lobelia explained her bet to him. When she had finished, he shook his head.

"You had better go back to your friends," he said. "I'll escort you."

"I'm not going back!" said Lobelia. "I don't want them to think I'm afraid when I'm not!"

"You would be if you were wiser," said the man. "This is no place for a young girl like you."

"I'm not a little girl," said Lobelia. She stretched to her full height, which was still sadly insufficient when compared to the stranger's. "I'm almost thirty-two."

The man could not hide his surprise.

"Then you are older than me," he said, "and yet I seem to have more sense. Go back to the Shire-"

"I won't," said Lobelia. She considered stamping her foot, but decided that would look too much like a toddler temper tantrum. "If you absolutely have to escort me back, you can do it in the morning."

An hour or so later, Halbarad Dúnadan sighed and put another twig on the fire. He had been completely unable to make the hobbit girl - whose name was Lobelia, she had informed him - change her mind. In the end, he had decided that the best thing to do was to simply stay and guard her until the night was over.

"Halbarad," said the girl.

"Yes?"

"Oh, I didn't want anything, I was just tasting the name. Halbarad. That's a Big Folk name, is it? It's strange, but it sounds nice."

Halbarad didn't know what to answer her, so he didn't.

"It's nice to have a fire," said Lobelia, holding out her hands towards it. "I didn't dare to lit one because I didn't want to get noticed."

"Fire attracts some things, but keeps away others," said Halbarad. "One needs to know when to lit one and when not to."

"I suppose so," said Lobelia. "You live here, don't you? In the wilderness?"

Halbarad nodded.

"You must have had a lot of adventures," said Lobelia. There was a shade of envy in her voice that Halbarad missed entirely.

"A few, I suppose," he said.

"Can't you tell me about them?" said Lobelia.

As several young Shire-hobbits had discovered, it was very hard to deny Lobelia anything. She had a way of looking at you that almost always got her what she wanted. Halbarad started telling her, somewhat clumsily at first, those few episodes of his life he thought could be interesting. When he had finished, he told her some legends of the Dúnedain. Lobelia could be an excellent listener when she wanted to; she let her eyes sparkle with interest and said "Oh!" and "Ah!" in all the right places, although she firmly maintained that nothing in his stories had actually scared her.

At last Halbarad became quiet.

"It sounds absolutely splendid, all of it," said Lobelia longingly. Halbarad didn't answer her. He seemed to be comtemplating her face very seriously.

"What is that silver star on your cloak?" said Lobelia.

"It's the sign of the Dúnedain," said Halbarad. "My people."

"It's beautiful," said Lobelia.

"So you like jewelry?" said Halbarad.

"Oh yes, a lot," said Lobelia. "One day I'm going to be rich and have plenty of jewelry. And beautiful dresses, too. You'll see. It won't matter that I can't mend socks very well." She gasped.

"You're tired," said Halbarad. "Sleep. I'll keep watch."

"You know, I think I will," said Lobelia. "Wake me up tomorrow, will you?"

Halbarad woke Lobelia up at first sunshine the next morning. He insisted on following her back because, as he said, "it would be a waste to have guarded you all night only to have you get eaten by wolves the moment I took my eyes off you". They didn't talk any more on the way, not until Lobelia halted him when they were almost there.

"Don't go any further," she said. "If they see you, they might start complaining about how I wasn't actually alone, and I don't want that. It wasn't my fault you turned up and insisted on playing the gentleman."

"Very well, then," said Halbarad, giving in to Lobelia's stubborn glare. "I'll let you go the rest of the way yourself."

Lobelia took a few steps. The she turned around and looked at him.

"I don't suppose you'd let me go with you and have adventures instead?"

She had done a too good job of keeping her tone light and her voice steady. Halbarad laughed at what he thought was a joke, so Lobelia laughed too, as though she had never meant it seriously. Then she turned again and left.

Halbarad kept still, looking after her until he could no longer make out her shape among the trees. Then he shook his head.

"Don't be silly," he said aloud to himself. "You heard her. She wants to be a rich lady. And you are supposed to protect the Shire-folk, not put them in danger."

And now the longest story in this flock is no longer a vampire romance, yay!