The Shire

By the time they reached the Shire, Lexi's Westron had become quite polished. Two months of walking with a very patient Gandalf for company had honed her skills considerably. Gandalf said her accent was still strange, which always invited probing questions about here origins, but that flaw was unlikely to correct itself anytime soon.

She had carried on an evening's conversation with a man in the Bree Tavern where they had stayed the night. That was, until he had a bit too much to drink and started to get a little handsy. Gandalf complimented her later her range of insults and curses.

After crossing through a picturesque hamlet of sorts, Gandalf approached a structure that was set into a hill. Lexi had never seen anything quite like it. It looked like a house front, but in a hill, like a rabbit burrow.

Sitting outside was a handsome hobbit who wished them "Good morning."

At this prompting, Gandalf proceeded to somewhat verbally torture the increasing uncomfortable hobbit about his exact meaning of 'Good morning'. It seemed unlike Gandalf who could be prickly, but seldom rude.

Lexi felt bad for the hobbit but knew better than interrupt Gandalf to rescue him. Gandalf was fishing for something.

Finally, when poor Bilbo had almost made it into the house, Gandalf relented and asked him if she could be his houseguest for a few weeks as she knew no one in the area and could not continue with the wizard as his journey was going to be perilous for the next while.

Ever the gentleman, and possibly to get rid of the wizard as quickly as possible, Bilbo immediately invited her in with one last remonstrance towards Gandalf about "No adventures wanted, thank you very much!"

After closing the door on the wizard, while Bilbo and Lexi were sizing each other up in the vestibule, they heard a strange scratching on the door. Bilbo flew to the window, gasped, jumped back and fled to the other room to watch Gandalf disappear down the path.

Gandalf had departed about 3 weeks previously.

Lexi was very happy at the Shire. Bilbo, she adored. He was warm, friendly, funny and fed her constantly.

Bilbo had spent a few days living in terror of the wizard reappearing suddenly and enlisting him on a 'dreadful adventure', but as time passed, he calmed. Lexi assured him that the only adventures in the future were hers and hers alone.

Bilbo was the ultimate host. He gave her his mother's room for her use and made sure she had every little luxury that was available. She repaid him by taking over the housework and helping him organize and sort some of the rooms he didn't use much anymore.

They passed the time gardening, reading, taking strolls throughout the shire, talking and eating. She could talk a great deal. He could eat a great deal. She often talked to him while he was eating. They were well matched.

Lexi was a little worried about what his neighbours might think, since she had, more or less, moved in with the hobbit for the time being. Bilbo said the neighbours always talked about him anyways, what with Gandalf's visit and his penchant for taking interest in events in the wider world around them. Bilbo had a robust library of histories of hobbit, elves and men. He said he had the best library in Hobbiton, because most of the others didn't care to know about the histories of others, or even themselves. He seemed to like the elves in particular. Lexi could relate.

Occasionally, if Lexi felt that Bilbo needed some alone time in his own home, she would wander down to the local pub for a drink. At first the other hobbits left her alone but after the third or fourth visit, a few sat with her for some conversations. Hobbits were not a terribly curious race, so after a few questions about where she came from (Rivendell), why she was staying with Bilbo (waiting for Gandalf's return) and where was her family (her family was far away), they generally lapsed into discussing the height of the corn, the quantity of carrots in this year's crop and weather it would rain the next day. Lexi found it peaceful to listen to them.

Lexi was not a tall woman. At 5 feet, she was definitively short among her peers in Toronto. In Rivendell, one of her affectionate endearments was 'little one'. However, in the Shire she was tall. She towered about a foot over even the tallest of hobbits. She had often wondered what it would be like to move through the world as a 6-foot-tall, supermodel height woman. It was great. As a 'short' woman, she often felt invisible. People, colleagues even, would sometimes pat her head, as if she were a child. It was infuriating. Now she stood out, was noticed, everywhere she went in the shire. Lexi didn't mind that.

One night, she stayed out later than usual at the pub. She had gotten the feeling that Bilbo needed a bit of space, so she betook herself down to the pub for dinner and a drink. She had forgotten that it was the first night of the harvest festival, so it was busier than usual. Cecil Hornfoot had gotten up some dicing games and Lexi, ever curious, had learned the games and started betting on them. She was having so much fun that she stayed out later than normal. When the crowd started thinning out, she realized it was quite late. She's also lost all the money she'd brought which endeared her to Cecil Hornfoot.

As she headed up the hill, Lexi saw that the Burrow was ablaze with lights. Highly unusual for this time of night. Lexi picked up the pace going up hill, worried that something was amiss with Bilbo.

Panting slightly, she opened the round door and stepped inside.

Chaos.