THE TALE OF THE DRAGON

(part 2)

2. The Great Wide World

The next morning, Frodo woke up to find someone sitting on him.

Someone small.

"More story."

"Let's have breakfast first," Frodo said. "You need to get off me."

"Want story first," Pippin insisted.

"I can't tell good stories on an empty stomach!" Frodo insisted.

Pippin finally let him up, and then went to work on Sam.

"Oof! Get off me, you little--!"

"Up!" Pippin shouted, yanking off the covers.

Frodo whispered, "Ssh! You have to be quiet. People are still sleeping."

"Want drink."

"Okay, but tiptoe very quietly."

So, of course, Pippin bounced around making as much noise as a small boy could.

Merry was still not up yet. He was nearly impossible to rouse at an early hour, as he would be later in life. Pippin had to practically yank him out of bed before he would come with them to the kitchen.

For all their quiet, they found they weren't the only ones up. Bilbo was sitting at the small table, a cup of tea in front of him and his cherished pipe at his side.

"Well, look who's awake," he said.

"Morning, Uncle Bilbo," Frodo said. He grabbed a pot and spoon out of Pippin's hands before the banging started.

"I see you apprehended the cookie thieves. Let me offer you a word of advice, young Master Brandybuck: in future, you may want to consider hiring a bigger accomplice. Maybe next time you won't drop a fifty-pound tray full of pastries."

"There won't be a next time, will there?" Frodo's mother said, joining them. "We've learned our lesson, haven't we?"

"Uh huh," said Merry.

"We sowwy," said Pippin.

Frodo went to the stove to help his uncle with the breakfast. "Mmmmmm . . . eggs. Any bacon to go with this?"

"There will be when your cousin returns from the market. He's gone to restock our supplies. It was quite lively last night."

"And early this morning," Primula added. "Some of them have only just got to bed."

Merry smelled the eggs and asked, "Can I have some?"

"As soon as they're ready," Frodo answered.

"Then story?" Pippin asked.

Bilbo nodded. "I should like to hear the story myself."

"Story?" Primula asked.

Frodo shrugged. "I started telling them a little story last night, to keep them quiet. They've gotten really interested in it so far."

"What's it about?"

"A dragon who didn't want to be a dragon," Sam told her.

"Why not?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Cause he didn't wanna eat people," Merry said.

"He didn't?"

"Yes, and everyone thought he was strange," Frodo explained. He began the story again from the beginning, as they waited for breakfast to be ready. "His mother tried to get him to be like everyone else, but he refused . . ."

By the time the bacon was ready, he had gotten to the part where Daramiel stormed out in a huff.

For two hundred years, Daramiel stayed in his own small cave, by himself. He ate what small game he could catch, and spent a great deal of time thinking about what he had said as he left home.

"He wasn't very nice to his mother," Primula pointed out.

"He was just angry. He didn't mean to say those bad things. He was sorry about it later."

"Then why didn't he ever come back and tell her?"

"I'm getting to that."

Daramiel took a great deal of time to work up the nerve to come home again. He was afraid that so much time had passed that his mother would never forgive him. Of course we all know that mothers love their children no matter what, and if it had been a thousand years, she would still have welcomed him with open arms.

While Daramiel was away, his mother fretted over him every single day. She wanted to go and look for him, but she had no way of knowing where to begin. Besides, that nice Mrs. Brightscale from across the way said that you couldn't force these things on them; they had to come home on their own.

On the day Daramiel decided to venture out for the first time in a very long time, a terrible calamity befell the dragons' home. Their ancient enemy, Man, had attacked a city to the north, where no Man had ever been seen before. There were hundreds of dragons killed by the time the news reached Daramiel's cave.

Grizelda herself had barely managed to survive the attack. She was badly injured in one wing, but still managed to drive back the invaders. She was having her wounds tended to when Daramiel finally came home.

"Morning."

Frodo turned and saw his father standing in the doorway, his pipe in one hand and a mug in the other. "Morning, Father."

"Managed to keep the little ones in line?"

"It wasn't easy, but I told them a story."

"Story, eh?" He sat down and took a sip of his drink. "You always were one for stories. Is it any good?"

"I thought it was," Primula said.

Well, of course she would, Frodo thought. She was his mother.

"I'd like to hear this story," Drogo announced after another sip.

"I'm kind of in the middle of it . . ."

"That's all right. You can fill me in later."

So Frodo picked up from where he had left off.

The first thing Daramiel noticed when he ventured out of his cave for the first time in two hundred years was that everything seemed much closer than it used to be. When he had entered his self-imposed exile, the nearest town had been hundreds of miles away. Now it was only down the road (which was also closer than it used to be—he was sure it hadn't been right outside his door before).

Then he noticed that there were people here.

Everywhere he looked there were folk of the various races coming and going. Tall Men, shorter Hobbits, Dwarves on their way to the distant mountains . . . even a few Elves here and there. "How could this be?" Daramiel thought to himself. "Where did all these people come from?"

A young woman stepped out from behind a tree, saw the dragon, and ran screaming. "Wait!" Daramiel cried. "I won't hurt you! I just want to know—"

Pippin was distressed by this latest turn of events. "Oh no! Poor Darmyall!"

"Poor who?" said a woman's voice.

Pippin looked up at the new arrival. "Mummy!" he burst out, leaping into her arms. "Darmyall's mummy hurt really bad, and he run away and, and, and he not wanna eat people!"

"Oh, really?"

"I've been telling them a little story about a dragon," Frodo explained.

"A dragon who doesn't want to eat people?"

"It's just something I made up," the boy admitted sheepishly.

Merry and Pippin tugged on Frodo's sleeve. "More story! More story!" they demanded. "What happen to Farmyall's mummy?"

"Well . . ."

"And where all the people come from?"

"I'll get to that," Frodo said, "after we have breakfast."

The children had almost forgotten breakfast in their excitement. They sat down at the kitchen table (all but Pippin, who was sitting in his mother's lap; the adults had moved to the dining room) and ate until everything was gone.

When they were finished, Frodo stood to help clear away the dishes, but Merry demanded more story now. Frodo looked over at his mother and father, who nodded.

"Go on," Primula said. "Just this once, you're excused."

Daramiel searched far and wide for his mother, but couldn't find her anywhere. He became quite upset at the thought that Grizelda could be hurt—or worse, that he might lose her forever. He spent days combing Dragondale for her—

"Dragondale?"

"That's the name of the dragons' home country," Frodo explained. "The capital city is called Dragondell."

"Like Rivendell, where the elves live," Sam said.

"Yes, like that."

"It big?" asked Pippin.

"Very big. Dragons are usually quite big, so they need big houses to live in. They have nice big gardens to play in, too. So Daramiel had quite a lot of ground to search to find his mother, so it took him quite a while . . ."

When Daramiel finally found Grizelda, it was in the Master Healer's chambers. She was having her injured wing tended to by two assistants. She had trouble sitting up because her legs were so weak—she'd taken arrows in both legs as well, and lost a great deal of blood besides.

"Mother?"

As soon as she heard his voice, she lifted her head and smiled. "I knew you'd come back to us," she whispered.

"Can you forgive me for the awful way I treated you?"

She didn't say a word; she didn't need to. As soon as he was close enough, she threw her arms around him and held him for as long as she had the strength. And so it was that Daramiel finally came home.

"Awwww," said Pippin.

"That's nice," Merry agreed.

"Is that it?" Sam asked.

"Oh, no," Frodo said. "There's still the tale of how they went looking for a new home after their old one was destroyed."

"But that can wait," said Bilbo, who'd come to join them. "Right now there's nearly a foot of fresh snow outside. Who wants to go make snow babies?"

"Me! Me!" The two little ones eagerly waved their hands in the air. Even Frodo was tempted by the sight of fresh snow. "Come on, Sam, let's go!"

"What, no more story?"

"Later! There'll always be more stories, but snow doesn't last forever! Get your cloak and let's make a fort!"

Frodo's father was watching them out the window and wishing he could join them. "Look at him!" he said to Primula, pointing to where Bilbo was helping the two little ones roll up a ball of snow. "Ninety years old and still playing in the snow like a kid! I hope I have that much energy when I'm ninety."

"Go on then," his wife said softly.

"What?" He looked up and saw Frodo waving for him to come join them.

"Days like this don't last forever," Primula said.

"But I haven't—not in years—and it's just—oh, all right." Drogo put on his coat and went out.

It was the finest afternoon he'd spent in years, and one Frodo would remember for years to come.