"I can still remember the first time I saw you...but I had no idea it was you I was looking at...seems to always be the case..." a middle-aged hobbit said half to himself as he looked down at his sleeping daughter. The child was only a few days old, with fair complexion and dark brown locks, and beneath her peacefully closed eyelids, her eyes were the exact shade of impossible blue of her father's eyes.

The elegant gentlehobbit was seated next to a frilly white bassinet, the morning sun just beginning to color the clouds in friendly hues of red and violet. His sleeping daughter lay within, her new parents enjoying a rare peaceful moment. He had been at her side since the wan hour before dawn, watching her sleep, wondering at how her tiny presence could create so much light where before only darkness had existed.

Reaching out slowly, he carefully brushed her cheek with his maimed right hand, wondering at the smoothness of her infant features, the bright blossom in her cheeks, the warmth of her skin, the peaceful countenance she radiated while wandering the land of nod. Smiling to himself, he continued on with his half whispered narrative.

"I remember your face...from another time and place, but it was you all the same. I had seen your mother for the first time, she was only twenty then, and I was forty...just a bit beyond my coming of age, and your mother still a bonny lass, but so quiet and shy, bookish they called her. It was the mid- summer party, held out beneath the party tree. Bilbo had not been gone long to Rivendell at that point, and I was lonely here at Bag End by myself, though I didn't truly realize it at the time.

Meli was dressed in a blue summer dress, just the color of the sky overhead, that fantastic shade that only happens in the spring and fall, and every now and again in the middle of summer...That blue that is just so beautiful it almost hurts to look at it, filled with scudding white clouds. Bilbo always said that the Valar were smiling on those days, and that's what made everything look so bright and wonderful. Perhaps he was right...those days always seem to be the best in living memory after all. You were born under a sky of that color, Rose and Sam were married on a day just like that...as were your mother and myself. Now where was I in this story? Oh, I remember...

I had escaped the energy of the party for a few moments up to Bag End, slipping away quietly while I had hoped no one was paying attention. It seemed that as the new Master of Bag End, I was constantly having enquiries into my social engagements with pretty young lasses...and even those who were not so young, nor so pretty. But I shouldn't say such things, it isn't nice," here the gentlehobbit laughed to himself, remembering some of the more interesting tea times he had spent with "third cousins twice removed on his mother's side, who also happen to be wonderful cooks and very eager for a nice match..." He did not miss those days in the slightest.

I spent a little time alone in the kitchen, simply enjoying the relative peace of the quiet smial, when I was startled by a timid knock at the front door. I had apparently been spotted after all, or so I thought to myself. Sighing, I got up, thinking that I was probably answering to Merry or Pippin, possibly even Sam. I had not expected to open the door to a hobbit lass I had never formally met. Your mother I had seen grow up vaguely, as she was a part of the Shire happenings, and as you will learn, my love, everyone knows everyone else here in this beautiful countryside. Melilot was a distant relation of Bilbo's and moreso to Merry, so in some far-off fashion we were cousins, and I could remember her vaguely as a small lass at family gatherings for Yule and such at Brandy Hall. I had not seen her in some years, and was surprised to realize that the painfully shy young lass I had once bandaged a scraped knee for, had become a pretty hobbit lass now into her tweens.

So there she stood on my doorstep, auburn curls spilling haphazardly from beneath a large sunhat, sky blue dress soaked dark with water and some mud up her left side nearly to her hip. She smiled apologetically, and flitted her eyes downward, obviously embarrassed to be seen in such a state. I smiled and welcomed her into the smial, hoping to put her at ease. She was hesitant at first, but soon overcame herself in her desire to attempt to clean up as best she could. The journey back to Brandy Hall would not be for some hours, and she did not particularly wish to stay wet and muddy for the remainder of the afternoon. Soon her dress was as clean as we could make it, and we found ourselves seated in the kitchen with two glasses of strawberry cordial. She had finally started to seem a bit more at ease, and I asked her what had happened to wet her so. The explanation involved a very much younger cousin, a frog, a nearby stream, and said younger cousin leaping into said stream after said frog. The rest of the story followed to the obvious conclusion. Which also lead us up to her appearance at my doorstep, wet, muddy, and embarrassed. We sat talking for most of the afternoon, until we were roused from our pleasant conversation by the sound of the front door swinging open, and two familiar voices calling our names. Merry and Pippin had evidently noticed our absence, and come looking for us.

Later that night, after the festivities had reached their end, the clean-up begun and mostly completed, and the stars high overhead; I had finally dressed for bed and had just fallen into an easy slumber. The dreams started when I was very, very young, and though I don't often talk about them, continue even now. I dreamed of a very long journey, with great hardship and pain. I dreamed of a place where nothing green had ever been since the beginning of mortal memory, a land of fire and stone and black, filthy horror all around. But then the dream turned to more pleasant things, but still tinged with sadness and pain. I dreamed of the Shire as it would be, of Sam and Rosie and many, many children that were so obviously theirs that I smiled to think of their happiness. But then, to my surprise, I found myself here at Bag End, seated in the study that had been Bilbo's, and later my own. I was older then, with gray beginning to take hold in the curls above my ears and at my forehead. I was seated at the old writing desk, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as I scribbled something in a blue leather-bound book. The quill in my hand was moving along at a great pace, as if I was eager to finish what I was doing. Then, in the dream, I suddenly looked startled, and quickly closed the book and pulled a parchment closer, pretending to be in deep thought over what few words had been scrawled upon it. And then I saw you, as a little lass, coming up behind my chair and pulling at my weskit for my attention. It would seem that you were not supposed to see what I was so busily composing there in the blue book. A tale of dragons and white horses I do believe it was. A birthday gift for you I think, in another few years. Looking down, I was then treated to my first true sight of you, in all your child splendor. Your complexion was very fair, much like mine and your mother's, but with your mother's bright cheeks and round, smiling face. Your eyes were large and bright blue, fringed with long, dark lashes, so much as I remember my own mother's eyes. Your hair was dark brown like my own, nearly black, tied back with a large blue ribbon, the curls falling around your shoulders. You smiled up at me, that sweet, innocent child smile that radiates so much love in such a simple gesture. You seemed to be asking me something, and I lifted you up into my lap and we seemed to be talking, your head laid back against my shoulder, eyes bright and interested. And there the dream faded away into nothingness...but I knew that I had seen my daughter, mine and Melilot's. I didn't know how or when this future might occur, but I knew it would bring me strength during that time of molten heat and evil darkness pervading all. There would be light at the end of that journey, somewhere on the far side."

The dark haired hobbit smoothed the downy coverlet, and laid his hand over the steady rhythm of the tiny chest beneath his palm. Smiling down at her still form, wondering what dreams and adventures, journeys and exploits might be yet to come for his small daughter.