Time, except mealtime of course, was of no great importance to the hobbits. And so we find Daisy Gamgee, 5 years after old Bilbo's party and mysterious disappearance, holding up her skirts and scurrying down the greenest hill towards the Gamgee's hobbit hole. She had a rather earthily pretty face which had aged passively, hobbits being the type to have none of that futile resistance against aging that the big folk did; in resentment of their mortality.

Nothing mentionable or remarkable had happened, yet nothing completely unremarkable or unmentionable had occurred either. Reginard Took had jilted her and had traveled to visit some extremely distant relatives after Daisy confided in her that she was expecting.

"EXPECTING WHAT?" Roared Reginard

"Why, a baby of course." Daisy said, barely stifling a giggle

And that was that, rather than ruin his reputation, dear Reginard departed saying that he had urgent matters to attend to, proving this whole new kind of dullness that he possessed as well. Daisy supposed he still thought that baby hobbits (or quarterlings as they are fondly called) were brought by Ted Sandyman on stormy nights to warm hobbit holes, which would explain his ignorance in the matter. He knew enough, though to know that it was an unforgivable shame for unmarried hobbits to have a baby and did as most hobbits do, leave the poor girl in this bitter circumstance to either try and explain her situation and face as brutal a shunning that the hobbits could muster, or take her chances under Meriadoc's knife, who was known for keeping his mouth shut and getting the job done. Last Daisy had heard, Reginard was hiding out with his uncle's cousin in Tookland.

Daisy chose neither thank you very much, and went to live with her maiden aunt Rose for the 3 months (hobbit gestation period?) and then returned claiming the poor thing was abandoned. The Gaffer and the rest of Hobbiton were none the wiser and Daisy, along with her mother's stealthy planning, had avoided a social crisis destined to ruin and disgrace her entire family, not to mention Reginard who had as much to do with the coming of baby Ruby as Sandyman himself.

She passed Bag-end where her brother Samwise was bent over the garden watering the violets. She pulled his hair and let out a childish giggle before dodging Sam's flailing arm. Suddenly, the curtain at the window above the flowers was pulled aside and an ominous dark shape appeared at the window. Both hobbits looked up startled and Daisy's heart muscle plummeted in the brief moment of illogic when her brain was caught off-duty, and the foolish heart reacts first often apt to believe it is in danger. Then Sam said pleasantly, although still quite unnerved:

"Why hullo Mr. Frodo"

"Good day Sam, and you Miss Daisy"

"How do you do?" Said a blushing Daisy, curtseying politely

"Well thank you."

He blinked and Daisy gasped, it was her brain reacting this time. She realized that the same pair of elf-like eyes was blinking in her hobbit hole, stumbling around on the nursery floor and bouncing on the Gaffer's knee; the eyes were unmistakable. She reassured herself with the fact that most hobbits were not very observant, but she was still weary. As far as she knew, she was the only one aware of the origin of the baby. Credulous Frodo probably believed that it was an abandoned orphan and thought no more about it and her mother and aunt asked no questions, as if it was a code of honour among the female hobbits. But those eyes, so refreshing and poignant would be enough to tip them off, and Frodo was already considered weird enough without an illegitimate child in the picture.

They had not spoken for quite some time. Not since their night together, thought Daisy with a sigh. He had an extremely distracted look about him, constantly as if his mind was always elsewhere. It was not the old Frodo that she remembered; amicable with a touch of naivety. Over the past few years he had grown unrecognizably introverted and a gleam of greenish greed and hunger shone is his eyes, which had before been the very picture of innocence. He seldom left his hole, and when he did he floated around town with the transparency of a waif. Hardly anyone noticed his presence and he, detected them even less. Somehow some of the "toxic evils" Gandalf had warned her about had seeped in unnoticed and had corrupted poor Frodo. After taking every precaution, Frodo had still changed.

Again Daisy sighed, a habit she had adopted ever since she had bitten into the fruit. She returned slowly to her hole and was met by Ruby on the porch.

"Daisy! Today Sam showed me some flowers and guess what they were called?" she said with a glee Daisy could no longer muster.

"What?" Daisy asked in earnest, her eyes almost welled at the sight of the old Frodo staring out at her through the girlish perfection of four year old Ruby

"I said guess!" she laughed shrilly

"Were they daises perhaps?"

"Why yes they were! That's your name too! You should have been there Daisy. Where did you go?"

"I went...For a walk."

In truth, she was always on a walk. She was looking for someone who might tell her something that remotely resembled news. News in the knowledge forsaken town of Hobbiton often was no more then spiteful octagonal gossip and those who knew anything at all, were not likely to discuss it with a young woman like Daisy. The agony of partial knowledge is quite similar to the agony that any middleman experiences. She was quite angry at Gandalf for cutting a peephole in the box of her existence; it drove her to acts of pure frustration.

She began to chop a turnip for the Gamgee supper when she heard a gruff voice singing distantly. Daisy started to hum along in spite of herself.

The fire burns in chimney bright

The shadows shy away from light

An 'eve so weary, dark and cold

Is pierced by blazing flames of gold

Strike up a flame, turn out the night

What we cannot fix or try to mend

We hide in dark what may offend

Shut out the evil from our cage of glow

It shan't be seen, it shan't bring woe

Hidden and harmless beyond the bend

Though bring harm it may, ere the end

For now, we are safe draw closer friend

Strike up a flame, turn out the night...

The turnip rolled to the scrubbed wooden floor as Daisy saw a glimpse of the point of a gray wizard's hat through the shutters. She placed down her knife and ran with a purpose towards her door. She wrenched it open and saw that Gandalf had already stepped inside Bag-end. Daisy decided to go wait with Sam until Gandalf came out again, Frodo was not likely to chat for long and then Daisy would get her answers.

She hurried over to where Sam was snipping the grass under the window and she lie down in the grass next to him and put a finger to her lips. She had not planned of eavesdropping, but Gandalf and Frodo were talking all too loud about a number of all too interesting subjects, she could not resist. Gandalf asked Frodo to bring him something and, by the urgency she sensed in his voice, this was not some common household object. She shushed Sam again but there was no need, he had already ceased cutting the grass and was evidently in awe. Frodo cried and more was said, most of which made no sense to Daisy whatsoever, until Gandalf recited some verses that chilled her blood.

One Ring One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

The two Gamgees lay silently shivering beneath the window sill in the warm night. Frodo and Gandalf were still muttering away but Daisy could no longer listen. She lay horrified. The verses were all too familiar and she was quite aware of where she had heard them before and the thought of such evils so close to the shire, was deafening. While sauntering in the woods one day she came upon two pitch black ravens from which she hid, impulsed by an unexplainable instinct to stay out of their sight.

"Baggins of the Shire." One raven said maliciously, "What does my lord wish with such a futile creature as a hobbit."

To which the other Raven replied by repeating those haunting, dark rhymes to his companion before they flew off in unison, cackling over the shire. A frightened Daisy fled back to Hobbiton, erasing that ridiculous occurrence from her thoughts, not wishing to be thought as mentally ill. But it had not been erased from her mind, she had dreamt about it for weeks, waking up in a cold daunting sweat, claustrophobic in the darkness.

She came back to the patch of grass beneath Frodo's window with a start when a hand reached abruptly and roughly for Sam and pulled him up by the ears. She stifled a scream and dodged Gandalf's second plunge beneath the window by rolling into the flower bed. She dared not to breathe as Gandalf scolded Samwise while Frodo chuckled in undertones. Sam kept glancing at Daisy, aghast as Gandalf discussed some type of perilous quest as Frodo's companion. Daisy looked quite pityingly yet helplessly at poor Sam and inched quietly back to her hole on her hands and knees. She kept her eyes on the window and when the coast looked clear, she straightened herself up and sprinted to her round blue door. Her sigh of relief was cut off abruptly however as she glanced back at the window of Bag-end and felt as if she had been stabbed in her chest. It became a gasp when she saw, Frodo's eyes, staring directly at her, wide in disbelief and fear. Daisy Gamgee threw open her door and slammed it quickly behind her.