Gratitude
"And...and...I got big, and helped him pull the goat from the pit," Butternut sputtered, "and what do you think he said? 'Thank you!' 'Thank you' indeed! Of all the...Why are you laughing?"
For his sister Bittersweet was falling over giggling, and Petal laughed also, albeit gently.
"'Tis considered polite amongst Mortals," she explained, "to thank one for a favor. To us, to thank one means one is forgetting the good deed, and wanting something to guarantee remembrance. But 'tis different with them. Mortals think it rude not to thank one."
Butternut thought this over.
"Well," he sniffed, "I'm glad one of us has lived amongst them, and knows their ways. However, you certainly won't catch ME doing so. I'm minded to tie a knot in his hair while he sleeps."
"You would do better to paint a gold streak in it," Petal suggested.
~O~O~
IX. Jealousy
"I say," Bloodroot suggested, "that we tie knots in his hair, paint his eyes yellow, and make his teeth black, so he will look very ugly, and she will not want him."
"She will just put him back again," Vervain said. "She has more powers than us. Why don't you just wait until he dies? Then perhaps you will have your chance...if you change your ways."
"Change my ways?" he snorted. "I don't wish to change. Wickedness is part of my allure."
"Well, obviously you did not explain that to Petal," Vervain said.
~O~O~
A Fairy's Burden
"So," Bittersweet said, "did you take the Queen's suggestion, and paint a gold streak in his hair?"
"I did not," Butternut said defiantly, "do aught so ridiculous. But neither did I tie knots in it. I've my pride to think of."
"But of course," Bittersweet said most sweetly. She saw Petal come up behind them, but Butternut did not.
"These Mortals," he grumbled, "with their thank yous, and their thises and their thats. The things a Fairy must put up with."
"It gets worse," Petal said with her most radiant smile.
~O~O~
XI. Harm
"She said she would let no harm befall me," Frodo said a week after the funeral. "Then why did she do this? Why didn't she save them?"
"Who?" Bilbo said brushing back a curl from the boy's wet face.
"HER," Frodo lifted his head from the pillow. "My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother...or whatever she is. Mum said so."
"My lad," Bilbo said, "no harm has befallen you."
"What could be WORSE than losing BOTH your parents?" Frodo demanded, sitting straight up.
"Never to have had them at all," Bilbo said, a bit helplessly
~O~O~
Flowers are so pretty, his mother said. Why would you take them apart?
To see how they work, he said.
Now he sat by the brook, having found that he could make things appear larger by putting them in the water. He could see that the leaf he held was composed of tiny parts that all fit together. If only he could see inside each of them to discover what made them work.
And even as he held it to the sunlight to look through it, suddenly it grew much larger, and he could see each tiny part as though it were as big as the leaf. And all the tinier parts that made it up.
What can be doing that? he wondered, with sudden joy.
And Petal smiled as she held her thumb and forefinger in a circle over his leaf.
You will find out very soon, she thought.
~O~O~
Ever since he had seen her dancing, he had spoken to her betimes, loved her, believed in her, planted a special yellow rose, just for her. And now she had let him down.
He seldom came out of his room at Brandy Hall. Rarely talked to anyone. Ate very little.
One morning his maidservant, Daffodil, came bursting in, crying, "Mister Frodo, look out your window!"
The girl practically had to pull him out of bed. Reluctantly Frodo looked out, saying, "This better be good."
There, dewy and glistening in the morning sun, was that very same yellow rose.
~O~O~
You've met someone, haven't you, his mother said. I can see it. Why do you not let me meet her? Is she not respectable? Do you not care at all what folks will think?
His smile was slightly maddening.
And that night when he slipped out of bed and went out to the garden, she followed him secretly.
There she saw a slender luminous form, moving with incredible slow grace to the sound of a small drum and tinkling bells, unseen. A shower of pale-blue and silver tiny stars followed in its wake, and suddenly it sprang upward like a startled bird, whirling and scattering more stars.
And then it drifted back to the ground, and she saw a pair of wings, seemingly made of lace and starlight, rising behind it.
And she saw her son sitting motionless, just watching. And she knew nothing would ever be the same again, including herself.
~O~O~
How did that get here? Mrs. Brandybuck asked. That yellow rosebush. Our gardener didn't plant it.
SHE planted it, Frodo's maidservant said. Didn't she, Mister Frodo?
She who?
The Fairy lady. His great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmum...
Stop talking nonsense, Daff, said Mrs. Brandybuck. That's all a lot of tall tales. Sheer moonshine.
The others continued to prattle about the Fairy lady. Frodo just stooped beside the small rosebush and touched the yellow petals of the one flower on it.
Bilbo smiled sadly to himself.
Let 'em think it was she, he thought, digging at a bit of dirt under his thumbnail. Why not?
~O~O~
I saw her last night, his mother said. Don't think I didn't. She had no hair on her feet. And was she wearing any clothes? I could not tell. So many sparkles and twinkles in the way. Never saw the like of it.
She was clothed in dewdrops and starshine, he said with dreamy eyes.
Oh, be off with you, she said impatiently.
I do not know, really, Mother, he said. But I would like to find out.
Listen to you! Always wanting to find out things.
At least I come by it honestly, he said with a wink.
~O~O~
" Bilbo, look!" cried Frodo as they entered the gate of his new home. And there, on his front lawn, outside the window of the room that would be Frodo's, was a wide circle of mushrooms.
"A Fairy ring," Bilbo said in wonder. "'Twasn't there before."
"Are they good eating?"
"Nay, you don't want to eat those. Why, I'm surprised at you for asking, lad."
Frodo told himself he would not look out his window that night. He was done with such nonsense.
He lay with the covers pulled over his head, yet could not sleep.
And then he heard a soft shimmering music. Giving up on his resolve, he finally stole over to the window, taking his lighted candle.
He saw no bright beings dancing in the Fairy ring. But he did see something in the middle.
The yellow rose, softly glowing.
Those mushrooms were most definitely not for eating.
~O~O~
One does not simply go off and wed a Fairy. Who ever heard of such a thing?
Standing before the burrow with him in the afternoon, she appeared not as an elemental creature, but merely a lovely little woman, dressed as a Hobbitess, her hair trimmed to hip-length and braided. Its colors were synthesized into a beautiful auburn, and she had been practicing keeping her eyes green, supposing he would like green best, being so fond of leaves. In one hand she held a bunch of flowers.
What will I tell my friends? Why must you make me look a fool?
"Hullo, Mother," she said with a quaint curtsey, offering the bouquet.
What of your children? What will they be like? Will they have wings?
And his mother looked at her feet, clad in green slippers.
Why can't you be like your brother?
"Hullo, Daughter," she said, resigned.
****TBC****