Chapter 7.

Helloo helloo. Well, several of you have offered me your help, so I'm taking the time to decide. Kind of a big decision, this one, because the main idea that I'm having issues with is HUGE.

This would have been out yesterday, but I had work and classes and by the time I got home I was dead.

Anyhoo, for those of you who are wondering, I don't prewrite any of this. I just write and pop it out as I finish chapters. Thankfully, I know who's gonna end up with who and whatnot, so it's easy to just write random stuff. It's like doodling with words.

I love to doodle...

Oh, and just for your information... I had a dream that I was driving around with the Lord of the Rings characters in cars that look like the books, and we were on this crazy mission to get away from the CIA who wanted to arrest them? Gandalf is an excellent driver, by the way.

Okay, before we get off topic...

I don't own Lord of the Rings, Batman or Spiderman, or The Princess Bride.

(Sophie)

"Do these people really need all of this food?" Kristy had taken Collin and I to the party grounds to get a feel for the place before the actual festivities begin, and I just couldn't believe how much food was there. Honestly, you could probably feed a whole third world country, and here we only had some tiny hobbits from around the Shire. Not even the entire place was invited!

"Wow, Eomer and Theodred would kill to be here right now..." Collin was staring wide-eyed at the numerous barrels of ale stacked up to the side. He'd gotten a taste for the bitter drink while at Edoras; the horselords loved to get wasted.

Hobbits were running about, setting up tents and dinner tables, as well as these beautiful hanging lights. The clothes that the hobbits, and Kristy, wore were quite different than the clothes from Rohan. In Rohan, the people typically wore naturally colored clothing. They tend to stay away from dyes and such, so their people have a nice earthy feel to them. Here in the shire, the people wore brightly colored clothes and their style of clothing was far more formal, in a way, and it made me happy to see. Girls had ribbons and flowers braided into their curls, and they all just looked so cute!

"Hobbits eat like it's their last day on Earth." Kristy shrugged, but looked around at the preparations proudly. "They drink ale like it's water, too."

"Wow, I want to be a hobbit!" Collin's smile was as bright as ever, and he was gazing upon a giant mountain of food. "Can you imagine, Soph?"

I couldn't bring myself to imagine Collin three feet shorter. I might actually squeal. Talk about adorable.

Collin, of course, knew my every thought and allowed himself a triumphant smirk. "Knew I'd be cute."

Kristy rolled her eyes, a huge smile on her face. "I really missed you guys" Something caught her eye, and she instantly pulled Collin and I away to a spot near the food. "Come on, I want you to meet some people!"

And that was the day I met Merry and Pippin. Extraordinary hobbits and Collin's new favorites. They were sneaking bits and pieces of the prepared food and nearly peed themselves when they got caught. I immediately knew that we'd become good friends.

"Ahem." Kristy cleared her throat when we came upon the scene of the two hobbits stuffing their faces with the party food. Immediately, they shot up and rubbed the crumbs from their faces while trying to act casual; it didn't fool Kristy. She marched right up to one of them and swiped off some rasberry jelly from the corner of his mouth. "Peregrin Took! Rasberry jam? I am ashamed!"

The young hobbits bowed their heads in shame, and I would've felt sorry for them if I didn't know Kristy any better. She wiped the rasberry slime off of her finger and looked over the damage that the two had put into the food supply. Man, those two ate a lot.

Noticing a Mushroom tart (I know, weird, right?), I picked it up and handed it to Peregrin. "I agree... Mushrooms are definately the way to go."

That hobbit looked at me like he'd just seen the sun for the first time. Note to self: the quickest way to a hobbit's heart is to hand him a tart. Poop. Wasn't expecting this to happen.

"Merry, Pippin, I'd like for you to meet my two best friends in all of the world. Sophie and Collin."

Merry nodded and smiled politely, but Pippin bowed deeply, his eyes never leaving me. Ugh. Collin was going to give me so much crap about this.

"Uh... Well..." Kristy noticed the attention that Pippin was giving me, and a smirk was threatening to break out of her face. "Yeah. Bye."

She dragged us away from the hobbits, trying to cover up her laughter, but she never was good at hiding things.

"What'd I say, Sophie?" Collin chose this moment to start the teasing. "Even hobbits love you."

I would never live this down.

"Don't worry, Soph." Kristy smiled. "Merry has a crush on me. They're harmless. They might ask for your hand in marriage in a week or two, but other than that, hobbit lads are quite the charmers."

.

Well, my height surely made hobbit men more attracted to me. I was only about a foot taller than the tallest hobbits, so they weren't as intimidated by me as they would have been if I were six feet tall.

"Well, we now understand why you're so short, Sophers." Collin and I were hiding in a tent, watching the festivities unfold outside as night fell. Hobbit girls loved him, and hobbit boys loved me, so we both just needed a break from the attention. "You're a hobbit! But only half hobbit."

"Really? What's my other half?"

Collin shrugged and spoke like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Elf."

"Ha! Funny, Coll." Gandalf was kind enough to teach us of the perfections of the elves. "Why am I an elf?"

My friend turned to me, a big smile on his face. "Because you're just so darn beautiful."

"Ahhh." I was playing with the little white flower that Kristy had woven into my hair. "Is that your latest pickup line?"

Collin didn't get to answer, because several smiling hobbit children burst through the tent flaps, followed by Kristy. They all were shouting about 'story time.'

"Kristy, what do they mean by story time?" The children were swarming us now, their tiny little faces glowing with excitement.

She shrugged and stood behind me. "You and Collin are great with stories, and these little kiddies were getting wreckless. I was thinking that maybe the two of you could save the day?"

"Of course!" Collin looked pumped; he loved kids.

But there was one problem. "Kristy, we don't know enough about this world to just make up a story right off the bat, especially for hobbit children!" Collin and I were pretty hardcore story tellers, but we never really told them to kids.

"Nonsense, Sophie!" Collin stood while brushing his hands over his faux-hawk. "We can do this, no problem! Let's just tell them a story we already know."

"Like the one where we explain why Spiderman is way cooler than Batman, and Rachel only wants Bruce for his money?" Tragic story. But hey, Batman's not a superhero; he's a rich guy with cool stuff. Sure, I respect him, but spiderman could win in a fight against him. If it was strictly a fist fight, though, and Mr. Spidey couldn't use his super cool powers, then Batman would win, hands down.

Point is, none of it really makes sense.

Collin just shook his head and pulled me up from the ground. "No, Sophie. The Princess Bride!"

"Princess?" The little girl hobbits were more than happy to hear about a beautiful princess; I guess that little girls in this world aren't so different from those in mine.

"Yes!" Collin put on his story-telling face and began to exaggerate and emphasize his words. "A very beautiful princess, the prettiest in all the lands. Her name was Buttercup, and she wasn't always a princess." I watched as my best friend recited the story we loved to hear when we were younger, a smile on my face. "Before she became engaged to a prince, she was once in love with a young farm hand, Westley."

"Well what happened to Westley?" A little boy asked.

Collin smiled patiently and ruffled the boy's hair. "Unfortunately, Westley was killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts." A gasp escaped the mouths of the tiny children, and their eyes widened in complete horror.

I let my friend tell the whole story; he was much better at telling stories than I was. He got into it, making sure to describe the settings in great detail without dragging away from the story, and his enthusiasm was completely ridiculous, but perfect for entertaining little kids. Perfect for entertaining anyone, really.

As he finished the story, the kids began to jump up and down, and they all cheered for him. Afterwards, they all ran outside and began to act out the entire story, pretending to fight off ROUS's and attempting to sword-fight with sticks. I approached a happy Collin and handed him his camera.

"You would've made a great director, you know."

He looked down at the camera and took it with a smile. "You video taped that whole thing?" I nodded. "You know me too well, Soph." He then began to record all of the little children outside as they played their little game. "I think I could get used to it, here."

Kristy laughed and shook her head. "The second that one of those children gets hurt playing that game, the cranky old hobbit wives are going to have a grudge against you."

Collin shrugged. "Then it won't be too different from our world, will it?"

.

.

Bilbo was giving his speech, and began to name off every family that was in attendance. Even though he went through the list rather quickly, I wasn't paying a bit of attention, of course, because I was helping Merry and Pippin do the dishes. Unfortunately, I walked in on them at a very bad time... Yeah, they'd stolen one of Gandalf's giant fireworks and shot it off inside of a tent. Idiots, but I applauded them.

So, Gandalf thought that I had been linked to their mischief in some way, because I was covered in black, just as Merry and Pippin. They tried to defend my innocence, but I took part of the blame with them, instead. I didn't mind washing dishes one bit.

Of course, I should have thought out my actions more, because now Pippin wouldn't stop expressing how wonderful I was.

"Honestly, Miss Sophie, you're brilliant! No hobbit woman would take the blame with us..."

"Yes, well, I'm not a hobbit." I was trying to kindly and subtley implant into his brain the fact that I can't be with a hobbit. It was clear that quite the crush was growing.

"Shhh!" Gandalf was sitting near to us, watching Bilbo's speech. The little hobbit was rambling on about leaving or something, so I turned just in time to see him disappear.

"What?" I couldn't believe my eyes. "Can everyone do that?" By the looks of concern on everyone's faces, I took that as a 'no.'

Gandalf shot up and quickly made his way to Bilbo's house. Merry and Pippin began to wash the few remaining dishes furiously, hoping to finish quick enough to go find out what's going on.

Collin and Kristy ran to me, Collin looking oddly excited, and Kristy looking extremely distressed.

"Did you see that, Sophie? Amazing! I just hope that they can find the man." At least he wasn't completely unconcerned.

Kristy took our hands and began to pull us off in the direction of Bag End. "Come on! Something's up and I don't like it."

.

.

We met up with Frodo and ran to Bilbo's house, the only place we thought he might be. All we found was Gandalf sitting by the fire, looking deep in thought.

Collin looked down and bent to pick something up. "Hey, look! It's the ring that made Bilbo disappear!"

Gandalf shot around. "Collin, bring it here."

My friend walked towards Gandalf and held the ring out for him. The wizard backed away, shaking his head.

"No, throw it into the fire."

"If you say so." Collin shrugged and carelessly threw the gold ring into the fire. "Not a very pretty ring, if you ask me."

Gandalf gave Collin a curious look, but quickly turned back to the ring. "Frodo, come here." The wizard picked up the ring using tongs and dropped it into the hobbit's hands. "Can you see anything?"

"Gandalf, where's Bilbo?" Kristy interrupted the scene, worry etched on her face. I was just watching it all unfold, a little confused as to why Gandalf would throw a ring into the fire. It was pretty ugly, though. Shiny, but ugly.

"Bilbo's gone. Everything is yours, Frodo, including this ring."

"How did the ring make Bilbo disappear?" Collin broke into the conversation.

Gandalf silenced Collin with the wave of his hand, and Frodo's eyes widened.

"It's got some kind of elvish written on the inside."

Our old wizard nodded, worry growing on his features. "Not many people can read it, Frodo..." He looked to be debating something internally, when finally he stood. "I must go. Collin, Sophie, get your things."

Kristy looked like she was going to cry. "But you only just got here!"

"Kristy, please, go help them pack. I must talk to Frodo in private.

Reluctantly, she followed Collin and I into the guest bedrooms. We'd only been in the Shire for one day, and we were already leaving. I couldn't believe it. I could easily leave the Shire, but I didn't want to leave Kristy.

"Please don't go, we've only just found each other!" Kristy's tears had finally begun to fall, and Collin gave her a comforting hug.

"We know where to find you, Kris. We'll come back, I promise."

An even better idea popped into my head. "Come with us."

Her eyes flew open and more tears began to fell. "I can't leave now! Not after Bilbo left Frodo!"

"But there's a world out there Kristy!" Several tears were making their way out of my eyes; I didn't like the idea of leaving her any more than she did. "A world with people! With houses that you don't have to bend down to enter! There's so much for you out there, Kris. You could make a life for yourself."

I knew that she understood, but of course it would be hard for her to leave. This had been her home for quite some time, now.

"You don't have to go for the rest of your life..." Collin's voice was soft and comforting. "Just go for a little while. You'll love it, I promise, and if you dont, we can bring you back."

Kristy thought about this for a moment, but slowly nodded in agreement. "I'll go get ready..."

Relief rushed over me, and I allowed her a small smile. We wouldn't have to be seperated, anymore.

.

"You're leaving?" Frodo was already distraught when we saw him after he and Gandalf spoke, and now he was even more upset.

Kristy nodded sadly. "I need to go be with my own people..." Then, she threw her arms around him in a hug. "I'll be back, though, sooner or later."

Merry, Pippin, and Samwise Gamgee approached, now, no doubt wondering what happened to Bilbo. I turned away, allowing Kristy the privacy of saying goodbye to her friends. Collin gave me a small smile.

"We'll be back, Sophie. Don't worry."

Gandalf turned to us, looking like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. "Do not speak of this to anyone, do you understand?"

We nodded quietly, and Kristy approached us, leaving behind a sulking Pippin and Sam, as well as a teary-eyed Merry.

"Let's get on with it."

Quietly, we left the Shire, avoiding the questioning hobbits and excited young children. Something was telling me that the ring was more than just a little trinket.