Author notes:
It seems I have lately taken much delight in observing the earlier generation of Tooks and Brandybucks, though Paladin came even more as a surprise than Merimac. However, I cannot wholly be without Frodo :)

Special thanks to Slightly Tookish for betaing.

Year: 1372

Auburn hair hanging wildly into his eyes Paladin Took gazed down at Brandywine River. It was a cold October morning with frost covering the meadows and shreds of mist floating across the river's bank. The water whispered in the reeds, its voice an odd comfort to his ears.

The Master himself had invited him and the new Mrs. Took to Buckland some weeks ago. Paladin used to be a regular guest at the Hall in his youth since his father was eager to visit his favourite aunt, as he used to call Mirabella, the former Mistress of these halls, at least once a year. Sometimes they attended the Yule festivities but more often they came during the summer months 'so that the children can go out,' Mirabella used to say.

Now Paladin understood the reason behind this for the first time. It had been raining all week and no one wanted to go out for more than a short walk. Brandy Hall was a huge smial but Paladin, used to his father's farm, thought it dreadfully overcrowded. Today he didn't feel up to being among so many people. He had to escape for a while, even if it meant leaving his wife in the company of many new acquaintances. The pounding in his head which had started right after waking this morning was thankfully subsiding to a dull throb.

Lately his dreams had grown worse. They always did at the turn of the season, when the days became shorter and nights turned cold. Sometimes he did not remember what had caused him to start from his sleep, drenched with sweat and heart pounding with unknown fright. At other times he could not place the voices or images that had unfolded behind his closed lids and now and again he would know exactly what had happened or what would come to pass. He had known about the birth of his oldest sister's son even before the messenger had arrived with the good news. At another time he had dreamed of a fire near Tuckborough the night before it erupted.

It was his grandfather, Hildigrim, who had first talked to him about the Sight. Folk blamed it on the fairy-blood flowing in the Tooks. His grandfather however had neither believed in fairies nor in gossip. Where the Sight came from and how no one could tell for sure. The hobbits only knew that there was something mysterious about it and that it was usually the adventurous Tooks who were blessed - or cursed - with it. Paladin had had dreams like this for as long as he could remember but he had never thought them strange until his grandfather had approached him on the matter when he had spent the night in their smial and had woken all sweaty and frightened, mumbling strange things he had not been able to understand.

Yet it was not until many years later that Paladin fully grasped the meaning of what Hildigrim had told him. By the time he had almost reached his majority it wasn't only the occasional dreams that spoke to him of his gift. At times he could feel the rain on his skin even when the sky was perfectly clear, or hear voices long before his name was called. He remembered the times when he would come to his mother only to have her tell him that she had just been about to call for him.

Now, at least, he knew what was behind all this even though he had no control over it. Months, even years, would pass when nothing at all happened and then there were nights when his dreams were especially violent. He could not remember what had woken him this night only that it had left Eglantine more concerned than usual.

Be that as it may, Paladin felt better after his stroll across the fields. Perhaps he might even manage another afternoon with Merimac. It was not that Paladin did not like him - quite the opposite - but sometimes he wondered whether his cousin would ever grow up. Merimac was still as full of mischief as they all have been when they were young. There was a twinkle in his eye and by the way the corner of his mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly from time to time Paladin could tell exactly when the younger one was up to something. However, Merimac was quite gifted in handling the ponies and during his two weeks stay Paladin had been able to exchange one or two tricks with him.

He was just about to head back to the Hall when Paladin suddenly caught sight of something lying among the reeds. Squinting his eyes he realised it was a bundle of wet clothing that had perhaps been carried along by the river. There was a blue skirt, a blouse and a fine silken shawl of dark blue wrapped around - something. Daring to walk a little closer Paladin held fast to a branch of one of the nearby willow trees and gazed downwards, his heart pounding heavily in his chest. A shiver ran down his spine and he felt a tingle in his nape as he beheld the shape of a female body, long and dirty hair entangled around her twisted form.

"Pal?"

Paladin turned with a start, lost his balance and would have tumbled down the bank had not a hand grabbed him by the wrist. Paladin drew back with a yelp of surprise, hitting his back hard on the willow-trunk.

"Paladin!" The voice called out, urgent this time and slowly his mind cleared and his eyes focused. Eglantine stood before him, brow a-frown with worry and green eyes full of concern. Her right arm was still outstretched yet she dared not touch him. "It's me," she whispered uncertainly.

"I know," he breathed, equally unsure, his eyes flickering to the spot on the shore and finding only grass and gurgling water. "I know," he repeated regaining his voice. Again he looked from her eyes to the river, feeling an odd weakness in his limbs. "You gave me a fright."

"I'm sorry," she answered, standing as if rooted to the spot. "Saradoc said I might find you here. I was worried."

Paladin nodded and a chill made him shudder. Exhaling the breath he had not realised he was holding he pushed himself up and pulled his wife into a close embrace. He inhaled deeply the scent of her hair which reminded him of spring, warmth and comfort, and entangled his fingers in the thick, brown ringlets.

"What's the matter, love?" she breathed into his ear and brushed her cheek against his neck. "Your heart is racing."

Paladin made no reply but let himself drown in the sensation of her touch and closeness as his fingers continued to comb through her long hair as if the feel of it could comfort him. It did indeed help to ease his mind and the disturbing picture of a drenched and lifeless body soon faded. After a seemingly never-ending moment he kissed her lovingly as if to assure her. "I'm fine," he said, "but let us not linger here any longer."

Eglantine nodded but her frown remained even as he smiled and she brushed a stray curl back from his forehead. He kissed her again before leading her slowly back to Brandy Hall. However, he cast one last look over his shoulder to watch the river gently lap across the weeds on the bank.

~*~*~

Three pairs of eyes followed Eglantine as she left their table and walked over to a group of women at the far corner. She was of sturdy stature, her long hair hung thickly over her shoulders and her body moved with a natural grace. Her manner revealed that she knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it. Yet her eyes were full of kindness, affection and good humour. She did not shy away from their bantering but even participated in it, rendering either one of them speechless from time to time.

"She's quite easy to get on with. Now I see why you chose her," Saradoc complimented.

"She's sly," Paladin replied with a fond smile.

"Seems to me she's a rather tight grip on you," Merimac put in as he refilled their mugs.

"Has she?" Paladin asked finally drawing his eyes from his beloved.

Merimac nodded. "You've grown a slow drinker."

Paladin raised an eyebrow chuckling. "Well, she says I snore when I'm drunk so I'm taking it slowly."

"She's right about that," Saradoc said. "One could think you're sawing the whole of the Old Forest."

Merimac barely managed to stifle his laugh as Paladin's stern gaze met his.

"How would you know?" the Took demanded.

Saradoc shrugged. "I remember a certain auburn-haired tween lying asleep on this very table. Both our fathers barely managed to heave you into your room again. You had been disturbing the entire party. Servants from the lower corridors still claim they could hear you even in their rooms."

At this Merimac snorted and was presented with another of those looks that almost always succeeded in silencing him. Paladin, however, had to discover that strict glances were no longer successful with the young cousin for, still chuckling, Merimac chipped in: "Or remember that other time when we were at Whitwell and Pal decided it was a good thing to raid Old Adalgrim's wine-cellar the day before his coming of age. If not for your snoring" - this with a sideways glance at Paladin - "we might have got away with it. The missing bottle would only have been found long after the incident was forgotten."

"It was the biggest flask in the cellar," Paladin declared. "Father would have skinned us alive either way."

"Besides," Saradoc noted, "it might have been your boisterous voice, my dear brother, that caused him find us."

"I doubt that," Merimac told him taking a huge gulp of his mug.

"You were singing," Paladin stated.

"And you talk way too much when you're drunk," Saradoc added helpfully. "Besides you're smitten by any female passing your way, be it the bar-maiden or Aunt Primula."

Paladin burst into laughter and Merimac almost choked on his drink. The young Brandybuck sputtered and coughed helplessly, tears coming to his eyes and cheeks turning aflame with embarrassment and lack of breath. "I didn't…" Merimac tried unsuccessfully to explain for Saradoc and Paladin, both of whom were still shaking with laughter. "I just…" he coughed again and Saradoc, who sat beside him, finally came to his aid and slapped his back. "I was drunk," Mac eventually concluded his tone indignant. "I don't even remember."

"You were drinking your mind away that night," Saradoc reminded him.

"And from what Uncle Drogo told me, so did you," Mac retorted.

Paladin still shook with silent laughter while the brothers discussed that memorable night in The Jumping Pike. Yet his attention soon drifted from their conversation as he caught sight of a child standing in the doorway. It was a young boy of about four or five summers. His hair was ebony and his skin a creamy, milky colour. His face, though troubled as his eyes scanned the room, was alert and full of curiosity. He held a stuffed, button-eyed pony to his chest with one hand while the other was absently playing with the cord of his nightshirt.

For a fleeting moment their eyes met and Paladin almost lurched with the well of emotion pouring down upon him. His chest tightened, a lump formed in his throat and he suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Distinct sadness, loneliness and cold abandonment tore at his heart until it bled, wept with such grief he had not known existed. A quiver ran down his back and he tightened the grip on his mug, closing his eyes to shake away the feeling.

But as he did so he saw a similar stuffed pony - the same perhaps - floating on the river, soaked; its sad, dark eyes watching the passing bank looking for something, someone, they never would find again.

"Hoy, Pal!" Merimac shoved him painfully in the shoulder. "You look as if you've seen a ghost. Too close to the Old Forest, are you?"

"Nonsense!" Paladin blurted. He cleared his mind and nodded his head at the child. "Who is the lad?"

Merimac and Saradoc both turned. "That's Frodo," the older of the two explained. "Frodo Baggins, our cousin."

"That's Primula's son?" Paladin was stunned. It had been too long since he had visited the Hall. When he had last seen Frodo he was but a child of a few months, all ebony hair and rosy chubbiness.

Brows drawn to a frown Paladin followed the lad with his eyes as he, obviously finding what he had been looking for, dashed passed several tables to hug a brown-haired woman around the waist. As she turned, the expression of surprise melting into one of warm affection, Paladin recognised her as Primula. She exchanged some words with her son, concern showing on her face, then she lifted the boy onto her lap. The way she moved gave Paladin an odd sting in his chest. It was as if he had seen her not long ago doing the exact same thing - or was it something different? Reaching out into the unknown darkness with his mind Paladin was once again startled to wakefulness by his cousin.

Merimac, elbows propped on the wooden table and chin resting in his hands, watched him with a wide smirk, the smell of ale preceding his words. "Now you're the one ogling Primula. I wonder what your good Tina would say to that. Surely she wouldn't be amused and forbid the ale entirely," he snickered and by the way his eyes did not quite focus on him Paladin could tell that Mac was tipsy already. "See, that's why I don't get myself any woman. Naught but trouble!"

Paladin frowned as his cousin downed yet another mug. He had heard those words before. Trouble… trouble….

His mind raced and he closed his eyes. All of a sudden he stood before him: a hobbit, older than he was and yet, somehow, younger, and familiar too. The stranger had his back turned to him. He was wrapped in a grey cloak and an air of loss and pain lingered about him. His dark hair was streaked with threads of grey, his back was bent as if he had been carrying a heavy load for far too long and yet the weakness in body seemed to veil some unseen inner strength.

"I did not mean to trouble you. I'm sorry," a voice whispered and Paladin felt the urge to run to the stranger and embrace him, to tell him that there was nothing to be sorry about and yet he was rooted to the spot, listening as if awestruck. "I didn't want him to come along but I'm glad he was with me."

The figure turned and Paladin jumped as cold hands touched his thigh.

"You watch me," a small, high voice told him matter-of-factly and Paladin found himself gazing into a pair of stunningly blue eyes. "I don't know you."

Paladin did not recover immediately but blinked a few times at the boy, before managing a smile. "But I know you, Frodo Baggins, if I'm not mistaken?"

The lad's chin dropped. "How do you know?" he asked eagerly and Paladin heard groans of frustration from the other side of the table as Mac simply let his head drop into his arms and mumbled something about 'don't get him started or he'll never stop.'

"Are you a wizard?" the boy continued, eyes shining with the wonder only children possessed.

"Not a wizard," Paladin chuckled, "only a nosy distant cousin. Paladin Took, at your service."

Grinning from one ear to the other Frodo displayed his best manners and bowed deeply, obviously proud to know the correct response. "At yours and your family's."

Paladin smiled despite wondering what had caused his odd feeling before. It was now gone completely - no sense of sorrow, no feelings of odd familiarity, no thinking that he saw more than everybody else. Yet he was conscious that he could not shrug off a certain amount of wariness. Something was going on and he was convinced that he should understand but what was now before him were the scattered pieces of a puzzle he could not manage to put together.

Frodo held his gaze for long moments and Paladin could literally feel how the child inspected him with curiosity and keen interest. Suddenly the lad reached out one hand to him and Paladin instinctively bent down so that the boy could touch whatever had caught his attention. To his utter surprise Frodo placed two of his small fingers right on the spot between his eyebrows where the headache already started to pound again. The child smiled at him contentedly, his eyes twinkling. "I like you."

"Frodo-lad," a female voice called. Primula stood at the end of the table and waved her son to her. "Don't bother your cousins so much and come with me now. It's high time you get into bed."

Frodo grinned. "It's twice today," he told Paladin who could only frown in confusion.

"Second," Primula corrected as she stepped closer and took her son's hand, nodding a greeting to everyone. "It's the second time you go to bed tonight. Not the twice."

"Second," Frodo repeated eagerly, his face earnest.

Primula nodded approvingly at this before telling the lad to say good night to everyone which he reluctantly did. Paladin followed them with his eyes as they left the room, pondering little Frodo. Could it be that the lad had the Sight as well or was it simply some unconscious gesture that had the boy touch exactly the spot where he hurt? Frodo had Tookish blood in him, after all, if only very little.

Paladin shook his head tiredly and reached for his mug returning his attention to the conversation between the brothers when Saradoc unexpectedly raised the topic of Esmeralda causing Merimac to roll his eyes and sigh dramatically. Paladin smiled to himself. This was going to be a long night.

~*~*~

In the hours just before dawn Paladin started awake. His breath came slightly more rapidly than usual and his heart raced as he stared at the wooden ceiling trying to separate dream from reality. The stranger had spoken to him again. What was more Paladin now recognised him even though he was old and - changed. The figure had turned around to him once again and when those stunningly blue eyes met his, and when the stranger reached out a hand to touch two fingers to the spot between his eyebrows, Paladin immediately knew that it was Frodo Baggins. He seemed to be from another time, another world perhaps and it frightened him to think about what this cheerful lad's future held. Paladin did not quite want to believe it and came up with a hundred explanations that would reveal his dream as just that - a dream, nothing unusual. But the longer he thought about it, the more excuses he found, the clearer it became to him that he could not be mistaken. Frodo Baggins had a toilsome way ahead of him and though he wanted nothing more than to help him, to understand what he was sorry about, he knew in his heart that he could not, should not mingle with what fate had in store for this boy.

Sighing heavily he turned to his side and put an arm around Eglantine's waist. Sometimes he wished he had not been born with such knowledge. And as Eglantine nestled closer to him, seeking the warmth of his body, Paladin sincerely hoped that the intensity of his dreams would soon pass and leave him to the occasional over-awareness of changes in the weather or the feeling that things should rather be done this way than the other. He did not like the dreams at all and when sleep finally reclaimed him he was thankful for the bottomless, peaceful darkness it pushed him into.

The dream never again bothered him and soon Paladin forgot entirely about it. Only twice in his life was he reminded of Frodo Baggins' sorrow: once when he attended the funeral of the lad's parents and saw that same stuffed pony clutched tightly to his chest. And once when he realised that his only son had left with his cousin and though anger and worry had boiled deep within him he had always known that Pippin would eventually return. Frodo would bring him back to him and be sorry that he had taken the boy from him in the first place. And Paladin forgave him, for he knew that whatever had happened beyond the borders of the Shire had neither been in his nor in Frodo's hands.

~THE END~