~Frodo’s Garden~

A/N: A bit of Elvish, hobbity fluff. I imagined the scene and had to write it, and I ended up liking it a lot. This is since people wanted more of Meldamiriel from my other fics, and I never got around to writing more about her. I am in the process of writing a longer fic about her, but it may be a while before that is posted, so in the meantime…

The sky was overcast that day. Meldamiriel knew something was wrong from the moment she woke up. It took her a moment to place it until she realized Frodo wasn’t knocking on her front door to wake her. The Halfling was usually there every morning coming to see if she would do this or that with him that day. The two had become almost inseparable.

She rose and slipped on her dress, then headed out to see if he was on his way. Maybe she had woken earlier than she thought. But no, the sun, however darkened, was high enough in the sky to tell her she had actually slept late.

“Perhaps he went to visit Gandalf this morning, or Feredir,” she said to herself as she made her way to the Wizard’s home.

“You’ll not find him there,” said a voice behind her, and she turned to see Lord Elrond by her side.

“Uncle Elrond! What do you mean?” she said, looking at her uncle questioningly.

“I think you should go to his hole and see if he’s all right. No one has seen him this morning, and Gandalf said he thinks you should go see him,” Elrond replied, turning her around and sending her in the direction of Frodo’s home.

She hurried as fast as she could towards the hole the Elves had dug for the hobbit within a few years of his moving to Tol Eressea, and knocked on the door, her stomach sinking as no one answered.

“Iorhael! Where are you?” she called. “Can I enter?”

There was no answer, so she gently opened the door. She’d given him enough warning that she was there if he was home. She stepped through the doorway calling his name in Elvish and Westron.

“Frodo?” she searched through the entire hole, but he wasn’t there. She slipped out the back door into the little garden he kept in anticipation of his old friend, Sam, following him across the sea. There he was, lying asleep on a low bench around which grew his lovely yellow elanor flowers.

She knelt next to the bench and gazed at his face. There were fine lines already forming around his eyes and mouth, though he looked far younger than his age still. The hair around his temples was going silver, and Melda thought it made him even more handsome than he was already, though she would never tell anyone that.

“Iorhael, wake up,” she said, gently shaking his shoulder in an effort to rouse him.

His blue eyes blinked open, and took a moment to focus on her, then he sat up and rubbed his face. “Did I sleep too long?” he asked.

“I thought I’d woke up late, since you weren’t at my door, knocking,” Melda replied with a smile. “Did you stay out here all night?”

Frodo shook his head. “I had a dream, and I couldn’t fall asleep again, so I came out here,” he replied. “The flowers remind me of home.”

Melda smiled. “Your friend will be here before long,” she assured him, knowing that was what had brought him out to the garden. “Now, let’s go find something to eat, shall we?” she asked, rising to her feet.

He smiled, and stood up, his head only reaching to her waist. She giggled, as she often did when he stood up beside her, and put her hand on his shoulder.

“That’s enough laughing at me, let’s go get something to eat!” Frodo exclaimed jokingly, and they ran off.

Melda smiled, glad that nothing worse than homesickness had kept her friend from visiting that morning.

~Finis~