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Keep Alive the Memory  by Celeritas

Chapter the Last

The next day Kira woke up, dressed, ate, and did her chores.  Then she went outdoors to find her friends and make peace with them.  It was a beautiful day outside, and the sunshine warmed her darker clothing.  She didn’t know how long she was supposed to wear mourning, but a little warm weather wasn’t about to hinder her.  Walking on top of the smial, she sat down on the mulch that had been covering the herb plot over the winter, and wormed her fingers down through it into the soil.  It was starting to warm, too.  Soon she and Mother would be planting.  Brushing the mulch back over the hole she had made, she took up her crutch and wandered over to the Burrowses next door.

Daffodil was within, working on her lace.  “Kira!  I haven’t seen you since the Party!”

“I needed some time to think.  I’m afraid Tom wasn’t the only unpleasant thing that’s happened.”

“What else could—never mind, I won’t even ask.  Even Roly was furious at him, though.  He had no right to… to goad you like that, and in front of everyone else!”

“You were right; I shouldn’t have crossed him.”

“If I were you I shouldn’t have been able to help it.  To be so callous, so unfeeling!  I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“I still believe the Tales are true, Daffy.”

“And you’ve only gotten grief for it.”  She made a noise that sounded something in between a laugh and a sigh.  “There are some things I don’t understand about you, Kira.”

“The same thing goes for Tom.  And he can’t stand to be wrong, or defied.”

“You’ve got a point, there.  Still, I think he may have realised he’s gone too far.  I can’t be wholly certain, since he’s Tom, but you shouldn’t get a repeat of what happened at the Party.”

“That’s good, because I can’t afford to wage another silent war with him.”

Daffodil’s eyes opened wide.  “I thought it was always going to be war between you two!”

Kira shook her head.  “I can’t avoid him, Daffy.  The people in charge of the Libraries have decided that none of the books can leave them.”

“What?”

“It seems as if all those quirky descendants of the Travellers aren’t as quirky as we’d thought.”

“How do you mean?  Surely they still believe in elves and all that!”

“Yes, but they don’t want anyone else to.  More accurately, they don’t want me to get into any more trouble, or to get their books into trouble with me.”

“And?”

“The first way I can not get into trouble is to make some sort of peace with Tom.  Maybe if they see everything’s going all right, they’ll open up the Libraries again.”

“Would you get books from them, then?”

Kira nodded.

“Even if years have passed and you haven’t read a thing?”

“Even then.”

“Then I don’t see a truce nor a library opening coming.  You’re too stubborn, Kira.”

“Never?”

The look of abject hope on Kira’s face made Daffodil grimace inside, and wonder at the change that had wrought itself on her friend.  “Well, as I said, Tom’s softened up a bit.  At the very least, you can try…”

“Have you seen him at all today?”

“No,” said Daffodil.  “But it might be worth a go.  As you already said, Tom is rather hard to avoid, especially if you have no excuses for it.”

Roly ambled over from the kitchen with a hand full of dried apple slices.  “Hullo, Kira!  What’s going on?”

Kira smiled grimly.  “I’m steeling myself to reconcile with Tom.”

“Why don’t you just go back to your books?  I’m sure that would be far more effective than any half-hearted apology.”

“She can’t get at any more books,” said Daffodil.  “And besides, do you really want Kira to coop herself indoors all the time, like last fall?”

Roly shrugged.  “Do you really mean it, though, Kira?”

“No,” said Kira.  “But I can work on that.  We’ll never be back to… to the way we were before I learned to read—I’m not giving that up—but we can be as close as we can.”  She did not say if “we” included the Burrowses or not.

“Well, I’ll try my best to help,” said Roly.

“Thank you.”  Kira faced the two.  “I really don’t deserve friends like you—you were a great help to me at the Party.”

“Well, Tom was being a—”

“Roly!” said Daffodil.

“I think I thought you were always more on Tom’s side than on mine—because of what happened at the oak, and before—but it seems as if you’re taking mine, now.”

Roly shook his head, looking more pensive than Kira had ever seen him.  “I’m not on anyone’s side, Kira.  I just don’t want the four of us to be split up.  That was done by your books so much of the time—but you can’t get at them anymore, and Tom’s been more of the problem than you for a long time—for longer than I cared to admit.  Let’s go outside and see where he is.”

The three of them walked out into the fine day together, and Kira wondered why she had ever said she was tempted to leave the Shire.  Then she recalled her dreams, and wondered why she was spending so much energy on the present when the past lay behind, forgotten, in the dust.

When they found Tom, Kira had managed to set the past aside, neatly folded up in a corner of her mind, to be taken up again when this gruelling task was over.  He was sitting alone, in a fallow field, ripping up blades of grass and tossing them aside.  She came up from behind him and sat down; he appeared not to notice her.  She laid a hand on his shoulder.  “Tom.”

He turned and faced her.  “Come to your senses yet?”

“No.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

She held out a hand to him.  “I’m offering a truce.”

“Kira, you’re mad if—you can’t think I’d—”

“But you will.  Even if you think I’m a fool, you’ll let me be a fool and not try to kill me every time you want me to be like you.”

He flinched and looked away.  “Kira, I wasn’t trying to kill you; if you hadn’t gone after that fool thing—”

“Look at me, Tom.  Look me in the eye.”

Reluctantly he beheld her grim stare.

“There is nothing you can do to make me stop believing that the events laid out in the Red Book of Westmarch actually happened.  I never shall stop, but even if I did it would be through no act of your own.  So, where does that leave you?  You can try and avoid me, but from what Daffy and Roly have been telling me you’ve had a lonely past week and you’d have to expect more of the same.  And I don’t think you’re so comfortable with the town lads that you’d lose all three of us over something like this.  Or, we can keep running into each other like normal, and every time we do you can humiliate me and antagonise me as you did at the Party.  That’d make things downright horrid for both of us, and you would fall so low in my sight that I’d feel more for the brute beasts in my tales than I would for you.  I may not be too fond of you at the moment, Tom, but I’d like to think I still have some shred of respect for you within me.  If you keep this up you’ll lose even that.  So, you can make yourself sullen and miserable for as long as we both live here, or we can learn to put up with one another.  Which one will it be?”

Tom picked up his lump of grass and threw it far away.  “Why can’t you just forget about the whole thing?”

Kira studied her hands, nestled in the lap of her brown dress.  “Because everyone else has,” she said softly.  “I’m sorry for all the pain that causes you, but I can’t back down from that.”

“You’re still wrong,” said Tom.

“I’ll be wrong, then.  You let me be wrong, scoff at me whenever my back is turned, and I’ll be happy enough.”

Daffodil and Roly had sat down, too, so that the four of them were sitting more or less in a square.  “Tom,” said Daffodil, “Kira’s offering you something close to what we had last spring.  You’d be a fool to throw that away.”

“Close, but not quite.”  He looked at Kira.  “You were getting eaten by it then, too.”

“Tom!” said Roly.  “It’s better than what’s going on now, unless you care so little about Kira that you don’t even want her casual acquaintance.  And even then you’ll have Daffodil—and me—to deal with.  I don’t want the four of us to get broken up by something as stupid as this, and I shan’t let you.”

“Roly…”  Tom sounded exasperated.

“I mean it.”

“I’ll try my best not to be bookish around you, Tom,” said Kira.  “And I won’t use up all my time reading, either—I don’t have any more books, and I don’t have a way to get at them.  I’ll try my best.”

Tom fixed his gaze on all three of them, and Kira could see that he had felt hurt, if not wronged, the past week.  She held out her hand to him again.  He put his in hers, then reached out to Roly on his left.  They all joined hands and rose, Kira pulling on Daffodil and Tom for support in standing up.  She smiled, though her heart ached and weighed down on her like a stone.  Not all the damage of November could be undone, but some of it could.

*  *  *

For the next few weeks Kira tried to live as serene a life as possible, though her hands itched for paper and her eyes for the beautifully scripted words.  But that’s gone, now, she reminded herself fiercely; and resumed trying to live as if nothing had ever happened.  The weather warmed and she and Mother spent a pleasant couple of days setting all of their seedling herbs in the plots.  Her body still tired easily, so she did not participate in many games with her friends but looked for flowers, or watched clouds scud across the sky.  Perhaps Tom did not like this, but having made her peace with him she did not care too much about his opinion.  Sometimes Daffodil joined her, and they would talk quietly, calmly, about ordinary things.

It soothed her heart, but when Kira was least expecting it the old shadows would return.  Once, closing her eyes, she even found the dark island awaiting her there.  Her cycle of dreams seemed to be broken, but they were still vividly real and almost all of them were bad.  Soil, fine but rich, poured down from the sky and she tried to catch it in her hands, only to have it slip through her fingers to be lost below.  At night she despaired of ever fully recovering.

She tried to think on Mr. Gardner’s justification for what had happened, how the Ages had changed and you couldn’t expect everything to be the way it was.  But wasn’t it still the same Shire that the Travellers had fought to save?  Big Folk may have changed their calendars, but hobbits didn’t do that sort of thing.  The Shire wasn’t supposed to change.

And now their greatest record, the Story that was true and never really ended, was lost, or as good as lost, to her; and she was supposed to pick up her things and move on without so much as a backward glance.  That wasn’t what Frodo had told Sam to do.

Well, she would move on if people insisted, but no one could stop her from gazing at the receding horizon.

One mid-spring night she couldn’t get to sleep, sitting in bed and caught up in watching the stars wheeling ever-slowly past her window so that she wouldn’t have to think as much about the things that threatened to smother her.  She had not been out stargazing in a long time, years even: real stargazing, not trying to prolong the moments of quiet at a party but lying supine on an open field without a tree to block her or a hobbit to interrupt.  She remembered, from early in her youth, getting out of bed in late autumn with blankets and being taught the names of the constellations and how to tell direction.  It was rather pointless for someone in her condition, but she had been allowed to look all the same.  At this age, of course, if there was any leaving of the hole after sundown it could only be for purposes of mischief; and Kira was expressly forbidden.

Still, there was nothing mischievous in losing oneself in the beauties of creation, and Kira rather craved such a sensation.  For several minutes she let it tug at her heart, until suddenly making up her mind she swung her legs over the bed and stood up.  It took her a little while to find her crutch in the poor light, and longer still to find the robe she often wore in bed over winter and throw it on.  Pulling a blanket from the bed, she opened her window and slipped out.

Not wishing to accidentally trample any plants, she crept around the smial and crossed the small path in front of their door to crest another hillock, which had lain fallow for as long as she could remember.  She wrapped her blanket around herself and lay down.  There was no moon out tonight, and the stars were so bright that she could see the Furrow down the middle of the sky.  Kira wondered if she had ever seen so many of them at once before; and if not, if that was because she had never gotten a chance or because she had never really looked.  Perhaps it was both.

This late at night there reigned a stillness that was hard to match at any other time, until she could not be sure if anything she heard was nearby or in a different Farthing.  Even though she could see no trees she heard the hoot of an owl, and became increasingly convinced that a cricket lay right next to her ear and would hop on it any second.  The rustle of wind through the grass, the distant bark of a dog, even the dull thud of her heart became audible.  They and the stars commingled into a blissful harmony, and Kira felt tears sliding down her temples as she realised it could never last for long.

And it did not.  A noise shattered the tentative peace Kira had established around her, a noise so foreign it took her a moment to place it.  It was like a footstep, but heavier, a tramp rather than the near-silent fall of bare feet.  She gasped.  Who could be going through the Shire with boots on?  Two possibilities sprang immediately to her mind; she hoped it was the more pleasant of the two.  Torn between curiosity and fear, she rolled over onto her stomach and tried to descry the intruder.  After half a minute it coalesced from the shadows into her view.

Even from the higher vantage that the hill provided her, she could see it was huge, at least three times her height.  Her heart flew into her mouth: one of the Big Folk had entered the Shire.

Paralysed by the thought of such a tall Man being where he had no right to go, she scrutinised the traveller as he drew nearer.  If he passed by her hill, she should be able to get a good look at his face—but no, he was hooded—and not alone!  She now perceived a shorter figure alongside him—at first she thought it was some treacherous hobbit, but it was too stocky—a Dwarf, then.  Her mind raced as she tried to discern the meaning of this.  A Dwarf, who perhaps had passed through the Shire at other times, showing their land to a Man?  She was not sure what to do: whether to run home and hope they didn’t notice her, or to run into town and get help, or just to cry out and hope someone heard her.  Incensed by the impudence of a Dwarf abusing the privilege of travelling through her land, moreover by the daring of a Man to break the King’s Edict so soon after his death, she did none.  Leaving the blanket behind on the hill, she ran down pell-mell until she blocked the travellers’ path, folded her arms over her chest, and tried to look as menacing as a sixteen-year-old crippled hobbit could.

“Halt!” she cried, and immediately blushed at the shrillness of her own voice.  The travellers stopped, but she doubted it was because she had told them to.  She swallowed her embarrassment and continued in as confident a voice as she could muster.  “Please state your business here,” she said.  “The borders of the Shire are closed to Big Folk, and if you think we sleep inside them you are sorely mistaken.”

The Dwarf just grunted, but the taller one laughed.  Yet it was not harsh, or jeering.  It was musical.  He sat down in front of her, but she could still not see beyond his hood.  “I know of the King’s decree,” he said, “and my companion and I do not break it, as it applies only to the race of Men.”  He drew back the hood to reveal a beautiful, ageless face that reflected the light of the stars.  Kira’s jaw dropped, and her leg buckled under her.

“Forgive me,” she stammered, sinking onto the ground, “…sir.”

“And if I am not incorrect,” added the elf, “you yourself are breaking some sort of rule, being so young for one of your people and being awake and out of doors at this time of morning.”  Kira flushed even brighter, not sure whether to stare in awe or run away.  In order to avoid more mortification she glanced over at the Dwarf, who had also sat down in the small valley and had a smile twitching on his lips.  His silver hair and beard shone in the starlight, and she could barely make out the same golden tracery on the rim of his helm that she had seen on Fírin’s.  With an impending sense of dread her eyes flicked between the pair, and a light broke on her understanding.

“Oh no, oh no,” she muttered to herself, feeling that it was quite impossible for her situation to get more shameful  She risked a glance at them again, hardly believing her own eyes.  “Did…”  She tried to think of a way to phrase her question without sounding even more of a fool.  “Did either of you fight in the War of the Ring?”

“Both of us did,” said the Dwarf.  She shrunk from his steely gaze, but his next statement made her wonder if he had read the real question in her eyes.  “We fought together, in fact.”

Kira clapped her hand over her mouth.  “I’m sorry, my lord,” she said, almost inaudible.  “I didn’t know who you were.  You are Legolas and Gimli, right?  I’m not dreaming or going mad?”

The elf nodded once.

“But—but what are you doing in the Shire?”

“Is it a crime to visit the lands of the people one knew and loved?”

“No… but…”  Kira faltered and looked down.  “I’m sorry; I have no right to speak to either of you this way.  I’m already breaking Mother’s rule being out here so late…”  She snuck another confirmatory glance at the two.

Legolas laid a hand on her shoulder, so gentle that she almost flinched.  “All is forgiven.  We were not expecting a chance encounter by so… audacious a hobbit, but since it has occurred I would not deny it.”  He drew forth from the pack that Kira now saw he was carrying a small lantern, and almost simultaneously Gimli drew from his some flint and tinder, and lit it.  Kira was now able to see the faces of these two heroes more clearly in the yellow light, and she studied their features with a near determination to imprint them on her memory.  Gimli took out a pipe, filled and lit it, and carefully moved downwind.

“Why did you break your mother’s rule?” said Legolas.

Kira wondered why he would even take interest in something as bland as her life, but decided it was best to answer the question.  “I couldn’t sleep, and I thought it’d be nice to look at the stars.  I only live in that hole over there,” she said, gesturing through the small valley in the general direction of home.  “They’re awfully bright tonight; you can see the Furrow.”  She gestured up towards the band in the sky.

“Ah—I had nigh forgotten that that was your people’s name for it.”

Kira immediately thought of who must have told him their names for the stars, and shivered as she thought of how incredibly old these two were.  Questions were on her lips but she had not the heart to say them.  An odd silence descended in which Gimli puffed on his pipe and stared intently at the hobbit child, and Kira stared intently at the ground.

At length Legolas spoke again, this time to the dwarf.  “What precisely are you thinking about, friend?”

“I can’t place her.”

Kira looked up, startled.

“I know I’m not familiar with many hobbit families, miss, but from what I’ve heard it takes a rare hobbit to go out and challenge two travellers in the land alone, especially ones so much larger than her.  But you don’t look like any of the hobbits I’ve known.”

“I suppose you haven’t known any Proudfoots, then.”

“Indeed I have not, though I thought that one of Merry’s daughters had wedded one…  It’s very hard for me to get my head around all the names and ties of kinship with your kind.”

“She did,” said Kira, “and I’m her granddaughter.  My name is Kira—Kira Proudfoot, at your service, sirs.”

Legolas looked at her face.  “The lines of descent have been obscured already, then.  You do not look much like him.”

“That’s all right,” said Kira.  “I didn’t even know until a year or so back.”

“A hobbit not knowing her own genealogy?”  Gimli laughed.  “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“I said I was a Proudfoot,” said Kira.  “We’re much more sensible than Tooks or Brandybucks.  I think they’re supposed to be rather embarrassing.”

Gimli snorted.  “Embarrassing?  And what, pray tell, is embarrassing about bringing about the defeat of the Lord of the Nine?”

“No one believes the Travellers’ Tales are true, sir.”

“I thought I had heard something like that in the Westmarch,” said Legolas.  “Yet you clearly do, and the people around you do not want you to.  Why?”

The question pierced her heart.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “If you’d asked me a year ago if I believed that elves were real I would have laughed in your face—and yet, here I am, talking with one.”  She glanced up at him again.  “I learned how to read, is what did it.  And I read and I saw enough to convince me that maybe not everything I’d read was a bedside story.  But I can’t say why nobody else does; it doesn’t make any sense.  The closest thing I’ve heard is that we’re living in the Fourth Age and those things don’t matter anymore.  Can you explain it?  I’m terribly confused.”

“I fear I am not the right person to ask.  For elves continually look backwards to the past, and Middle-earth has been given to the dominion of Men.  It is our lot to depart, or to fade in the face of their rising.  I have heard Men say that our focus on what was has made us unable to adapt to what is, or to look to what may be, and that is why we must diminish; I do not know if that is true.  As for Gimli and me, we are relics from an earlier Age, soon to depart from the new altogether.  The affairs of this world concern us no longer: not out of will, but of necessity.”

“Why don’t they—wait, depart?  What do you mean?”

“We are sailing West,” said Gimli.  “That is why we came to the Shire—to see it before leaving forever.”

“No!” cried Kira.  “I mean… why?”

“I’m an old dwarf—it’s a miracle I haven’t gone and died yet, in fact.  I may as well go to rest somewhere peaceful.”

“But it’s Elvenhome.  I thought you—both of you—belonged here!”

“Once we did,” said Legolas.  “But it has changed, and the call of the Sea presses ever at my heart.  The King is dead, and I have nothing left to tie me here.  I cannot hold it at bay any longer.  And would you grudge Gimli the chance of seeing the fair Galadriel once more?”

Kira sighed.  “But you can’t go,” she said softly.  “You’re the only ones left.”

“All things in this Middle-earth must pass, child.  Nobody can hold that back forever, as much as we may want to.”

She looked up, and was startled to see sorrow in the elf’s eyes.  “Do you miss them?”

“Very much.”  His eyes darted over to Gimli, and she realised that soon Legolas would be losing him, too.  “I know now why our folk have had so little to do with mortals.  Only necessity brought me into contact with them, and yet the bonds that resulted have shaped the past yen of my life.”  He gave a brief smile.  “Yet I will not grudge the pain that has come since; it is a small price to pay compared with all the good that came as well.”

Kira sat silent for a few moments, thinking.  When she finally spoke her voice was almost a whisper.  “Take me with you, then.”

“What, child?”

“Take me with you.  I see now that you have to go, and I want to go with you.  I don’t want to stay here.”

“But this is your home.  You belong in the Shire, not in the wide world and certainly not in Elvenhome.”

“No, I don’t,” said Kira.  “I don’t belong here, and I don’t belong now.  I’m the only person left who even cares about the past, and I can’t even take a book from a library anymore.”

“I’m sure you are not the only person, Kira,” said Gimli.  “The Fairbairns wish to preserve it, and that is why they have made their rule.  Surely you know the reasoning behind it?”

“I am the reasoning behind it!  If I’d never taken the Red Book from the library, it’d still be around.  But now I believe the Book, and everyone expects me to act as if I don’t.  Do you know how hard that is?”

“I am sorry,” said Legolas.  “I did not realise you were involved in the accident.”

“Does that mean I can come with you?”

“No.”

“But that’s not the half of it.  The Book was lost because I was reading it too much for my friends’ tastes, and they decided to act against that.  I was the accident.”

“Do not blame yourself, Kira.”

“I don’t… but I do.  I mean, I know it’s not my fault, but I still helped bring it about.  Even if I couldn’t help it.  We were supposed to preserve our History but instead it’s been destroyed—there aren’t any complete copies of Translations from the Elvish left, and everything else is locked up.  Our history…” she shrugged, “is gone.”

“Your history?” said Legolas.  “Your history is around you.”

She glanced up again from the ground, looking for a clarification of this statement.  Gimli gave her so strong a look suggesting his long-suffering forbearance for this sort of cryptic talk that in spite of herself she giggled.

Legolas fixed his friend with a keen stare and continued.  “Nor is it something that can be locked away as easily as you suggest.  Eärendil continues to shine, even though many Men have forgotten the source of his light.  Do not lose hope, for you are young yet.”

“Everything’s young to you,” Gimli grunted.

“Everything but the land.”  He turned back to Kira.  “It is well suited to your people, and enjoys your presence to the point that it gladly yields its fruit to you.  Men are not so fortunate.”

“Men have smaller stomachs,” Kira remarked.

They laughed.  “True,” said Gimli.

“And I do know that I should stay here, even if I don’t always want to,” added Kira.  “I’d probably sink your boat, anyhow—the West wouldn’t want the likes of me.”  Her eyes strayed to the dwarf.  “How did you manage that, anyhow?  You weren’t a Ring-bearer.  What if they don’t accept you?”

“They shall have to!”  Gimli laughed.  “For I am going there, whether they will it or not!”

“Nay,” said Legolas with a smile, “they certainly shall.  For the deeds of those in Middle-earth are not unknown to the Lords of the West, and I have already received word of their permission in my dreams.  The Lady Galadriel sounded most pleased—I would not be surprised if she was instrumental in securing him welcome.”

Kira’s jaw dropped.  “You can talk to the people… over there?”

“It was only once.”

“And he was the one that received the dream,” said Gimli.

“Peace!” said Legolas with a laugh.  “We shall see them all in the flesh soon enough, Master Dwarf.”

“How long is it till you sail?” said Kira, turning serious once more.

“Some time yet.  We were charged by many to observe the state of the Shire before we left, for few can see it firsthand now.  And we wished to see the descendants of our friends.  Fortunately the journey from Anduin to the Havens has staved off the sea-longing enough to do so.”

“Well, if you wish to stay in this area for the night there are some friends of mine I’d like to show you, just so that they can see that elves really are real.”

“The same friends who thought you were reading too much?”

Kira nodded.

“Then I doubt even Master Legolas and I shall convince them that they were wrong in what they did.”

“He is right,” said Legolas.  “And we must not tarry much longer if we are to reach the Tookland tomorrow.”

“Will you be coming back this way?  I should like to see you again.”

“We were planning on returning further north,” said Gimli, “but—”

“I do not think that would be wise,” Legolas said.  “It is better to make farewells now and not reawaken any wanton desires.  The Shire is not a place for Elves anymore, even if Dwarves may pass through it with little more than a scowl from its inhabitants.  But I do not see any harm in walking with Kira back to her home and bed.”  He placed a certain stress on the last word that made Kira feel rather sheepish.  But she did not protest this last decision; she was not sure how much she would able to bear parting with these two twice.

They were kind and let her set the pace, doubly slow for her height and her condition.  When they reached Kira’s smial they stopped to say farewell.

“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” said Kira, “but I think I understand why.  I don’t know if all the fair folk in the West know what happened to the Book, but if they do tell them I’m very sorry.”

“We will,” said Gimli.

“I’m very glad I got to meet both of you tonight.  You have no idea how much it means to me.”

“As are we,” said Legolas.  He stooped low and kissed her brow.  “May the Sun shine on your path, Kira Proudfoot, wherever it may lead.”

“May… may the West be everything you hope it will be—and more, besides.”  She opened the door carefully so it would not creak and slipped inside.  “Goodbye.”

She closed the door to whispered farewells on the other side, and snuck back into her bedroom, finding herself standing in front of her window again and looking at the stars.  At length their silhouettes, dark against the starlight, came into view at the top of the next hill, and they paused.  She felt the elf’s gaze upon her home as he lifted a hand against the sky in farewell; then they turned and crested the hill, and Kira saw them no more.

*  *  *

If the next morning Kira looked sombre and a little weary, she was wide awake and a certain light shone in her eyes that had not been there before.  She had only wept a little the previous night for the departure of Legolas and Gimli, and the ensuing hours until morning had made the encounter seem almost dream-like (though not a dream, she assured herself; she had not gotten sleep after going outside, either) and she could turn their words over in her head with little more than a strange sense of peace.  But her burdens still weighed about her; although she knew in her head that what Legolas had said to her was true her heart could not yet accept it.

Now, however, Kira was back in the world of washing and weeding, though she knew, with a clearer purpose than she had ever felt before, what she needed to do as soon as she could find the time.  She finished her chores at noon, and after luncheon asked Mother for leave to go outside and play with her friends.  Setting out with a snack wrapped in some muslin and an admonition to be back by teatime, she began to walk towards the Old Canal—not near the oak, but where the ruffians had begun digging and you could still see the faint outline of the Ash River’s old course in the dip of the land.  It was not exactly a lie she had told Mother, for she ran into her friends along the way and did spend some time with them—but she moved on as soon as Tom remarked upon the “smug look” upon her face and wondered what jolly good thing could have happened to her.

Then she moved onwards and followed the river upstream until it reached Michel Delving, crossed it, and found tucked back in that corner of town the Mathom House.  Aimlessly she wandered through the aisles crammed full of things loved and forgotten, running her hands over the dusty remnants of ages past and occasionally stopping to read a caption card.  Most of the things meant nothing to her, but they were of the past and had been important to someone in their time.  Of course the mithril coat caught her eye, and now that she knew who had worn it and whose life it had saved she could not help but spend some time with it.  It was astonishing—though not really—that something so valuable, even in the cost of its material, could be sitting, unobtrusive, next to broken dolls and old tankards and nobody even knew.

She made her way across town, deciding to save the stationery shop for her first market day of the year, and entered the empty Storage Tunnels.  It was not too hard to find Fatty’s cell if you knew where to look for it, and Kira spent time in there as well, rereading the poem he had carved into the door and feeling rather than seeing the grooves etched into the walls.  It was still too light out to make out the scene from them, but she could reach up to the low ceiling and trace the Sun’s disk with her hands.

The sun was beginning to lower in the sky when she decided to turn back.  She thought of all the other old things in the Shire that must be lying around neglected and wondered if she’d have time in her life to visit them all.  Tomorrow, she decided, she would find a cart and let it take her wherever it was going, especially if it was going somewhere that one of the Travellers lived.  She had a feeling that Tookborough was still out, for fear of disturbing her already precious memory of the last of the Nine Walkers—and besides that the Thain gave her a funny feeling and she did not know if she would be welcome there.  Brandy Hall was too far away, there was no longer a Bagshot Row, and Undertowers did not technically count; so she realised that, if she was lucky, she should go back to the Hill at Hobbiton and maybe get a closer look at Bag End.  She had the feeling that Mr. Gardner would not get her into trouble with Mother.  He, at least, would understand.

So that evening Kira did a little extra work while dodging Mother’s questions concerning her industriousness, and early next morning made some sort of noncommittal excuse that hopefully would not leave her worrying too much if she returned later than she had planned.  Then Kira stepped outside into the bright cool morning air, wondering if she would have to walk all the way to town to find a ride out to Hobbiton.

As it turned out, she did have to go all the way to town, but a farmer coming up from farther south was kind enough to lend her a ride and she arrived a good deal more quickly and a good deal less tired.  After a little bit of nervous waiting and conversation near (but not too near) the Oak Barrel, she learned that one of the goods-carts was headed out on the East Road, and would reach Bywater by noon.  Few hobbits trusted the folk that were paid to carry Men’s merchandise from one end of the Shire to the other, but Kira planned on hopping on the back without the driver even knowing and she was not as afraid of Big Folk, or the hobbits that interacted with them, as she had once been.  So she hid behind the cart until its driver arrived, and when he had hitched his pair of ponies to it, climbed on and hid among the giant furniture being transported.

The journey was uneventful, though she barely avoided discovery when the driver rested at Waymoot.  Kira was most grateful that the driver stopped at Bywater as well, allowing her to get off without any risk to herself.  After a few questions in town (and not too many stares in the direction of the Green Dragon and the Ivy Bush) she was able to find the road that led northwest to Hobbiton.

From there the Hill was not very difficult to find, especially since its presence was signalled by the large mallorn in the Party Field.  She decided that that was as good a place as any to begin, especially since she had never really seen the tree in full bloom and there was no one in the field.  Standing beneath it, she craned her head upward and wondered how elves could bear to live at such a height, and if it were going to continue growing for centuries and centuries since it was an elven tree.  She also briefly considered taking a nap there, since it had worked such marvels on her the last time; but she knew that time could not be wasted on such things as sleep.  Finally Kira just took a turn about the massive bole, her left hand, resting on the silvery bark, guiding her.  She was glancing down at the flowers that had sprung up at the foot of the tree when she suddenly collided with a soft, heavy object.

“Oof.”  She looked up from the ground to see a hobbit, perhaps forty, picking himself up from the ground.  She stared at him for a moment, trying to locate his features in her memory.  “Stars above!  You—you’re the old Mayor’s son!”

He looked startled, but recognition dawned on his face as he looked at her, and at her stick.  “The crippled girl?  From the South White Downs?”  He reached down a hand to help her up.  “What are you doing here?”

Kira brushed the dirt off her dress.  “I should be asking you that—why, I’d nearly forgotten about you.  You used to tell us all the names of the stars and then you left.  Why?”

He laughed.  “I got married.”

“What?”

“Surely you didn’t think I stayed around Michel Delving just to take you stargazing?  Especially when the rest of my family had left for good?  No, my heart was captured, and I had to stay long enough to convince her to come back with me.  But you still haven’t answered my question: what are you doing here?”

“I got a ride on a goods-cart from Michel Delving.”

The old Mayor’s son was about to respond to her hedging when he was mercifully (for Kira) interrupted by the arrival of a hobbit lady running from the direction of the Hill.

“Harding, love, luncheon is—”  She broke off, breathless, as she saw Kira, and walked the rest of the distance.  “Who is this?”

Harding turned to the lady, then to Kira, saying, “This is…”  He faltered, searching for the name.

“Kira Proudfoot,” said Kira, bowing her head.  Both of them started and stared at her.  A look of comprehension spread over Harding’s countenance and suddenly his eyes were filled with pity.  “Forgive me,” he said.  “I did not realise that was you…”

Kira’s eyes darted from one to the other, now heartily confused.

“Come along,” said the lady, taking Kira’s hand; Kira exchanged the right with the left so that she could walk.  “You’re invited to lunch, too, Kira; and we’d best move inside for it won’t wait for us.”  Together they walked towards the Hill, Kira casting questioning glances at the two.

Kira was shocked when they walked up the path that went above the New Row, and more still when the lady opened the door to Bag End and stepped inside.  Half pushed inside by the entrance of Harding behind her, she had to stumble into a chair just to make heads and tails of what was happening.  The lady took her cloak and neatly hung it on a hook behind her.  Mr. Gardner came in from beyond the hall.  “Kira?  What are you doing here, child?”

“I ran into her—quite literally—over at the Party Tree, dad,” said Harding.

Kira’s eyes widened as she looked at Mr. Gardner.  “You were the old Mayor?”

Mr. Gardner smiled.  “Once, yes.  I should have thought that you’d at least have heard the name bandied around.”

“Why aren’t you still?  You’d make an excellent Mayor!”

He chuckled.  “Not everyone in the Shire thought so, evidently.  But I’ve had more than my fill of politicking, so don’t even think about trying to get me back in.  Shall we had over for lunch?”  They made their way into the dining room, where the table was set for a large number of hobbits: the entire Gardner clan, or at least all of those in residence at Bag End.  “Clearly you’ve made the acquaintance of my eldest, Harding,” said Mr. Gardner.

Harding nodded.  “She was one of the local children I met when I was courting Clematis.  I’d never connected her with the incident last November until now, though.”  He gave a wry smile and looked at Kira.  “You’ve changed a lot since I last saw you—what, five years ago?”

“A lot’s happened,” said Kira, who sat down at the extra place Clematis had set for her and began to eye the food.  “Me learning to read, for instance.”

“I can see that,” said Harding.  “I’m terribly sorry for what happened, though—even more so, since I know it was—”  He broke off, shaking his head in wonder and dismay at everything that had happened.  “But what are you doing here?”

Kira blushed.  “I’m sorry for not answering that earlier.  But you see, Mr. Gardner,” she turned and looked at the old Mayor, “I wanted to see all the parts of the Shire that were… well, important in the Third Age, and I thought that here would be a good place to start.”

“Did you want a tour?” piped up a tween Gardner from farther down the table.

“I suppose that was something of what I had in mind,” said Kira.  “It’s just… you have to understand, every time I see the Hill I think it looks like something from a story, not something real; and I desperately would not have that be the case.”  Especially since everything is passing away, she added in her thought.

“I’ll give her the tour,” said Harding, “Father, if there is nothing you would rather have me do.”  He looked at Kira.  “You can at least see all the oldest parts, the parts that haven’t changed much in our time, as I’m fairly sure that none of the children’s rooms are clean.”  He fixed a glare at the tween who had spoken earlier, who turned red and looked down.

“But first,” said a voice from the corner, “we had best get on with the meal, or I shall go mad with hunger.”  Kira glanced over to see the elder Mr. Gardner filling his plate, and smiled as she pulled two pasties off the platter being sent her direction.

*  *  *

After the meal was through and Kira had thanked her hosts, Harding took her aside and began to show and explain the history of the smial, while asking her questions of the area and the children she knew.

“Do you remember the three other children that were always with me?” said Kira.

Harding cast around in his mind for a bit.  “A brother and a sister, right?”

Kira nodded.

“And then there was one other; a mischievous lad, if I remember correctly.”

“Tom.  He was the one that threw the Book into the tree.”

“You don’t say!”  He stopped in his tracks; they had entered another room anyway.  “I thought you were all good friends!”

“We were,” Kira assented.  “And he thought—the other two did, as well, but they knew when enough was enough—that he was just looking out for me.”

“I don’t know if I’m glad I left or not,” said Harding.

“What was so wrong with Michel Delving?”

“Nothing by itself, I suppose.  But folk were edgy.  Oh, they all respect the memory of Sam Gardner; who wouldn’t?  But somewhere along the way they decided that we were becoming too outlandish with our association with Tooks and Brandybucks, having forgotten, apparently, the reasons for those ties.”  He sighed.  “Hobbits can be downright fools at times, Kira.  But I was glad to be gone; after all, this is my home, and at least folk here are still a little more trusting.  They called me Harding of the Hill over in your country—partially to keep me separate from the Harding that lives there, but sometimes I wonder if they just wanted to remind themselves I wasn’t one of them.”

“How awful!”

“Oh, that sort of thing happens all over the Shire; we’re rather stiff-necked.  Granddad still has quite a few good yarns from his time about all the finer folk putting their noses in the air about ‘those gardener upstarts.’  I wouldn’t be surprised if that was really how we got our name.”  He looked over at the room they were in.  “Ah, you’ll like this one—not so much for the room itself but for what’s in it.”  They were in the parlour, and over the mantelpiece hung a sheathed sword.  He got up on a step-stool and took it down.  “This, Miss Proudfoot, is Sting.”

A look of unmixed delight spread over Kira’s face.  She reached out and tugged at its hilt.  “It’s tied!”

“Great-granddad had to put that rule in place when young Faramir Took wanted to show off the forms his father had been teaching him and nearly took off Great-Aunt Goldie’s hand.”

Kira gaped.

“She still hasn’t forgiven him for it.  They’re married, incidentally.”  He replaced the blade in its position of honour.  “And, if there’s no one in it, we’ll be able to see the greater pantry.”

“What’s so important about that?” said Kira, hurrying after him down the hallway into the room.

He pointed to a bit of plaster, hidden behind a sack of potatoes, that was a slightly different colour from the rest.  “That’s where Sancho Proudfoot thought Mad Baggins’ jewels were.”

“Really?” said Kira, and then she thought.  “Sancho, Sancho—I have an Uncle Sancho, all the way out in the Westmarch—couldn’t be the same fellow, but—”

“Kira, my dear, if you’re a Proudfoot you’re probably related to all the folk at that party, from Sancho to its hosts, however distantly.  And now,” he added, as Kira’s mind whirled at all the new information, “I’ve saved the best for last.”  He led her down the tunnel that opened upon the study.

“I’ve seen this before,” said Kira.  “This is where I met with your dad and the Thain and the Master and the Warden.”

“Oh,” he said.  “But no one’s explained it to you, right?”

“No…”

“This is where the Red Book was written.  The desk hasn’t been moved or anything.”

Kira ran over to the writing desk, but since it was an upright it was too tall for her.  Harding fetched her a stool from the corner for her to stand upon so that she could be the correct height.  It was beautifully crafted; there was a drawer beneath the sloping top for quills and blotting paper, and two wells carved in the top for ink and sand.

“The men at Dale made it for Bilbo Baggins,” he explained, “though I think some of the mechanisms may be dwarven.”  He pulled open the main drawer; it slid out soundlessly.

Kira looked around the room.  Most of the clutter from before was gone, and all the books were now stacked neatly in shelves.  “Are you done with your searching, then?”

“Yes, and now we’re comparing all the incomplete versions across the libraries.”

“How does it look?”

“Grim.  We have enough to piece together a good outline of the Elder Days, but it’s nothing near complete.”

Kira grimaced.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise, and anyhow we’re not sure yet.  We have all of the Quenta, and much of the Great Tales, which is a blessing.  Besides, nothing can happen to what we do have anymore, so we don’t have to worry about losing anything else in the future.”

“What about handwriting?”

He shrugged.  “It’s substantial enough.”  Yet they both knew it was nothing compared with what they once had.

“May I stay in here a while?” said Kira.

“I don’t see any problem with it.  Just be careful if you get any books down.”  Harding looked over the room and tsked.  “Somebody left the inkbottle uncapped anyhow; I’ll have to clean it out and refill it.  And don’t break anything!”

“Don’t worry;” said Kira, “I’ve only had problems with these when my friends are nearby.”

The old Mayor’s son laughed, and left Kira alone in the room.  She had thought of getting out one of the books on the shelves and exploring it, but suddenly her solitude had left her in a more reflective mood.  The sun should have been shining through the round window above the desk, but it was behind the clouds now and the room was dreary, and all the talking and all the anecdotes should have done something to make her happy but they hadn’t.  Kira wondered how many times Frodo Baggins had stood in this very spot, perhaps staring out the same window for inspiration, or for strength to write down the most difficult parts of the narrative.

And what for?  The Book was gone, and its copies were locked up, and everything else that was or may have been a part of the past was passed by daily, so commonplace it was ignored.  So much of the Third Age was gone, too much, lost either to time or to the West, where no hobbit could go; and the Fourth Age had no time for the past.  The Great Danger should have been engraved on the hearts of all, but it was trapped, bottled up, forgotten.  She laid her head on the desk, lightly though it was a sound piece of furniture.  How, how had they managed to fail?

In time Kira felt something warm on her face.  She opened her eyes and raised her head: the sun was coming out again, washing the writing desk in golden light.  Kira laid her hands on the surface, hearkening to the warmth the sunlight brought and willing herself the strength to go on once more.  But she had to squeeze her eyes shut, for the sunlight was reflecting off something onto them.  Shading herself with her hand, she cautiously opened her lids to see what it was.

The sun was shining directly into the inkwell, and at its bottom was a centre, made of some bronzy metal.  Curious, she lifted the sand shaker out of its place, but there was only wood beneath it.  Hardly knowing what she was doing, she reached inside the inkwell and pressed down on the metal.  To her surprise, it gave way with a gentle snick.

Kira was startled, and began to look around to see what might have happened.  One of the side panels of the desk had swung down on a miniscule set of hinges.  A secret compartment?  She looked more closely; the panel had revealed a small drawer.  She tugged on it and it slid open.

She heaved a sigh.  Empty.  Or… was that something in the back?  She reached in and pulled out a scrap of parchment.  It was yellow with age, and stiff to the point that she wondered whether she could unfold it without doing any damage to the paper itself.  How long had it been sitting there?  Carefully she laid it on the desk and bent back the creases.

Kira nearly fell off the stool.  She dashed her arm against her eyes, to clear her head and her tears; then she looked at the writing again.  She recognised that hand—the firm, flowing, controlled letters, that had continued, like their writer, on and on no matter how much terrain they had to cover.  Impossible!  How could something like this have lain hidden for over a century?  Wiping more tears from her eyes before they could fall, she looked at the text itself, and read it.

It was a poem, she realised, and one written either by poor light or by overflowing emotion, for the style of the handwriting immediately recalled her to the Mordor chapters.  And the poem was filled with the same sense of despair, but compounded with a longing so intense that she wanted to cast herself down and pine away for something that could never be.

Frodo’s poem…

Frodo’s dream.

For that’s what it was, she realised, but if she had had nightmares they were nothing compared to this.  She did not know whether it was a day or night-time fancy, but it had been real at some time—a sea-dream, gone horribly wrong.  But in this dream not even Valinor could offer the peace he yearned for, and Kira suddenly begged forgiveness for all those long times that she had wished he had stayed—as if that could have changed any of the wreck she and so many were now supposed to rise from.  To feel forever alone, forever alienated, to have the sea-longing denied…  It had better not have ended like that, she thought.  Well, if it had, at least Legolas and Gimli would be there soon to give the Powers the what-for.

She reread the poem, and imagined what it must have been like writing it, and the magic that had worked itself on her heart, that she had not even realised she lost because she had never known she had it, was restored to her.  Frodo’s hands had touched this paper, and now hers were touching it, and the past wasn’t as far away as it had seemed.  It was not much, but it was something genuine, something original, something in his hand; and she had found it.  Maybe he had never wanted anyone to read it, but had forgotten to destroy it when he had time.

Well, it wasn’t about to be destroyed now, and it wasn’t going to be locked up to moulder away, either.  She had read it, had touched it, had felt the same longing and the same despair, and something as great as this could not be contained in mere walls.  She closed her eyes, and saw in her mind the past bursting out of its dusty prison and flying out into the open air, settling on those outside and entering their hearts.  A far cry from reality, perhaps, but better than whatever alternative the Families were cooking up.

And she would endeavour to make that vision real, even if she was the only hobbit in the whole Shire doing it.  This—this poem—was her own sign of hope, hope for renewal of lost memory, and she could not hold it back from herself or others.  Refolding the paper, she placed it inside her dress, close to her heart.  Let the Families do what they wanted; they could not deny her this small joy.

“It is my gift,” said Kira Proudfoot, “and nobody can take it away from me.” 

The End





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