1. Changed

            Thundering hooves kicked up grass and dirt as I left my older sister in the dust. Even though we were heading farther away from Hobbiton (a village in the Shire inhabited by Hobbits in Middle-earth), I dared my sister to race me. Even though she had her apprehensions of going anywhere near the outskirts, she couldn’t turn down a challenge. Of course, she should have known from the start that Cherry, her pony, was no match for Remy, my pony. Remy, like me, was always up for a race.

            Our ponies matched our personalities fittingly: Cherry represented my sister as Remy represented me.

            Remy barreled almost into the forest, the sun beat down on our backs. We were a black blur as we flew. I’d lost Cherry’s hoof beats behind us, so I assumed my sister gave up on the race. I slowed Remy from his sprint to a very lazy jog. Eventually, he slowed himself to a walk, soon stopping under the shade of a massive tree. I leapt off him, feeling his body shake with adrenaline. He hadn’t had any competition for a while; I could tell the race was a fresh, nice change for him.

            It was a refreshing change for me, too.

            “We showed her, didn’t we, boy?” I laughed, gently patting his thick, black neck. “I think this is a good spot to rest and wait for her, don’t you think?”

            While Remy enjoyed the shade of the tree, I began to climb it. Thankfully, my outfit—trousers and a blouse—would allow me to do such a task. Most Hobbit women preferred to wear dresses. My sister fit into that category, as did my mother. However, I wasn’t a part of that group in any sense, minus the gender part of it.

            I wasn’t your stereotypical Hobbit woman of the Shire. I didn’t wear frilly dresses, nor did I fear what the world has to offer beyond the Shire’s borders. My mind has always focused on some sense of adventure. Most find that quality to be a bit unnerving.

            I perched myself on a thick, sturdy branch, gazing ahead, waiting for my sister. I swung my legs underneath me, looking out in the distance. Ah, the Shire. I was proud to say I called the place home. It was the most beautiful place to live in—of course, it would be to me since it was the only place I had ever been in.

            After what seemed like a half hour, a chestnut figure came trudging along. It was Cherry, carrying my sister on her back. My sister dismounted, dragging her exhausted pony to join Remy. She immediately looked up to the tree with green eyes. I waved to her, smiling. She just shook her head.

            Like my parents, my sister couldn’t understand me most of the time.

            “It’s about time you got here,” I joked. “I was about ready to take a nap.”

            “Funny,” my sister said sourly, her hands on her hips. “Come down, Lily, before you hurt yourself.”

            “But I won’t,” I sang. “Stop acting like we’re children, Cecelia. We’re adults now.”

            “Yes, we are, yet you don’t act like one.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Come down, now, before you do fall and hurt yourself. I don’t want to have to end up lugging you all the way back to Jack injured all because you were stupid.”

            At the mention of my husband, I held my hand to my face to stare at the gold band around my ring finger. Yes, I am married. So, how old am I? Well, I look younger than I really am. My true age is forty-five, Cecelia is ahead of me by two years, yet we both don’t look our ages. That’s the thing about Hobbits: we don’t look the age we really are most of the time.

            It’s a good perk, because it’s fun to mess with people’s minds when you tell them your true age, and then they gape at you, dumbfounded.

            Cecelia kept her hard gaze on me until I caved. I shimmied down the tree, landing perfectly on my feet. I glared at my sister, who was very little like me. We both possessed the red hair trait, yet hers was more of a dark auburn, mine was more towards an orange color. Her eyes were a rare green whereas mine were just an ordinary muddy brown. Contrasting most Hobbits in the Shire, our hair isn’t curly, but rather wavy or almost straight. Our figures are slightly different, with me being leaner than Cecelia.

            “You know, I don’t know why I give in to your challenges,” Cecelia snorted. “I always lose.”

            “You never have to accept them,” I retorted, fingering Remy’s short black mane. “There’s always the choice of refusing. You just want to beat me one day.”

            “You have no idea how right you are.” Cecelia laughed.

            While our ponies grazed, we did what any sisters would do: talk. We sat on the grass, picking at strands closest to us, enjoying the nice weather. The occasional wind would pick up, sending our hair flying behind our backs. I closed my eyes at those times, accepting the wind’s embrace.

            “How have Mum and Papa been?” I asked my sister as I lay on the ground, eyes stuck to the sky.

            “Oh, the usual,” Cecelia replied casually. “They wonder about you.”

            “Then why don’t they bother to visit Jack and me? We’re always home.”

            “Lily, you know why they won’t visit.”

            Ah, yes, I did know. It wasn’t because of whom I was married to, if you were thinking that. I was no stranger to the reminder of my parents disowning me from the family. Yes, it sounds rather cruel, doesn’t it, to have a daughter become an outcast to the family? My ousting was for the silly matter of me not behaving how a Hobbit should, let alone behaving like a Hobbit woman should.

            Back when Cecelia and I were children, our parents were worried by our boisterous behavior. Of course, they believed that it was just a phase, and that the hunger for adventure would die down. It had with Cecelia, but it never had for me, and that was all thanks to my best friend in the Shire: Bilbo Baggins.

            As I grew older, my parents disapproved of me wandering off with Bilbo, going on our “adventures”. Really, I never understood why they never bothered to accept me for who I was. Besides, the “adventures” I had embarked on, whether with or without Bilbo, hadn’t been dangerous at all. It seemed, though, my parents were stubborn Hobbits and refused to change their minds even the slightest.

It made sense as to why Cecelia and I were stubborn in our own ways.

My parents tried to keep me away from Bilbo. They tried to rein in Cecelia, too, when they found out that she also hung around with him. Though they were successful in keeping Cece away from Bilbo (for the most part), their attempts to keep me from seeing him weren’t enough to hold me back. As if they could keep me away from my best friend! Hell, when everybody was asleep, I snuck out, and they never knew!

However, my clean slate had been tainted when I was a teenager.

            Cecelia had caught me sneaking out one night and threatened to tell Mum and Papa. It was ironic, how she wanted to rat me out to our parents for sneaking off to see Bilbo when she snuck off with me every so often. My sister wasn’t always a smart woman; she failed to realize that if she tried to throw me to the wolves, I would take her with me.

            I used that logic to my advantage. I had something to use against Cecelia, something I knew that she wouldn’t dare risk me using. When I threatened her, she immediately backed off and swore to keep my secret outings, well, secret. I made sure to sound convincing when I told her that if she so much as peeped to Mum or Papa, I’d tell them what I knew about her. They surely wouldn’t approve of what I’d tell them about my sister.

            As Cece and I grew older, she became more like Mum, wanting to live the stay-at-home mother life, striving to settle down with a husband and start a family. Mum expected me to have the same goals. Ha, not likely. My mind—to this day—was fueled with the hunger for adventure, a chance to feel free and away from my parents’ anger towards my “unnatural” behavior.

            True, I had settled down with a good Hobbit, but that didn’t make me change in any way. I am still the same girl I have always been since I was little.

            When I had been old enough to leave my old hobbit-hole, my parents couldn’t have been happier to kick me out. Cecelia had left a little bit before I was banished from the house. I had taken refuge at Cecelia’s since I knew she’d let me stay with her. Reluctantly, she had, and she hadn’t hesitated to boast about how she “told me so” when she knew that Mum and Papa would kick me out the moment I was old enough to leave. I had lived with my sister for many years until I was engaged to Jack.

            Since my parents didn’t acknowledge me because my personality was out of the ordinary, I dropped my maiden name the moment I was married. If they didn’t consider me family anymore, why should I keep my old last name? On my wedding day, I ceased to be Lily Purefoy and instead became Lily Petrova. I disliked that my married name sounded awfully close to my maiden name, but I learned to love it. The married name I had fit me better anyway.

            “You would think that they would have gotten over the fact that I’m not who they want me to be,” I sighed to Cece, snapping myself out of recalling my past and how it slowly led up to our parents disowning me. “I mean, I was grateful that they at least attended the wedding. Of course, they acted as though nothing had gone on between us.” My jaw clenched at the memory. Those other wedding guests hadn’t seen it, but my parents, Cecelia, Jack, Bilbo, and myself knew of my family situation.

            “Yes, I know,” Cecelia whimpered. “I wasn’t exactly happy about that, either. I had thought they would have at least apologized, or maybe even took back what they said about disowning you. I figured the day would have been one where we were all genuinely happy.”

            “Was anybody?” I chuckled darkly.

            “You seemed to be, as did Jack.”

            “You must’ve been fooling yourself, sister. I was hiding my true feelings that day.”

            “Well, fine, then Jack seemed to be the only one who was enjoying the day, as he should have been, just like you should have been. Speaking of the fellow, how is he?”

            “Fine, fine. I’m still trying to get him to ride Remy, or make him consider buying a pony for himself,” I reported. My eyes stayed trained on a massive cloud, watching it snail along the blue sky.

            “Lily,” Cece moaned. “You can’t expect everyone to be into the same things as you. Don’t push things that you love to do on others around you, it could make them uncomfortable. Did you maybe think of that?”

            “I had, at times,” I confessed sheepishly. “I just—” I sucked in a breath. “I just want someone to ride with besides you, not that you aren’t the ideal company when riding.”

            “Then why not ask Bilbo?”

            “Oh please, he’s long forgotten his yearning for adventure.” I snorted. “He’s become tame over the years, unlike me. Besides, he’s allergic to horses, though not badly. If I tried to get him to ride, he’d have a sneezing fit.”

            “Hmm, point taken.”

            After our conversation ceased to exist and the sun started to set, Cecelia decided it was best if we headed back to our homes. I couldn’t have agreed more. We set off for our hobbit-holes at a steady trot.

            Once we entered the safety of Hobbiton, the sights, sounds, and smells of daily life assaulted us. The dirt roads were somewhat narrow, which made it hard to travel on if you were going one way and a cart was coming another. Hobbit children who were out playing laughed and tumbled into the road. At the sight of Cecelia and me, they all ran towards us, surrounding Cherry and Remy. The ponies were used to this and were used to the children running under their legs and trying to reach for their muzzles.

            The children eventually lost interest and continued whatever game they had been playing. Cecelia and I ventured on to our homes, passing Bag End, Bilbo’s home. A pang of sadness hit me, passing his round green door that looked freshly painted. Bilbo rarely left the boundary of his fence anymore. If anything, he gave off the air that he was becoming a recluse.

 Time had changed my best friend, and I didn’t think it was for the better.

I wasn’t the only one who was saddened by the empty yard. I didn’t have to steal a look at my sister to know that she felt solemn, too, about Bilbo confining himself to Bag End. It seemed as though time made us go our separate ways, as did the paths our lives took. However, I saw time as more of the culprit than our lives.

I bid Cecelia farewell once she made it to her home. Keeping Remy at a brisk trot, I headed for my home.

At the sight of the familiar fencing connected to the hobbit-hole, I slowed Remy before dismounting. I led him through the small gate, un-tacked him, then let him loose to do what he pleased. Remy lazily strolled around in his pasture. From a distance, I saw the tiny shack I had Jack build for Remy when he first came to the family. It was worth all of Jack’s hard work in the end, Remy used it often.

With Remy’s bridle dangling on my arm and his saddle hugged to my chest, I took careful steps to the round door.

It was as if Jack knew I was home, because before I got even halfway to the door, he had it open, immediately rushing out to help me with Remy’s saddle.

“Lugging this thing in should be no problem for you by now,” Jack teased me as he crossed the threshold first, followed by me. “You’ve only carried it back and forth for years.”

“You would think so,” I agreed, gently dropping the saddle on a bar that would support its weight, along with the bridle.

            “How was your ride?”

            “Good, like it always is.” I blew a strand of hair out of my face.

            “Cecelia went with you?”

            “Of course she did.”

            “You raced again, didn’t you?”

            “Of course.” I snorted. “It wouldn’t be a ride without one.”

            Jack sighed. “You want to suck up any bit of excitement you can get.”

            “You know me too well.” I beamed. Jack took me in his arms.

            I had married a fine Hobbit. He is just a few inches taller than me with mussed dark hair. Mind you, his hair isn’t curly like a Hobbit’s is normally, his is straight. On top of his personality, I fell hardest for his blue eyes, eyes that sucked me in from the moment I looked into them.

            “Did you see Bilbo at all today?” Jack continued with the questionnaire.

            “No.” I frowned. “You should just expect that answer every time you ask me.” I sighed heavily. “I feel like a rotten friend, Jack.”

            “Why?”

            I gazed up at him. “I haven’t spoken to him for a while; I don’t like to lose contact with friends. Quite frankly, I can’t remember the last time I saw him or even spoke to him.”

            “Well, you can’t put the blame all on yourself. You can’t feel obligated to keep in touch with him; he has to put in effort as well. He is as much at fault as you are.”

            “You aren’t helping me feel better.”

            “Sorry, I was giving you the truth.”

            “I know you were.”

            “If you’re so worried about losing him, why not visit him? You know where he lives,” Jack reminded me.

            “What if he’s become antisocial and doesn’t want company?”

            “Oh please, I doubt that he wouldn’t want to see you. You’ve known him since you were children.” Jack rubbed the small of my back.

            “True, but still, Jack…What if he’s forgotten about me, or even Cece?”

            “I highly doubt he’s forgotten either of you. You can’t just forget friends whom you’ve known for decades. It’s one of those seemingly impossible things.” Jack’s blue eyes went soft. “Look, regardless whether he does or doesn’t want to see you, go visit anyway. It may do you both some good to reconnect. And if he refuses to let you in, barge in.”

            “That sounds rather rude,” I stammered.

            “If you’re best friends with him, I doubt he would be angry with you.”

            “Sometimes I wonder about your logics, Jack. You forget a lot of variables, like time. Time can change a lot of things. Still…I guess it’s worth a shot.”

            “It is,” Jack agreed, looking smug. I rolled my eyes playfully at him. Jack always loved it when he was right, like any person would, but he relished it more only because most of the time when it came to anything, I was right.

I pecked Jack on the cheek. “Maybe when I take Remy out tomorrow I’ll drop by and see him. I doubt he’d leave Bag End; he hasn’t for quite some time. In fact, I’ve heard people rarely see him come out the door anymore. If he does, it’s only to retrieve his mail.”

            “Maybe something is wrong with him. Maybe he’s going through a hard time and doesn’t want anybody digging where they shouldn’t.” Jack shrugged. “Even though you have friends around you, if you want to be alone, you make sure you stay away from everyone and give yourself some time alone.”

            “Well, I think years are too much time to be alone if you are going through a rough patch.”

            “Well, whatever his situation is, you’ll find out tomorrow.”

            Indeed I would. 

**I know it's early to ask, but, who likes it so far? Aren't Lily and Jack just adorable??**