Penance

Penance

*Written by Magdaleina*

Note - From here on I’ll be alternating between third person and the journal entries. Hope that doesn’t become confusing. Note that when I put ::s up, that means there’s an author’s note about it at the bottom. Remember this is still a first draft, and beta readers and people to check up on my in-characterness and timeline stuff will be loved and worshipped. Also note: This chapter takes place before the introduction, and was written to explain what was talked about there from another point of view.



Chapter I - A Long Expected Journey

It’d been fifteen years since King Elessar issued the edict that barred the Big Folk from entering the Shire. Mayor Samwise Gamgee had to be impressed by how long it had taken for someone to finally break that law. He only wished that such a thing could have come at a more convenient time, namely not on the same day he planned to leave for Gondor. He and Rosie had been planning to make the trip since the year before.

Sam had only finished packing and loading the cart when he noticed something was amiss. Ferney, their pony, was impatient to leave, Rosie settled in front but searching about in worry, whether for the children she would be leaving to family and friends for schooling or the one that should have been sitting there with her, he was not sure. He could bet it was the latter, however. Elanor was in her tweens, the mischievous years for all hobbit boys and girls, after all. She was highly energetic and, by some grace that he certainly did not pass down to her, had taken to wandering off at the most inopportune of times lately. The thought of traveling out of the Shire made that liveliness all the more potent, and despite himself and his own adventures, Sam spent more time worrying for her than he would have liked. It was his good wife that convinced him to allow her to come along, and seeing as how on a previous visit, the Queen had named their child a Maid of Honor, he saw no reason to disagree.

His first notion might have been to check the house if he could ever find the lass there. “Elanor?” He raised his head toward the gardens, hoping she would not have gone any further than that. A rustle of plants just around the side of the house told him enough, and with an assuring glance to Rosie, he started off into the green to find his daughter.

Bag End was much the same as it had been before Frodo left it to him, though its gardens had grown and taken over most of the property with the help of Sam’s wife and children. The flowers and vegetables they had sown grew tall and healthy, making it particularly difficult to make out anyone or anything hiding amongst them. Once or twice he spied a weed or some unfortunate seedling that’d withered, and he had to resist the urge to tend to them immediately. Bag End and his Mayorship would be under the care of Tolman Cotton once they departed. The garden included.

Another shift in the brush, nearby now. “Elanor?” Sam ventured.

Stillness.

He sighed and strode to the source of the earlier noise, delicately pushing flora aside as he moved. “Elanor, we do not have time for this; it’s time to g --”

A harrowing shriek tore through the air, and Sam’s heel caught on a slick patch of mud as he tried to retreat, face deadly white save for the rapid flow of blood to his cheeks. He had only seen enough to know that the source of that scream was not his Elanor but happened to be very nude…person. Rather than immediately wonder what this stranger was doing in his garden, Samwise, driven by his shock, felt his manners creep into place. It was a woman, and if she was naked the last thing he should have been doing was looking at her, whether she was in his garden or not.

“S-sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to --”

The sound of scrambling, and he looked up in time to catch more shifting of the brush as the stranger hurried to another hiding place and, as he could see, tearing up much of the foliage as she went.

“Here now, those were just planted!” he heard himself stammering, unaware that he was still sitting in the mud. To follow after, he levered himself to his feet, pausing only briefly to note that his jacket had just been ruined thanks to his little tumble.

More annoyed than anything, now, he followed the sloppy trail the stranger had made when scuttling to a new sanctuary, minding this time to stop some ways from where he assessed her to be. The chimney connected to the kitchens rose out of the hill at an odd angle, so where it met with the slope, a small niche was made, where sparse grass grew and the sun rarely ever touched. He could see her there, only barely so from his vantage point, crouched in a manner so as to better cover herself. Her knees were drawn up under her chin, most of her body concealed by the stance or the fall of her wild hair.

He did not raise his voice again, judging by the way she sat and the slight shiver in her stance that whoever she was, she was already frightened enough.

Even from where he stood, however, he knew she was entirely too big to be a Hobbit. How she came to be in his garden, and without her clothing, he did not know, but now that he looked closer, he guessed she might not know either, and if she did, it might not have been by her will.

“Don’t be frightened,” he said, now, lifting a hand in a calming gesture. “Are the--”

He choked back on the question when Rosie’s voice rang out across the yard. “Sam, is something the matter? Elanor is here!”

He turned back in the direction of the road and cart. “Leave her there and bring a blanket, Rosie!” he called, rounding again only in time to stop the stranger from making another run for it. “W-wait!”

She stilled again, and when she looked at him, he could finally see her face. Her eyes were wide with fear, expression tight, and that fear must have been what unsettled him most. She was not cowering; she was steeling herself, either to run away or to lash out at whatever got near enough to harm her. He was reminded of when he’d been told of the wild men that lived in the forests near Minas Tirith, though he highly doubted she was one of them.

Two pairs of feet came thumping up behind him, and he turned, seeing Rosie appear with a blanket as requested. She smiled apologetically when their firstborn came as well, and by Elanor’s face, it had been by her own insistence. “Give it here,” he murmured, just in time to stave off any inquiries about the state of his clothing. He took the coverlet with a nod of thanks, then had to grin sourly at the way he must have looked. “Had a fall, but no trouble.”

“What is it, Papa?” Elanor asked him, just as Rosie had gotten a good glance over his shoulder at the girl hunkered behind him.

“Sweet Brandywine!” she exclaimed, snatching the blanket back from him with hardly a second thought. She strode around and over bravely, but with caution not to scare the stranger away. Her presence confused the naked woman more than frightened her, which left Rosie opening enough to cast the heavy cloth over her shoulders. “You poor dear, what has happened to you?” the kind-hearted Hobbit inquired. The slight wrinkle in her brow indicated that she knew she should not have been there. One of the Big Folk. But Rosie possessed an understanding, an unconditionality to her love that Samwise Gamgee had always admired in her.

“I-I don’t know.”

For all his reflection, he didn’t realize that the stranger had spoken until some moments after it’d happened, long enough that Rosie had ample time to fuss over her some more. By then, Elanor had also joined them. It did not surprise him that his daughter took an interest so quickly, as Big Folk had always fascinated her in the way that Elves had taken his fancy as a young Hobbit.

Rosie went on asking her questions, unaware of the stupor that her husband had landed himself in while he watched them. “Are you alone?”

A nod.

“Do you know how you came here, miss?”

“N-no…”

“No?” Rosie smoothed her hair out of her face gently, a motion she stopped as quickly as she started at a sudden jerk of the stranger‘s head. “I won’t hurt you. Where do you come from?”

Silence, then.

Sam frowned at that. She did not appear to be injured in any way, but he wondered still if she might have gotten a good thump that might have effected her memory. Or she just might have chosen not to speak.

Rosie seemed unaffected by her lack of response. “What is your name?”

That one question had to have produced more of a reaction out of her than anything in the last few minutes had. Her head shot up, that wild look in her eyes coming back, and Sam placed a hand on Elanor’s shoulder to keep her from wandering nearer for the moment.

She searched Rosie’s face with an almost suspicious look, until finally she opened her mouth to answer. At first, nothing came out, a few stuttered syllables, half-utterings.

“It’s all right,” Rosie assured her. “You can tell me, and if you don’t remember or--”

“Sulloeneth.” It came out quickly, slurred almost, and quietly.

Sam found himself mouthing the word as his wife spoke it. “What?”

The stranger glanced between the two of them, drawing in a long breath through her nose. She searched them, as though measuring whether or not repeating herself was the right idea. When it came out again, she sounded more confident, more settled with the answer. “Sulloeneth Dûnrosiel::.”

Sam frowned at that; it was becoming more common among his circle of friends to name children with elvish names, but something about this name did not sit well with him. Not knowing where she’d come from or why was part of it; until he knew otherwise that could very well have been her given name. However, lately Samwise Gamgee had become more and more reliant upon his own instincts. Her hesitation, her body language stated that something about her was false. Her name could very well have been part of it. It simply was not normal for one of the race of men to have Elvish names.

What to do, then? He was not sure he wanted to leave this to Cotton. The best thing for her, and for Hobbiton and the Shire, was to get her out. Quite luckily, they were headed in that direction anyway. Aragorn had written and promised that he and more friends would be waiting on the other side of the Brandywine for them. Perhaps, once that far, the ranger and king would know what to do. He nodded to himself and released Elanor’s shoulder.

With a soft smile, Rosie allowed him to approach, and he knelt before the still wary stranger. He suspected dishonesty, but for now he supposed that could be excused for her fear. “Big folk are not allowed to come to the Shire anymore,” he informed her, as though she could not have already known this. “Now, we are on our way out, ourselves. If you would like to avoid any trouble, there is room in our cart for you to come along.” He raised a finger at that, slowly so as not to alarm her, “If you don’t cause any trouble, that is.” A glance at his wife and child told him they had no objections to his decision.

She searched him with her gaze again, the look of a cornered animal leaving her features completely now, a sure sign whatever state of shock she was in might be leaving her. Thankfully, it seemed as though she was rational, and with hope, she would understand his intentions were what was best for the both of them. At last, a nod.

Sam extended his hand. “I am Samwise Gamgee, Mayor of Hobbiton, at your service.” At the skeptical look at his outstretched palm, he tried to offer what was an encouraging grin. “You’ll come to no harm ‘long as I’m around, I promise you that.”

He helped her to her feet and guided her to the path alongside the garden, which was considerably less muddy and treacherous than the route they’d taken before. She hunched as she walked, gathering the blanket around herself and glared about her, as though expecting to be caught by something terrible now that she was more in the open.

“Elanor?” Sam looked back, an idea occurring to him. His sudden stop made the stranger stumble, but she waited for him.

“Yes, Papa?”

“Go back into the house, to my study. There’s a book on the shelf there, a thin blue one. Bring that to the cart, would you?”

“Surely, Papa!” she replied, hurrying away.

It was an odd idea, but hopefully it would help keep their new companion calm on the trip, maybe even get them some answers later. He helped her up into the back of the cart, where there was still space for someone to sit down. Elanor liked to ride there, but she could stand to do that without being alone or sit in the front with her mother while he walked.

When she returned with what he asked for, he took the bound sheaf of papers and opened it to examine. The pages were blank, as he expected to find them. Returning to the stranger, he held it out to her. “Charcoal is in the satchel next to you,” he said in what he hoped was a non-threatening tone.

She raised a dark eyebrow at him.

“In case you remember anything,” he suggested. “Or to keep yourself busy. Writing things down always helped me relax.”

When all he got was that same blank look, Samwise Gamgee finally gave up and helped Elanor and Rosie up into the cart again, or began to. His wife, for whatever reason, would not be budged to start with. She placed her fists on her hips and tilted her head to the side in that way she had of letting him know she was not satisfied with something.

“Samwise Gamgee, you are not going to rush off with her like this, are you?” she asked.

He frowned, looking lost for the most part. “I don’t think we can spare much time before setting out, Rosie.”

“Half an hour, at least,” insisted his wife. “She needs a bath and some -- some clothes.”

He heard the stranger shift rather abruptly in the cart at that, and quite honestly he could not blame any discomfort she got from that. How his wife hoped to find clothes that would fit her, he had no idea. Still, he understood her reasoning. Anything was better than a muddy blanket.

“Half an hour,” he conceded. “Then we get on our way.” He went to Ferney, then, and he patted his muzzle affectionately. Best not to leave him all tethered when he could at least have himself a drink in that time. It wouldn’t take too long to get him back together again, anyhow. Behind him, Elanor jumped down from the cart and with her mother helped the stranger out as well. After some low-toned yet good natured fussing that all hobbit women were prone to, the three of them vanished into the house.

Sam took a moment then to look up toward the sun. Half an hour would be no great sacrifice, he decided. The Brandywine Bridge was still some distance away, many days, but with luck the time would pass without incidence.

Though he had to admit, this certainly did make things more interesting. In spite of this minor setback, it was exhilarating to be off on an adventure again. Frodo had given him that. And his uncle Bilbo, too.

What luck, indeed!



To be Continued.



AUTHORS NOTES:

Sulloeneth Dûnrosiel - You might recognize this from the first chapter. Now you might be thinking What? Saruman came back as a girl? The name means exactly what I said it did in the previous chapter. The first name anyhow. “Lady of Many Names”, I believe, is the rough translation, but you can correct me if I’m wrong. Anyone with a fine eye for the Tolkien Languages might have picked this up when they read the first chapter, since names ending in -eth, -wen, and -ion or -ien are commonly female.