Holiday Drabbles (or droubbles as the case may be) ...

[rabidsamfan]

fictualities asked for this one...

Not Just Gathering Dust

Worth more than all the Shire, Gandalf said, and seeing as how it saved Mr. Frodo’s life I can’t say as I value it much less. But I’d not trade one hobbit’s life for it, so here it stays unguarded, and unregarded too, most days. But it’s a useful mathom nonetheless: when a youngster joins the Borderers, he wears the dwarves’ coat until he’s toughened up enough to bear proper hobbit gear.

It’s funny how often they come to me, those gawky tweens, to ask for stories about the hobbits as wore that coat before them. Would-be heroes, eager to be like the Master and the Thain, who want to hear of battles with orcs, and wolves. Solemn youths, their eyes still flickering with memories of the year that the Shadow darkened their childhoods, who want to hear of the Council of Elrond, and Parth Galen, and hard choices made to protect the ones they love. And if they spend the long night watches battling ethereal cave trolls, or climbing moon mountains of ice and fire, tis well. The more that know the stories, and believe, the more I’ve done the task you set me.

The Story will go on.