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The Baranduin was high and brown that spring, full of mud from the gentle fields of the Shire. The stones of the ford were slick with it and as Maglor picked a cautious path across, boots in one arm, stick in the other, he found himself regretting the reckless impulse that had sent him to the borders of the Shire, rather than the marketplaces of the Breeland. The folk of Bree, though, tended to fence their gardens and lock their doors, and while these things were hardly insurmountable obstacles, they did rather hinder his ability to gather his provisions quickly. The Shire, though, was full of tiny bakers with large appetites and a disinclination to security.
Even eternal sea-side penitents like a bit of variety in the diet.
The far shore of the ford was not much better. A stray gull, far inland, hovered in a breeze above, mocking, as Maglor sank to his knee in a patch of sticky mud that smelt strongly of manure and wondered just how grievously he had miscalculated. He had crossed the river, though, and whatever else might be said about him, none would dare call Maglor a quitter, at least, not while there was a bad decision to be made.
He followed the muddy spring road for a time, until he found some ponies at a trough and disrupted their watering for long enough to wash away the worst of the grime. There was a great warren of hobbit holes, near a town in their own right, in the hillside beyond the fields, and over the smell of the horses, he could smell bread. Then, with a shout from the barn, a fleet of sturdy hobbit youths, armed with an array of agricultural implements, came tumbling into the pasture. He’d have stood his ground against them, maybe, until he spotted the little brown-haired lass with a switch in her hand. She had a goose, driving the awful thing ahead of her, honking and hissing.
He jammed his damp feet into his boots and made haste down the road, bemoaning the lost culinary offerings of the settlement.
He was out of practice, surely. Once, he would have stood proud, sung the little folk, and their star-cursed goose, to nescience, pillaged the larder, and danced his way back to his shoreline, pockets filled with seed cakes, sweet dried stonefruits, maybe even a pie. He’d have been generous, and left all the clams to the shorebirds for a fortnight, at the least.
There was a commotion at the crossroads ahead, a stuck wain, an argument over the right of way, something that blocked the way and meant that he’d not be escaping that way unremarked.
But here! A great, spreading oak, already in full leaf, branches close enough to the ground. He swung himself up and found a comfortable limb with a view of the road. He could, perhaps should, have given up his errand as lost, and made his escape across the open country, but he was already here and he was stubborn, if not a little curious. They were flaws of the character perhaps, the sort of thing that one could almost call charming, were they not overshadowed by everything else he’d ever done.
The blockage at the crossroad appeared to have been caused by a mule who had, sensibly, in Maglor’s opinion, decided that he had had quite enough of this tramping about in the mud and that he would go no further. This left his hobbit companion tugging at his lead, chirruping and cajoling with increasing desperation as another wain tried to maneuver around the beast, only for one of its wheels to leave the well trodden center road and become mired in the even muddier ditch.
A great ruckus announced the arrival of his pursuers, the young hobbits all running about like an anthill that had been kicked, trying to figure out how their quarry had gotten away from them while the much put-upon mule-driver insisted that no one had passed that way, least of all a strange Big Person.
“It’s rude to eavesdrop, or didn’t your mother tell you?” The little goose girl looked up at him through the rustling leaves. “It’s also rude to trespass onto strangers' farms and get their horse trough all muddy. I bet you wouldn’t like it much if someone washed off their grubby feet in your drinking water, would you?” She leaned back against the tree and watched the commotion.
“Aren’t you going to tell them you found me?”
The girl snorted. “Why should I do that? They wouldn’t believe me when I said you were an elf. You are, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“My name’s Belladonna. Belladonna Took. What’s yours?”
“Didn’t your mother tell you it’s rude to pry?”
“Names aren’t prying, not for most folks.”
With the help of an apple, the mule had finally been tempted out of the road, and the wain set right.
“What are you doing here? They say your folk have a harbor in the west, with boats and all. Is that where you were going?”
“No.”
“Oh, you’re a grumpy one. I didn’t think elves were like that.”
“Well, try living forever and see how cheerful you are.”
She laughed, “Oh, I like that! It does seem wearisome. Don’t you get bored?”
That gave Maglor pause and he prodded at a fluffy bit of lichen. "Today has been rather too eventful."
“Good!”
"Belladonna!"
The girl put out her tongue at the group of boys.
"I'm coming!" She didn't look up again. "Supper time. If you think you can make a proper job of sneaking about this time, I'll see if I can leave something out for you."
"A pie."
"Oho! A demanding fellow on top of it all! Master Elf, if you want something so fancy, you'll have to come to the front door, like a respectable person. A good night to you!"
That was how Maglor found himself pacing in front of a little round door, bright red with a little brass knocker at the center, shaped like a wolf.
“Oh.” Belladonna said. “I didn’t think you would actually come. You’re braver than I thought.”
“You implied there would be pie.”
“Bella! Tell them we don’t want any!”
“He’s not selling anything, Da!” She motioned Maglor inside. “That’s my Da, Master Took, you ought to call him. We’re an important family in the Shire, the Tooks are, so be polite.”
He couldn’t quite explain what happened after that, except that he was rather significantly outnumbered by hobbits generally, Tooks, specifically. They were all at great pains to assure him that this meant something rather different and that he was indeed lucky to have been found by such an open-minded and worldly hobbit clan. Indeed they seemed rather pleased to have ‘collected’ him, and were more than happy to simply call him Master Elf.
Somehow, he wound up lounging on the drawing room floor, as it was the only place they had room for him, quite full of pie, and sharing a bottle of something called Old Winyards with the Old Took, both of which were far too new to have earned the epithet, but then, the Shire was a young land.
There were a great many children, some of whom stayed near their mother’s skirts, while the others had surrounded him.
“How do you say ‘stinky-face’?” asked Belladonna, shoving at one of her brothers.
“Oh, that would be þau - actually, no, ask me another.”
“What about -”
“What about bed?” suggested Mistress Took, to much protest.
As the flood of complaints swelled and overtopped their banks, Maglor made his escape, pocketing several uneaten sausage rolls and half a bottle of wine on his way out. Back under the watchful stars, he paused. A lone gull, out late, flew over, white feathers burnished gold in the lamplight and gave a scolding croak.
“Oh, very well.” He rummaged among his pockets and chose a few of the prettiest shells he had, laying them out on the stoop. “What song will you have tonight, my lady?”