Title: Feet
Summary: A series of connected drabbles/vignettes set throughout the Quest about hobbit feet.
Fandom: LOTR
Disclaimer: All characters, settings and events referenced in the story belong to the Tolkien Family.
Author: Endaewen
Rating: G

Burrs:
Hobbit feet are tough. They have to be, after all hobbits rarely wear shoes or boots, regardless of the weather. Instead their feet have naturally tough soles and the tops are covered by thick hair. They're tough, but not inpenetrable. Thinking back on our journey, I'm surprised there weren't more problems. The ones we did have, well some were potentially serious, while others were quite amusing.

"Burrs!" The one word was filled with disgust and exasperation, the way Sam said it. Frodo and I had escaped the worst of it, but looking at the other three hobbits and the pony, I could see why he sounded that way. There'd been a few problems with the clingy plant seeds before, but nothing like *this*. The pony's legs and underbelly were thickly sprinkled with the things, especially the tufts at his fetlocks. As for his tail, the less said the better, but Sam had quite a job before him to get the pony groomed and free of the seeds.

Looking at Pippin, I couldn't help but stifle a chuckle. He was balanced on one foot and pulling at the hair on the other. I'd seen the hair on his feet in various states before, dusty, muddy, wet, but never *spiky*. Merry and Sam were in the same state. It appeared that their feet had been thickly covered by the little brown balls. As had the cuffs of their trousers. Actually, there were burrs up to the hobbits' waists. At the same time Pippin was muttering to himself. I couldn't quite make out what he was saying, but I suspect that if Merry wasn't in the same state, he'd have been scolding the youngest of the hobbits for his language.

Frodo had escaped the worst of it because he was mounted on the pony, and I because there wasn't as much opportunity for the things to cling to my clothes. Oh, I had a few stuck to me, including one or two that had managed to work their way into my boots, but nothing too bad, at least not when compared to the poor hobbits. Clearly, I was going to have to give them time to deal with the worst of the uncomfortable situation now that we were out of the problem area.

I called a short halt and helped Frodo down from his pony-back perch. Merry and Pippin had immediately sat down and began picking the burrs out of the matted hair on their feet. Sam, on the other hand had ignored his burr-covered feet and legs and started to work on Bill, the pony's legs after checking on the Ringbearer.

It only took a moment or two for me to remove the burrs that I was wearing involuntarily, so I convinced Sam to work on his feet, while I cleared the prickly mess off of the pony's legs. Actually, I should say that *Frodo* managed to convince Sam to worry about himself for a change. I had no luck at it. Even so, he was soon carefully untangling the seeds from the pony's coat. Ten minutes or so later, we were still wearing burrs, but most of the remaining ones were not in places to cause trouble. Still, once we set up camp a few hours later, it took the hobbits half an hour or so to get rid of all the burrs they were still wearing.

Aragorn chuckled at the memory. Sam was finding burrs in Bill's tail all the way to Rivendell, some ten days later. None of us were sure if they were new ones or left-overs from that bad patch. Generally we ran into a few burrs each day. Luckily, that day was more amusing than troublesome compared to some of the other problems that we had. Actually, I've heard them laughing and joking about their memories of the 'Day of the Burrs' as the four of them call it now.

Title: Feet
Summary: A series of connected vignettes set throughout the Quest about hobbit feet.
Fandom: LOTR
Disclaimer: All characters, settings and events referenced in the story belong to the Tolkien Family.
Author: Endaewen
Rating: G

Slivers:

The most common incidents were where one or another of the hobbits would step on a thorn, or once or twice, a large sliver. That tended to happen once or twice a week. I'm surprised it didn't happen more often, but that might have had something to do with their ability to move so silently. At that skill, they easily outdo most of the Rangers I know, including myself. No-one knows precisely how they manage that feat, but I suspect it has a lot to do with observing their surroundings.

By the time my first week in their company had ended, I found that the hobbits were well experienced with the problem, and had a system for dealing with thorns and slivers, that took only moments. It was a co-operative venture, where one of the others would pull it out, as the soles of your own feet are hard to reach. Generally, that was all that was needed. However, sometimes it was more difficult.

Our first day past the Midgewater Marshes, Frodo was limping. Sam was the first to notice it, but, from what I overheard, Frodo said it was nothing, but when Sam persisted, he said that he thought he must have bruised his foot on a stone, that's all. Still, by the time we made camp late that afternoon, I could see that he wasn't any better. In fact, all the hobbits were somewhat tender-footed for some reason. Thinking about it later, I decided that the previous two days in the wet marshes must have softened the soles of their feet temporarily, making them more sensitive to the harder ground we were on now. Either way, whatever was affecting them went away within a day or so with no ill-effects.

I could see that Frodo had a problem, but I didn't know how to approach him about it. None of the hobbits trusted me yet, though Frodo, I think, did more than the others, so I didn't want to be too pressuring. However, I couldn't just leave it and hope that whatever was causing the injury would just go away for two reasons. One, that I knew what Frodo was carrying, and what pursued us and any injury left untreated could slow us down and leave the Ringbearer more vulnerable to the forces of the Enemy. And, secondly and most important, it went against my instincts and training to leave anyone in unnecessary pain when I have a chance to try and help, especially someone who was becoming a friend.

After some thought, I decided not to approach Frodo just yet. All four of the hobbits were adults (or so I presumed, not knowing their exact ages) and could be assumed to know how to take care of themselves and each other. If it was still a problem in the morning however, I would find a way.

The next morning, whatever had been bothering Frodo the day before was still clearly a problem when I woke him with the other three. I had taken the last watch, noticing that that was the most difficult for the hobbits. I watched him limping as he packed his gear together. "Are you all right, Frodo?" I asked quietly. I didn't want to make a big fuss of whatever was bothering the hobbit. Frodo nodded his reply, but at the same time, grimaced as he stepped on his sore foot. "Are you sure? We've got a long day ahead of us," I nodded towards Weathertop, our goal, visible against the sky, still at least a day's travel at our current pace.

"I'm pretty sure it's just a bruise, nothing to worry about," he said uncomfortably.

"Would you let me check, just to be sure?" I asked. After a moment, Frodo nodded, clearly somewhat embarrassed at the attention. He sat where I pointed to, close to the fire. There wasn't much visible on his sore foot, just a bit of redness around the heel area, but when I felt the area gently, I could tell that it was the problem spot. There was a hard lump under the callus, that made Frodo hiss a bit when I probed it. Clearly, the problem was more than a mere bruise, and I said so to the hobbits who had gathered around while I was busy. It seemed more like an abscess, and would need to be drained.

At Frodo's nod, I did so. The preparations were quick, there was hot water left from breakfast. Within minutes the abscess was drained and cleaned and we found what had caused it in the first place: a bit of thorn. It must have broken off when the rest of the thorn was removed a few days before.

At any rate, Frodo's foot healed without any trouble after that, and a few days later you would never have known it had happened in the first place.

All four of them were more careful about slivers and thorns after that, making sure that the whole thing was removed. That was the only incident of that kind for the entire trip, thank goodness. Luckily there weren't any further problems from the abscess for Frodo after it was drained. I had been somewhat afraid that it would become infected. We had little in the way of first aid supplies with us, and all I had been able to do was make sure the area was kept as clean as possible until it healed.

Title: Feet
Summary: A series of connected vignettes from the perspective of Aragorn set throughout the Quest about hobbit feet.
Fandom: LOTR
Disclaimer: All characters, settings and events referenced in the story belong to the Tolkien Family.
Author: Endaewen
Rating: G
Note: These seem to be getting longer with each one. Is this a good thing?

Frostbitten:

Caradhras was a combination of bad luck and circumstance. We had prepared for every reasonable risk that we could think of before we set out from Rivendell, but storms like the one that drove the Company to turn back from the Redhorn Pass are extremely rare, almost unnatural. To this day, I sometimes wonder if that storm had help. We certainly needed every bit of the firewood that Boromir suggested we carry.

Despite the precautions we had taken, I suspect that all of us, save Legolas, ended up with a mild case of frostbite by the end of the failed attempt at the pass. I remember the wind stealing what little warmth I had that night and numbing my face and ears, no matter how I tucked my hood and scarf. No doubt it was the same for the others.

Gandalf had finally surrendered to the inevitable and lit the fire that all of us had attempted and failed to light. All of us were soon clustered around it as the surrounding snow melted and we were trying to dry out snow-soaked cloaks, hoods and boots, all of which we had brought from Rivendell. Even the four hobbits were wearing boots now. They'd carried them, this far on our advice, as we knew the mountains could be cold. They'd finally given in when the snow reached over their ankles. Of course, by this point it was at least shoulder-high on the smallest of the four, once away from the fire.

We ended up carrying all of the hobbits down past the snow-line as the snow from the blizzard was chest high on Boromir and I, far too deep for them to walk. For the next days I saw one member or another helping Pippin as much as he would let us. It wasn't as much as we wanted to though, as the young hobbit had quite a bit of pride and didn't want to ask for help.

Still the Valar were kind to us that day. It could have been worse, so much worse. Despite the injury and the lack of possible proper care, no permanent damage was done, for which I am still thankful.

Thinking it was probably time to check on the hobbits and make sure they were getting properly warmed up again, particularly Frodo, who had been the worst affected by the cold, I was watching the hobbits doze on the other side of the fire, feet stretched out to warm, when I noticed something odd about one of Pippin's boots. There was what seemed to be a gap at the side of it. The boot looked as though the stitching holding the upper and the sole together had given way at one point. "Pippin?" I called softly. He shook himself out of the dozing state that all of the hobbits were in and responded, though he seemed only half-awake. At his response, I circled the fire and crouched beside him to talk.

"Warming up all right there?" I asked him, quietly in an attempt to not wake the other dozing hobbits.

"Yes," the youngest of the hobbits replied, "though my feet are still numb. In fact, they're so cold they hurt," he continued.

That didn't sound good, in fact it sounded like one of the things I was hoping we wouldn't have to deal with on this stormy night at all. Frostbite. I tried to explain my concerns to the young Took without scaring him.

What I hadn't realized was that our conversation had wakened one of the other hobbits. Frodo spoke up from Pippin's other side, where he was sitting. "He's right, Pippin. It's rare, but not unknown in the Shire. If Bilbo's tales of the Fell Winter are correct, frostbite's nothing to leave to chance."

That seemed to be enough to convince the young hobbit that I wasn't worrying about nothing. Indeed, once the boots were off, I could see the tell-tale signs of mild to moderate frostbite on the toes of both feet. The pale colour and waxy skin were very evident especially the blisters, particularly where the split in his boot had been, it continued down the side of that foot. Not gone so far as to cause serious or permanent injury, but it was going to be painful for him for a while. Strangely, there were also signs of mild frostbite down his legs, though less severe. It took only a moment for me to figure that out. It had to have been the snow falling down the inside of his boots, which were shorter than those of the Men in the Company. Of course, by this time not only Frodo had been awakened, but Merry and Sam as well. All three of them were peering over my shoulder worriedly.

The usual treatment for frostbite at this level is to use warm water to thaw the affected areas, but that wouldn't be practical in this case. It would be too hard to properly dry the hair on the hobbit's feet afterwards, causing more problems. Instead we ended up warming spare socks, and other bits and pieces of cloth to wrap around Pippin's frozen toes and foot. Merry even took off his scarf for us to use. I had to turn him down, though I smiled at the generosity as I said it. "No, Merry, it won't do us any good if the lack of your scarf harms you. Though the offer is greatly appreciated." While I was treating Pippin, Boromir, who also had some mountain experience checked the other three hobbits for similar afflictions. Luckily, other than the mildest level of frostbite, which all of them had experienced before as children, nothing was found.

The warmed cloth wasn't as effective or as fast as warmed water because it cooled off too quickly, but it did seem to do the job. Poor Pippin though, I could see the pain he was going through in his eyes, though he was trying not to show it. I knew what he was going through as well, as I've had frostbite a time or two in my life, and I told him the tales in an attempt to distract the young hobbit from the experience. Dawn was showing slightly by the time all signs of the frostbite barring some redness and the blisters had been eradicated. Clearly though, Pippin was still in pain and probably would be for several days. Someone was going to have to carry Pippin down from the mountain, and perhaps help him for longer than that as walking was going to be a problem for a while.