Tale Challenge 35 - The theme will be to write a hobbity story that includes any sort of creature such as a dragon, unicorn, or even a hippogryf or a gargon – the creature that you choose is up to you! Your elements are: Something purple, a precious drawing, and someone held captive.

Disclaimer: All hobbits and Middle-earth belong to JRR Tolkien, but in my dreams, they belong to me.

Summary: Pippin decides to help out Nature a little bit. Pippin-9, Merry-still 16, Frodo-30, Bilbo-108, Gandalf-ancient.

Beta: Marigold

Flying Snails and Dragon-flies
Bag End, Hobbiton, the Shire, late Forelithe, 1399, S.R.

“Pippin, what are you drawing this time?” asked Merry, watching his cousin doodling on a bit of paper. For the past few days Pippin had taken to drawing bizarre animals with horns or wings coming out of strange places. Merry continued, “It’s a beautiful day outside, and it’s summer--Frodo said we’re going down to Bywater to wade in the pool. You can always do that later.”

“I’m almost done,” said Pippin, still drawing. He didn’t even bother to look up at his cousin, yet indeed he felt a gentle breeze enter inside the smial from the open window and play with his curls. The sweet scent of clover tickled his nose as he breathed in the warm air.

“You know, our holidays at Bag End don’t last forever, Pip,” said Merry, “We only have a few more days here with Frodo and Bilbo then it’s back to Brandy Hall for me and Whitwell for you. Gandalf arrived last night after you went to bed.” Merry saw a brief pause in Pippin’s scribbling; mentioning the wizard always managed to get a reaction out of his younger cousin. “If we behave ourselves he just might give us each a cracker later tonight.”

Pippin did not break his concentration on his artwork. “Gandalf’s never given me a cracker before,” he spoke rather quietly.

“You’ve never been nine years old before,” offered Merry.

Pippin laid down his leadstick and then gazed for some time through the open window as if weighing a decision. “All right,” he finally said, “but you must help me finish this first; you can draw faster and better than me.”

“Than I,” Merry corrected his cousin, then took the seat Pippin had occupied. He gaped at the various and sometimes outright ugly beasts that Pippin had been drawing. “What in the Shire are you doing to these poor animals, Pip?”

“Nothing,” said Pippin, blushing, then pointed to a large menacing creature on the right side of the paper. “Draw little, tiny wings on that one, Merry.”

Merry did as Pippin asked then looked at a drawing in the top left portion of Pippin’s paper. “What is this?” he asked. “It looks like a pony with an extra-long coat peg on its forehead!”

Pippin was quick to defend his innovative creations. “I put it there on purpose,” he answered Merry. “It’s to help hold the feed bag.”

“Their ears hold the feed bag,” Merry shot back.

“What if it hurts their ears?”

Merry sighed. “I should think that someone would have figured it out by now. And what is this other one?” He pointed to the bottom left.

“That’s a Frobbit.”

At that moment, Frodo stepped into the study munching an apple. “Are you calling Merry names again, Pippin?”

“I’m just helping out whoever made frogs and rabbits,” said Pippin. “I thought perhaps frogs might like to hop faster at times or keep warm with the rabbit’s fur. Maybe a rabbit gets tired of eating only vegetables.”

That set Frodo to scratching his head. “Sorry? I think I missed something. I thought we were going to Bywater?”

Merry handed the paper to their older cousin. “He isn’t calling me names, but it appears he’s twisting every creature in the Shire to fit his notion of convenience.”

Pippin retorted, “Am not--I’m helping, that’s all.”

Seeing a small crowd of young hobbits gathering in the study, Gandalf and Bilbo decided to see what was so interesting. Looking over Frodo’s shoulder, Bilbo found the source of their attention. It didn’t look like Frodo’s handiwork, but he felt he had to ask.

“Is this yours, Frodo?”

“No, it is not,” answered the tween. “I’ve never had the cheek to re-invent what was already created.”

“Merry?”

“No--it’s Pippin’s, though I helped him with the one over there,” Merry said, pointing to the largest drawing with ‘little, tiny wings’. “But that was so we could hurry up and go wading in the Pool.”

“This is Peregrin’s drawing?” Gandalf mused aloud as he peered over Bilbo’s shoulder. “May I have a closer look?” He studied the paper for a minute then said, “How did you come by the idea for this?”

Young Pippin didn’t know if he was in trouble with the wizard or not, yet he still held out hope for a cracker that evening. “I saw a snail crawling along the ferry jetty in Buckland last week when I was visiting Merry. I thought he’d like some wings to get across the passageway faster before he was stepped on. So, I decided that bee wings would be just the right thing for a snail.”

“Tell me, lad,” said Gandalf, pointing to the odd creature Merry had drawn wings for. “What is this beast?” The wizard noticed what appeared to be a dragon, but instead of the long wing-span dragons were noted for, there were tiny, almost unnoticeable bits of wing on either side.

“It’s a Dragon-fly,” Pippin answered eagerly. “I felt that the people of Lake-town could have felled Smaug a lot sooner if he flew around much slower.”

A stern look from Bilbo kept the older teen and tween from bursting into snickers. “Thank you, Pippin,” he said, “I should think the people of Lake-town would appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

“As do I,” said Gandalf, a twinkle in his grey eyes. He patted the honey-brown curls of the smallest lad and then left the room with Bilbo behind him.

“Do you think I’m being silly?” Pippin asked his older cousins.

Frodo answered diplomatically, “Well, I think perhaps Merry and I don’t see the magic in things as well as you do these days.”

“But there’s no magic in my drawings,” said Pippin a bit downcast. “Maybe I am being silly. How will the right people ever see my ideas for improvement?”

“You’re not being silly,” said Frodo, sweeping his hand through Pippin’s curls. “How do you know they don’t already know about your helpful creations?” Pippin just shrugged.

Once the lads were on the road to Bywater and with the rays of the sun shining on their faces, the cloud of gloom had been left behind. Even Pippin got into the spirit of things as he waded in the water and splashed his older cousins until they were nearly soaked--which was fine because it was a lovely day outside with a warm breeze to match. They finally started for home just before teatime.

After they returned home and ate a very enjoyable meal, the drawings Pippin had been working on earlier in the day had been all but forgotten. Pippin simply felt his time was better spent trying his best to win a game of chess over Merry. After that, a nice cosy story told by Bilbo or Gandalf out in the gardens after supper would round off the day wonderfully.

As the first of the evening’s stars began to shimmer in the twilight sky, Gandalf sat on a soft tuft of grass in the garden while the hobbits sat upon the swing. Just as Merry guessed, the wizard gave a small treasure into the upturned palm of each lad for his good behaviour.

“What’s this?” asked Pippin, holding his hand upward and inspecting the cylindrically-shaped item.

“It’s a cracker, Pip,” Merry said with glee. “I knew it!” he whispered into Pippin’s ear.

“May we, Bilbo?” Frodo implored, holding up his reward.

“I suppose it would be all right, but be careful,” answered Bilbo.

“I want to save mine until last,” said Pippin.

“All right,” said Frodo, understanding this to be Pippin’s first go at his own cracker. “I’ll go first, and then Merry will go next.”

As soon as Frodo pulled on the strings attached to each side of his cracker, a puff of blue smoke appeared and then a small charm dropped to the ground. Frodo picked it up from where it dropped. “It’s a...butterfly?” Clearly, it was small clay figurine, but Frodo wondered about this gift for a few seconds, and then it came to him. This particular purple butterfly looked exactly like the butterfly pendant his mother wore on a silver chain around her neck. It was his father’s betrothal gift to her. Frodo smiled at the warm memory. “Thank you, Gandalf,” he said to the wizard.

Gandalf watched the young cousins in amusement.

Merry was next to go. “Look! I got dragon! An exact replica of Smaug, I’ll wager!” He laughed, “I should really have appreciated a dragon such as this when I was closer to Pippin’s age,” he said, “but I shall nonetheless admire it. He smiled, “Thank you, Gandalf!”

Finally, it was Pippin’s turn. He closed his eyes, grasped both ends of the strings and pulled hard.

Both Frodo and Merry laughed. “You missed the green smoke!” Merry said in response to Pippin’s closed eyes.

When Pippin opened his eyes, he saw something had fallen at his feet. He bent over to pick it up. And then he smiled. “It’s a Dragon-fly!” he said excitedly. “They know! They know about my Dragon-fly! Oh, thank you, Gandalf!”

“I should warn you that it could take them years or even ages for any decision to come about to either accept or reject your creative new creatures, Peregrin,” said Gandalf, though he did not let on that it might well be more toward rejection, for who could deny that impish smile and those sparkling green eyes? Under the spell of the child’s enthusiasm, Gandalf regaled the young audience again (along with nods and assents from Bilbo) with his and the elder hobbit’s adventure to the Misty Mountains and Lake-town.

The End