Tûk had been as good as his word, and immediately began to lead her back the way he had come. When he took her by the hand, a warm delightful sensation filled her being. Who knew that simply having one's hand enveloped by another could be so delightful?

As they walked, he told her of his family, parents, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. She knew who they were. She had been watching and observing hobbits for four generations-- but it was altogether different to hear of them in his voice, filtered through his love and his humour and his exasperation. She laughed when he laughed, and smiled when he smiled, simply because she could not help herself.

When he halted, pointing some sight: a colourful butterfly, two birds in playful flight, a hare shooting through the grass, each seemed some thing never considered before, a special thing because she was seeing it in his company.

Suddenly she was stopped in her tracks by something else new: a feeling of hollowness and the sound of rumbling coming from within her. She blinked in surprise. Was something wrong with her?

Tûk looked at her in dismay. "I'm sorry! You are hungry.”

She blinked at him. Hungry? Of course. She had noticed that hobbits seemed perpetually hungry. But she had never wondered what it felt like to be so.

He dropped the satchel he carried slung over his shoulder, bending to rummage in it. He drew forth some apples and handed one of them to her. He took the other and bit into it.

She bit into hers; the sweetness and crispness was a revelation...

“Mirimë?"

She jumped, startled out of her reverie.

"Yes, Olórin?" she asked, wondering what had brought him to her.

"I bear an invitation for you from Elrond Peredhil."