Looking back on it some time later, Cardinal realized that she could pinpoint the moment her life changed irreversibly to the day she found the Elf.

It started out as a normal enough day. Cardinal woke with the dawn, dressed, and went to the kitchen to help her mother with breakfast. Cardinal hated cooking, which was unusual for a Hobbit, though she loved to eat, which wasn’t. Still, as her mother kept telling her, she was a fine young lass who’d be looking for a husband in a few years, and it was something she’d need to learn.

Cardinal wasn’t sure she liked the idea of that; she was only twenty-eight, a mere tween, and couldn’t think of a single lad she knew who she’d want to wed (except, perhaps, her friend Peregrin Took, though she’d steadfastly deny it and probably give anyone who suggested it a thick ear). But she couldn’t deny that with her father and eight brothers, all with appetites like wolves, to feed before all but the very youngest went to work in the fields, her help was needed. Even if she burned the bacon every day, like clockwork.

Cardinal’s favorite part of making breakfast was going to the henhouse to collect the eggs. Cardinal had her very own chicken, a fine red-speckled hen she called Flora, who she treated more like a pet than anything else. Her father had given her the bird as a chick, after much begging on Cardinal’s part, fully expecting her to lose interest in it once it ceased to be small and fuzzy. He’d been wrong.

The young bird was more pampered than her father’s favorite dog; Cardinal fed her scraps from the table, gave her baths in the kitchen sink (her mother did not approve) and let her sleep at the foot of her bed (her mother really did not approve). Her father had only recently put his foot down and insisted the chicken join the others in the henhouse, but Cardinal still visited her every chance she got, and snuck her back into the house whenever she thought no one was looking. Flora was the best layer of the flock, and Cardinal was convinced that her special treatment was the reason.

“Good morning Flora, you pretty girl,” Cardinal cooed, reaching into the nest’s feathery depths. “Let’s see what you have for me this morning…” In exchange for the two fine brown eggs, Cardinal gave Flora a handful of blueberries she’d pilfered from the kitchen, as a reward for a job well done.

Her chicken happy and the morning’s eggs gathered (twenty in all), Cardinal headed back to the house. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, she gathered her skirts up in quite an un-ladylike way and clambered to the top of the fence that bordered the field next to the family’s cozy sod-roofed farmhouse. If anyone had been watching, they would have been able to see that, beneath her skirts, she wore an obviously hand-me-down pair of worn breeches, likely once belonging to one or more of her brothers, inexpertly cut to just below the knee and bound about the waist with twine. Wearing a skirt all the time, Cardinal found, made certain embarrassing incidents all too likely to happen, especially when your favorite things to do were climb trees, jump fences, and turn up in places you shouldn’t. She would have liked to do away with skirts and dresses entirely, but some things simply weren’t done.

Cardinal tiptoed lightly across the top of the fence; arms spread out like a tight rope walker, egg basket dangling precariously, bare feet expertly finding her footing.

Breakfast in the home of the Tuckbourough Proudfeet (not as rich as their cousins up in Hobbiton, but not badly off by any means) was, as always, a noisy, confusing affair. Getting enough to eat when you were smack in the middle of nine children, and the only girl, wasn’t easy, but Cardinal played dirty, and her elbows were sharp. She’d slaved all morning over that burnt bacon, and she was determined to eat some of it.

“Ma!” Cale, one of the twins, yelped. “Cardinal’s doing it again!”

“Doing what, lovie?” their mother (who’s name, by the way, was Camilla, a Goodbody by birth) asked distractedly, buttering her toast.

“Hogging the food!” Cal, the other twin, piped up. “Didn’t you see, she nearly broke my finger when I reached for the last biscuit!” Cardinal picked daintily at the copious amounts of food on her plate.

“I did no such thing.”

“You did so!”

“I’m a growing girl, I need sustenance.”

“The only way you’re growing is sideways!”

“Cale, that was uncalled fo-“

“Please!” their father (Pardo by name) finally shouted, bringing silence to the table. “No fighting this early in the morning. It puts me off my breakfast.” He leaned back, propping his large feet on an extra chair. All his sons had inherited the Proudfoot family’s impressive feet, but his daughter took more after her mother; her feet were smaller and more sparsely furred.

“The harvest’s coming in nicely,” said Pardo to his wife, to head off any further bickering. “We’ll be working in the North field today, bringing in the barley. The cows need milking and the stables need mucking as well, I’ll have to ask one or two of you boys to do that.” He cast a significant glance at Cal and Cale, and their shoulders drooped. Cardinal made faces at the twins behind her napkin.

“That sounds fine,” said Camilla, nodding. “Cardinal, what are your plans for today? I could use your help with the washing.”

Cardinal choked on her eggs.

“Oh, ah, I’d love to, Ma, truly, but I, uh, need to go into town today!” Cardinal’s mind raced, looking for a good excuse. “I need… things! Um, fabric! I want to make a dress, y’see, for, ah, the Yule Festival dance. I need to start soon if I want to be done in time, you know, and I want it to look nice.”

“Look nice?” Cadoc, the second oldest, smirked. “I don’t think even a pretty dress could accomplish that. Besides, why should you hide what you really are from all the fine young Hobbits of the Shire?” Cardinal glared daggers at him.

“Well, alright then,” said Camilla, oblivious as always to the infighting of her children. “Perhaps a nice dress would help you to meet a nice boy at the Yule dance.” She exchanged a wink with her husband. Cardinal suppressed a groan while her brother sniggered. Luckily for her, Connor (the baby of the family at five years) chose that moment to knock over his mug and send milk spilling over the table, providing sufficient distraction. Cardinal ate as fast as she dared, not wanting to give her mother time to change her mind.

When breakfast was over, Cardinal made ready her escape. In a battered backpack she packed a loaf of bread, three shiny red apples, and a wedge of cheese wrapped in wax paper. She’d be gone through elevensies and lunch, and probably afternoon tea as well. If she was gone any longer than that she could buy dinner at the Green Dragon Inn in Bywater. She packed a small amount of money, hoping it would be enough for a meal and the fabric she was now expected to buy. She wished she’d come up with something better than buying fabric for a dress to excuse herself from staying home today, now she’d actually have to buy it, and worse, make the dress. She decided to worry about that later.

Lastly, she took a large kitchen knife wrapped in heavy cloth (one of her mother’s best, taken from the kitchen when she wasn’t looking) and tucked it in the sash of her dress. She’d never had need to protect herself on one of her treks before (she’d once been startled by a sleepy old bear in a thicket north of Overhill, but he’d just blinked uninterestedly at her and lumbered away), but part of her secretly hoped the need would arise one day.

She set out across the fields towards Hobbiton, humming as she walked. The Autumn sun shone on her crimson curls, the sky was clear and very blue, the whole world around her was green and gold with just the first tinges of orange and red to signal the changing seasons. Cardinal’s heart felt very light; the whole day spread out before her, and the whole Shire as well. Her green eyes sparkled with the possibilities.

She encountered her brother Cedric at the far end of the North field. The two were but a year apart, and had always been close. He smiled when he saw her and lowered his scythe.

“Off to town then, are we?” he said playfully, mopping his brow with his kerchief. Cardinal stuck her freckled nose in the air.

“Yes, if you must know.”

“Come now, Redbird, you know I can tell when you lie.” Cedric gave her a roguish wink. “So tell me, where are you really going? Gallivanting over hill and dale with the Took boy, I’ve no doubt.”

“For your information, Pippin is on a trip,” Cardinal retorted, hands on hips. “He went with his cousin, that Frodo Baggins from up in Hobbiton, off to Buckland. He’s been gone nearly three days now.”

“And I bet you’re just crushed he didn’t ask you along.” Cedric laughed.

“I am not!” Cardinal insisted, though a small part of her really was. Growing up as she had near the Greater Smial in Tuckbourough, she and Pippin had often gone on treks together sometimes joined by his cousin Meriadoc Brandybuck (called Merry) when he was visiting. They were both so funny, and a lot more exciting to be around than most of the other young fuddy-duddies of the Shire. But she was not so well acquainted with Pippin’ cousin Frodo. She’d met him before, of course, but he’d always been the sort to think much but say little. She did not feel she knew him very well, so when Pippin told her of their plan to take a walking trip to Buckland, Cardinal did not think she should ask to come along.

Still, Buckland was farther than she’d ever been, and though she loved her home, there was a little voice in her head that thought it might be lovely to see the lands beyond the Brandywine. Perhaps even to see the lands beyond the Shire itself one day, though the idea of it made her feel guilty. It was one thing for young Hobbits of leisure like Pippin and Merry, one a notoriously adventurous Took, the other from Buckland, where everyone was a bit odd, it was said, to wander far afield instead of staying home like sensible folk. But Cardinal was a girl, and a farmer’s daughter, and one of the ever stoic Proudfeet (though didn’t she have some Tookish blood, from her mother’s side somewhere far back?), and such things were simply not done. Her parents would be horrified as it was if they knew where and how far her wanderings had already taken her. Buckland was out of the question.

“Well, you may not be going with young mater Peregrin, but I know you’re not planning on going to Hobbiton. Not straight there, anyway. You’re wearing my old breeches again,” Cedric said, leaning on his scythe. “So, where is it today?”

“I found a trail, or a track of some sort,” Cardinal said in a conspiratory manner, “Last week, off in the Woody End. I thought I’d investigate it.”

“It’s probably a deer trail, you know,” said Cedric.

“Well, it might not be,” Cardinal waved her hand dismissively. “And anyway, it’s just nice to walk.”

“Well don’t be gone too long. You have to start on that dress so you can charm some boy into wedding you, remember? I know how slow your sewing is.” Cedric chuckled at Cardinal’s exasperated expression.

“Why are they always bringing up marriage to me?” she lamented. “They have six sons closer to wedding age than I, why don’t they pester one of you about finding a nice girl?” Cedric laughed aloud.

“Well, rumor has it that Cable has been seeing a lot of Angelicia Burrows, from Waymeet. Maybe Ma and Da will leave you alone for a while if their eldest takes a wife.”

“I hope so.” Cardinal squinted at the sun. “Well, I should be off. Don’t want to waste the day.”

“Alright. If you’re not back by supper, we’ll form a search party,” Cedric joked. Cardinal waved to her brother, hopped the fence, and was off.

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Ramble On! I welcome all comments and constructive criticism! More to come soon!

So um… this is kinda neat.

I’m notorious for having online journals I never update, but let’s see what happens.

So, a little about myself… my RL name is Carly, I’ll be 22 next month, I live in Austin Texas (aka hippietown USA), and I work at a school for blind kids while attempting to get a teaching degree. I have a nerdy boyfriend, a couple fat cats, and too many obsessions to count.

In Middle Earth, I’m Cardinal Shadowfoot, Hobbit Burglar extrodenaire. Cardinal is currently talking a break from falling off things in Moria to return home for the Yule Festival. This morning she spent an hour running errands for people only to get a measly tater in her stocking. Isn’t that just like the holidays?

I have other alts, but other than my Warden, Natrandir, who is ludicrously fun to play, they don’t see much screen time. Cardinal is me. She is my persona in this game, another facet of my personality, and I’m ridiculously attached to her. I love her to death, basically.

So we’ll see how often I end up updating this thing.

Cardinal*