Chapter Text
It had been an auspicious day in the year 1224.
Winter had finally begun to release it’s freezing grip on the land, and warmth could be felt in the cool breezes that encapsulating the land around them. The sun was shining brightly, melting whatever snow and ice that had retained it’s presence on the land of the Shire. Plants that had perished from the cold began to bud from the warming soil, grasses that had gone yellow and dry started to regain it’s healthy emerald color, trees that had shed their leaves in the autumn began to sprout new ones every day.
It had been a peaceful winter in the Shire, as it always was. Only the very elderly had succumbed to the cold, as it always had been. Only a single child had been born during the frigid winter months, as was par the course. Most Hobbit babes were birthed in the spring and summer. Food had been plentiful, as was expected. Pantries and basements never became bare, and if there was ever such a reason to bare the cold due to a shortage of food necessities, they were easily obtained at the market.
Yes, there was extraordinarily little to suffer through during winter for the Shire. It was a peaceful place, and the Hobbits were a peaceful race. In fact, the only downside that the inhabitants of the Shire felt during winter was that sadness that it was not yet spring or summer.
Now the time had finally come. The four months they experienced to be autumn and winter had finally passed, and now was a time of great celebration.
The Spring Equinox.
The Hobbits of the Shire had been preparing for the equinox for weeks beforehand. Roasting chickens, grilling beef, steaming potatoes, dressing vegetables, steeping stews, and baking. Lots and lots of baking. Tarts, muffins, cakes, puddings, pastries, pies, breads. So much food had been prepared for the party that the various tables that had been set out groaned under the weight of the delicacies.
They stood, gathering around the party tree, decorated with colorful streamers and mason jars filled with candles. The lasses had dusted off their best dresses, carefully pinning up their riotous curls. The lads were perfectly dressed in their tailored breeches and brightly colored waistcoats. It was a celebration, the first time in many months that they had dared to wander about outside for anything other than food in months. Nothing would do for the wonderful party than their best finery.
The elderly ladies chittered around the dancing field, discussing which couple would make the best match this year. The elderly gentlemen stood further afield, throwing small conker balls at trees, too tipsy to consider they were missing the target. Newly of age lads huddled around the ale cart, guzzling their weight in drink, the others goading them on. The newly of age lasses stood around the dancing field, casting casual glances at the young men around the cart, waiting for one of the to stumble away from the drink and ask them for a dance. Faunts chased after one another, screaming and shrilling as the jumped and frolicked around the grounds.
There was Adalgrim Cotton, who twirled around with the lasses on the dancing field, never spending more time than a single spin around before he moved on to the next awaiting young lass. Whispers were going around that he had sired a bastard on a barmaid in Bree, and another on a seamstresses apprentice in Budgeford.
The flaxen-haired Oleander Took could be spied leading Tullus Brandybuck behind barn. It was said that her father was betrothing her to an aging merchant in Bywater- nearly three decades her senior. Everyone new that Oleander Took and Tullus Brandybuck had been sweet on each other since they were nothing more than faunts. It would not be the first time that a clandestine tryst had ended in marriage.
Then there was Turnip Corner, freckle faced and shy from her stutter flushed brilliantly as she reeled with the dark-haired Willgood Gamgee. She never seemed to mind as he tripped, stumbled, and fell over her feet.
The severely dressed Ivy Baggins, clad in luxurious forest green silk skirts, tutted at her dirt and grass stained fauntlings until she was red in the face. She had been the daughter of struggling tenant farmers for the Baggins family. It had been quite the surprise when the comely Ivy Seedlin had managed to catch Minos Baggins in marriage, regardless that he was a branch member, a Baggins was a Baggins. The surprise turned into scandal when the newly wedded Ivy Baggins birthed her daughter laurel only ten months afterwards. The scandal only grew when Laurel Baggins grew to have blonde hair and hazel eyes, when both families had a history of being dark haired and dark eyed.
Yes, it was a perfectly ordinary equinox party, as it should be.
The day was wearing on, the air around the Hobbit’s warming as the sun began to reach its zenith in the sky. Yet, just as the sun had reached it’s peak, and the Hobbit’s started to truly bask in the growing warmth, the sky had started to darken. It did not take long to deduce what was happening. One look upon the sky told them all that they needed to know.
The moon was overtaking the sun.
Down in Tookland, where the growing things grew large and fast, there was little time to mind the phenomenon in the sky. One lass in particular, paid little mind to the rapidly darkening light that began to envelope the large room she laid in. She was newly wedded and had been at the tail end of her sixteenth month of her first pregnancy when she had been thrust into labor in the early hours of dawn. Eighteen hours later, and she still no further along than when she had started, and there was little movement from the babe within her. It had been a difficult pregnancy, one that was unusual for a young and healthy Hobbit lass as herself to experience. It was one medical malady after another, and it had required her to go on bedrest incredibly early on. It had seemed that the visits from healers, apothecaries, and midwives had been nonstop in the effort to retain her health.
However, the increasing time that she had been in labor, and little progression she was experiencing was giving greater cause for concern. There was a growing worry that both the mother and child would be lost, and there was nothing that anyone would be able to do to prevent it.
Yet, as the darkness fell over the sun lit room Adamanta Took nѐe Chubb gave birth to a squalling baby girl. She was named Amaryllis, after the shock of bright auburn curls that sprouted along her head.
It was an auspicious day that Amaryllis Took had been born in the year 1224 of Shire Reckoning. It had been the day of the spring equinox when the moon had overtaken that sun at the height of it’s zenith.
Whispers would echo around the Shire, following young Amaryllis Took everywhere she went. There was fairy blood in the Took line after all.