Rise (Lord of the Rings)

Prologue

I never knew much about my parents. What I could remember was their smiling faces, how when they looked at each other, I could tell they were in love and happy together.

I remembered them missing for days. I remembered being very scared, unsure of what to do in their absence.

I'd left my home in a panicked state, in the hopes that maybe I could find them, or someone perhaps knew where they had gone off to. That was how I met my adoptive father, Bilbo Baggins. I had literally run into him.

At first, I nearly ran away from him. Bilbo hadn't gone about his day, or scoffed down at me and made a nasty remark to my face. Instead, he wheedled my problem out of me. I'd be a mess, sobbing, trying to tell him my thoughts and make sense of them.

I hadn't realized it at the time since I was so little, but now, I remembered the look in his eyes when I told him my parents had gone missing. I had been the only one unaware that the news of my parents' deaths spread throughout Hobbiton.

I lived in the village in the Shire, in the great world of Middle-earth. It was my home. I was not part of the race of Man. I was in fact, a Hobbit, or as other races knew our kind as, Halflings. I much preferred the title of Hobbit.

Bilbo never told me how my parents died. I never did bother to ask. I wasn't sure I could handle the pain it would give me, anyhow.

I was six when Bilbo had taken me in. It took a while to accept that my parents weren't going to return home, and that Bilbo was going to watch over me.

It wasn't even two years later that I was adopted by him.

Before, I was known as Marlena Rowen. I still often used my last name at times, but most knew me as Marlena Baggins. I still wrote my name as Marlena Rowen-Baggins. I could never rid myself of my last name. Some people, though, believed I was married with the way I wrote my name. It got very irritating after a time, having to explain the origin of it.

By age eight, I adjusted to living with Bilbo. I had considered him more of an uncle than a father, though. I remembered trying to call him "Uncle" or even "Father," but even Bilbo thought the idea sounded odd. He was fine with me calling him by his name. I was happy with that, too.

It did take me a while to accept that Bilbo was family now, and whoever was his family was mine.

I hadn't known the Baggins family real well. However, there were a few that I did know of. There were a few adopted cousins, but I knew there was plenty more family I had yet to see.

Becoming a Baggins was how I met Frodo, Bilbo's nephew. Bilbo had taken Frodo in when he was twelve, adding him as another adoptee. Oddly enough, he and I were the same age, only I was a few months older than him. He was considered my adoptive brother. Rarely did Frodo ever actually call his uncle "Uncle."

Before Frodo was a member of the household, he and I hadn't really known each other. It took a while for us to get talking, mainly due to my shy nature. But Frodo was insistent to get me to talk despite being a little shy at the time as well.

As we grew older, our bond tightened. We acted like siblings over the years, as if we were truly family. In a way we were, but in a lot of ways, we weren't.

That was so long ago, when I was adopted by Bilbo. Actually, it was twenty-five years. I was now thirty-three.

If only I had the ability to see into the future (impossible). Perhaps I could have better prepared myself for what I was about to end up in.