| Author: Hyel
And when it was warm outside, the stink would double. I never did get used to it. The first day I threw up, but that only added to the stink, so I tried hard never to do it again. We used to scrape the scum up as best we could and throw it out through the barred window. Then we’d wipe our hands on the walls because there was no other way to do get them even moderately clean. It was filfthy. Filthy. I can’t think of it without tightening up like this, I must wrap my arms around myself when I remember it. Daffodil told us we were lucky that we had a window. It was one of only two in the hole. This hole went deep down into the hill, and there were many burrows in it. Daffodil Bracegirdle. Did you know Daffodil? Probably not; she was from Hardbottle. She’d been there for months, then; her husband and sons had gotten into some kind of trouble with the big folk, tried to stand up to them looting, I’m sure. They didn’t have much. You know how it is around those parts of the Shire. Now, Daffodil was the one who looked after me there, like she looked after everybody. This says more about her than me. I hardly deserved her patience. I... I don’t want to admit this, but I promised to tell all, so I will. I... told them to get away from me, called them filthy scum. I was shocked at the sight of them, the dirty faces, the soiled dresses and the stink! I don’t know what I was thinking, lest it be they came in there looking like that! I had my good dress on that day, not my best, but a good one, see. I didn’t want to get it dirty. They’d taken my umbrella from me, but I had my hair done right and my face was clean. I’m a Baggins, after all. They all looked like slum scum to my eyes. I have developed a different take to slums since then, I’ll have you know. On the first day I kept shouting and yelling at the guards until one of them came over and smacked me across the face. I remember hitting the floor and the blackness... coming over me, and then waking up to see Daffodil’s brown face above me. She had laid my head on her lap. My nose and cheek ached and swelled. ”You’ve been out for a while,” she said. ”You shouldn’t talk like that to them.” I said nothing to her, just stared. I wished she hadn’t touched me. I felt such hatred for the guard who had dared to hit me, but I hated the fact that it had been seen by these hobbits even more. I sat up and away from her, and tried to arrange my hair. I shoved my fingers through it to see if any scum had rubbed off on it from her dress. Then I stood up and tried to get the dirt off the back of my dress. The others just watched me. I saw Cilla Hilldweller’s look and it was like acid. I set my jaw and stared back at her, daring the piece of trash to say something. That’s how I thought back then. They didn’t tell me then that none of the others had gotten any food that day because of me. I will not tell you... I was shocked to find there would be no privy, and that the other lasses and matrons had been throwing the wastes out the window. Daffodil shared a water cup with another because hers was reassigned to be used as... the water cup. I held out as long as I could, until I had to do it the way they did it. They wouldn’t help. Not even Daffodil. She looked away. She had her reasons; I had to learn to do it myself. But when I threw up later that day, she helped clean that up. Because that’s the way she was. We didn't get water to bath in, only to drink. By nightfall, when the others were huddling in groups against the wall to sleep it started to dawn on me - where I was, how this worked, that this was real. There were no beds or blankets, just the clothes we came in with. I was thick - it took me that while to realise why my cellmates looked like they did, and by then I had started to get dirty myself. Thick and stupid. But not so thick as to talk back at the guards again. It wasn't just that one time I was hit... There were... beatings. They started the next day. And they were almost daily. They didn't touch me very often, or Beryl Fairfoot - we were the oldest, agemates, and... perhaps that had something to do with it. It certainly wasn't respect. Perhaps because our bones were frail they wouldn't have as much fun. They preferred to beat the younger ones. They had this... habit of bending an arm back until it almost broke under the strain. One of them kicked Cilla on the chest and knocked the breath out of her. The two guards just stood and laughed and mimicked her while she doubled on the floor and tried to gasp for breath. Then they told her to get down on her hands and knees and make sounds like a sow being... She didn't, she couldn't, she still hadn't caught her breath. And when she didn’t they broke her arm. They took it and twisted it and didn't stop at the breaking strain like usual... I could actually HEAR the crack, even through her scream. We later set it as best we could but you know she still can’t use it very well. I attacked a guard. I didn't even think of how they might hurt me for it. I didn't have time or room in my mind to think that, I was so filled with wanting to hurt them. And I didn’t have a weapon, but I had my teeth and my fingers, and the element of surprise. I jumped on him, biting and scratching - I don't know how I managed it,but I made for his eye. And I did it. I poked an eye off him! It was wet, and I was surprised when it broke, when I did that to him. And I rejoiced! He screamed. I made him scream! Then he had me by the throat. His left eye was running down his ugly mug. Lips pulled back from his teeth and I saw that they were sharp like a beast’s. I don’t think he saw me very well. There was a lot of shouting, but I only saw his face, and then it started to blur. I couldn’t breathe. It hurt. I tried to beg him to let me go. I was still happy he’d lost an eye to me. I felt the blackness coming again.That's when he threw me down. I’m not sure why they didn’t kill me. Perhaps my poor Lotho was still alive back then, and they wanted to use me to blackmail him. Lotho. Oh, my poor son. I blacked out. I hope they didn't... It would be like them to beat someone else up for what I did. If they did I never found out. But needless to say there wasn't any food or drink for any of us that night. I couldn’t breathe without my throat hurting for a week after that. The cold air didn’t help. The others would huddle around me, we’d all share each other’s body warmth. They were happy too that night. They all had black hatred inside them, burning with joy that one of the animals had lost an eye. Except maybe Daffodil, and young Angelica Baggins. They just looked tired and sad. Then one night, the big folk were drinking in the parlour where they kept their common room. We could hear their laughter and shouts, sometimes I could make out whole sentences. Most of the time I wished I couldn’t. It was a cold night. I crawled into a ball in one of the far corners and tucked my dress under my shoes, trying to keep my toes warm. And... Telling this, I hope it will not bring... shame on those poor, brave lasses. It should not. It’s a horrible tale, but that’s what you’ve come to hear. It is what you will get when you ask me to tell you about those days. The big folk came over to the rooms where we prisoners were kept. They were still laughing, throwing around words I did not understand. When the younger lasses heard them coming, they retreated to the back of the room. Cilla, who had hated me, pressed close to me in my far corner - this is why I looked up. Her face was stern, her eyes wide, and I felt a shudder running through her as she pressed against me. I looked up to the doorway, and it creaked open. The light beyond blinded me for a moment and all I saw was the dark shape in the doorway, leaning down to look through it. Cilla was very still, I remember. There were two other younger lasses there besides Cilla; Dora Gamekeep and Angelica. Angelica was now pale and stringy; I hardly recognized her when I was first brought there. The matrons tried to look away too, and tried to look like they weren’t there, which isn’t all that easy in a small room, especially when the guard lifted a lamp to light the room. Beryl did not move when the big folk came, but then she hardly moved at all during the time there. The guard strode in and approached Angelica with a grin on his face. She started crying, but before he could say anything Daffodil stood up and between them. ”Get out of my way, tubby!” he growled at her. ”She’s been ill, sir,” Daffodil said calmly. I sprung up on my feet and stood next to her. If they hadn't killed me before, I figured they wouldn't kill me now, and stood silently supporting Daffodil. I'm sure my hatred shone bright on my face. He turned to me. Somewhere high up I saw two yellow eyes over a short, snout-like nose, and a tongue flicked over his lips. ”You want some beating, old bat?" He was annoyed, bored. "We can make you hurt. We can make you hurt so you WISH we killed you!" He raised his hand, and I winced. ”Please, no!” Daffodil touched the beast’s hand, took it between her own, which seemed so small in contrast, good strong hobbit hands as they were. Then she did something I could hardly believe - she brought the huge dirty hand to her lips, and kissed it. ”I will do for tonight, won’t I? Angelica is ill. Please, kind sir.” He smiled. Yes - yes - it was what you think it is, I can tell from your face you understand. I could hardly believe it then. I could hardly comprehend it. As they took her outside and the door closed, I just stared at it, stared into the darkness. I must have sat down at some point but I don’t remember it. And the sounds. The voices in the darkness. I could close my eyes but I couldn’t close my ears. Can you guess what that was like? Listening to that? They talked about what they were doing, they gave each other suggestions. And I know Daffodil tried to be quiet, but she didn’t always succeed. So that was Daffodil. That was how brave she was, how... how GOOD she was. I wanted to kill them, kill them all. I thought about it in the dark. People say I hated Bilbo Baggins. Compared to what I felt for those monsters then, how I still feel for them, Bilbo Baggins was my favoured relative and beloved friend! I can only imagine how Daffodil hated them. Or how Angelica hated them. I only know my own hatred, and it burned dark and cold in my chest. I still know it. I wish it had been by my hand that they died, and then died again, and none of it would ever have been enough. When they brought Daffodil back, she was walking, but I could tell it wasn’t easy for her. As soon as she was inside she half-fell down, and I caught her as she did, and lay her head in my lap. Angelica came over and rubbed Daffodil’s hands, not knowing what else to do for her, and she was crying again, and sometimes babbling. ”Don’t do that,” Daffodil said. She was trying to keep strong. ”I can’t help it,” Angelica said, and repeated her name over and over again until Daffodil started crying too. I can’t remember if I did. I don’t think so. All I could think of was how I wanted to hurt those animals. It went on like that. Day followed night which followed day, and moved into dark night again, in the stink and the cold. I had the taste of mud in my mouth all the time those days. The water was the kind that tended to make you thirstier than you were before. One time... they took Cilla. And they took Dora too. Daffodil couldn’t always fill in. Angelica was ill, in truth; she threw up sometimes. We didn’t know what it was she was ill with, unless it was strain from her hardships, or if she had weak blood that wanted more meat than they gave us. She looked so pale. The night before it all ended, before we were led out into the sunlight, lovelier than it had ever been before... when I saw hobbits all gathered round, free and smiling and happy, and they... when they... The night before, we didn’t know it wasn’t always going to be like this. We’d heard bits of conversations the guards had, shouts and arguments and shiftings of duty - we knew something was coming. We couldn’t know it didn’t just mean that we would be killed soon. That seemed like the kind of thing they’d do. I thought about it in the dark, though I tried not to. I dreamt a little, and wished I hadn’t. In my dream, I watched the others die. And then their executor looked at me and said, ”No, not you. You will live.” In the dream, I shouted and begged and cried. But he said, ”You will live, now that they are dead.” I woke up to the muffled sounds of pain. I looked about in the faint blue light. The others were shapes and heaps in the darkness, except for Dora and Beryl, who were huddled close to me. Only in the opposite corner was there movement. I saw the shape of someone lying on the ground, twitching slightly, and another somewhat wider form over her, doing something... I could hear that that was Angelica on the ground, from her weak cries, which had become familiar to me by now, and as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I saw it must be Daffodil over her. Daffodil was whispering to her, encouraging. I didn’t know what to do, but I felt I shouldn’t disturb them, so I just watched. Angelica’s legs were spread. Suddenly she gave out a muffled cry, and I saw the hem of her dress stuffed into her mouth. And I heard a wet sound, and Daffodil pulled something out from between her legs. I know this isn’t my secret and so I shouldn’t have told you, but you did ask for the whole story and the whole story is what you’ll get. You are something of a hobbit of honour, and I believe that what you know will not hurt Angelica. Not that the poor girl should be ashamed of this, or of anything they did to her. I think you know. You have a feel of one who had been to places like that. Daffodil wrapped the stillborn into Angelica’s blood-soaked under-dress and took off her own to wipe the lass clean, and then wrapped what was left around her hips, as she was still bleeding. In the morning all that the others knew was that there was blood on the floor. Nobody asked about it, though everybody looked at it and wondered (except maybe Beryl, who still hadn’t spoken or reacted to just about anything). And I looked at Angelica, who was huddled in the corner, weak and pale but sleeping at last, and I looked at Daffodil, and she saw me looking, and she knew I knew. Angelica’s so quiet these days. But she’s not as quiet as she might have been. I’d seen her eyes sometimes in the mornings when she’d been crying in the night. She didn’t look like she would ever laugh again; it looked like she didn’t even want to see the light again. That’s as bad as it gets, when even the will to survive withers away. And I went over to Daffodil and sat by her side, and I took hold of her hand but I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to. I think she knew though, from the way she smiled at me. You don’t... well, perhaps you know - perhaps you know what a smile means in a place like that. And then she grew serious, and she said to me, ”If I don’t make it out, but you and Angie do, let her know you know. The girl needs hugs like a baby needs milk.” I just nodded. I felt rotten. I still feel rotten. I wish I had another hundred years to spend on... on being more like Daffodil, to make up for all the years I’ve wasted being Lobelia. So then... that’s the story, unless you want to know when we ate and drank, what we talked about, and what we didn’t. All there is to tell is routine - horrible routine. And details. Details I’ve told you too many of already. I don’t know what possessed you to come and ask me of these things. I am an old hobbit and I would rather think of other things now. I would rather think about the things that I never thought enough about before they took me there. Besides, today is Wednesday. It’s time to go see Daffodil. You know, it was a lovely idea to plant that ash by her grave. I do feel like through it, she is still here somehow. She didn’t get to see the sunlight with the rest of us, so I like to think the light that touches the leaves of her little tree warm her as well somehow. Silly, maybe, but it is how I feel and it brings me comfort to think so. Oh... you want to know about that, don’t you? How she went? She went like she lived, didn’t she? When the lads were through the main door they didn’t know one of the guards was hiding in our cell. He stood by the door ready to cut down whoever rushed through it. We all stayed at the back of the cell and looked scared, I’d say it was safe to say most of us also were scared. But when the door swung open we all rushed forward and hung on his arm, biting and pulling until the lads were in unharmed. He growled then, the big man, and tossed the lot of us off like so many children. Daffodil cracked her head open on the wall. And I looked at her while the lads engaged the big man and I could see that the angel who’d lived in that body was gone. There isn’t anybody living or dead who taught me as much about what goodness is as Daffodil Bracegirdle. The finest hobbit that ever lived. I’ll tell that to anyone. Pass me my umbrella, won’t you, Frodo lad? Might even be some rain today. Would be good for her little ash. Lovely how it’s growing, isn’t it? Like the little ones about these days. Very good... very good ground around here these days. Help me up, lad? Thank you... thank you... It is lovely today, isn’t
it?
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