This is fanfic based on another fanfic: Mary Borsellino (original fic series, Pretty Good Year)

Retelling Tales
100 words, elanor, rated g

Her mother has a story for everything it seems; she has more stories than there are stars in the sky. There are happy ones, and there are sad ones, and then there are the ones that make Elanor think. Would it have been fair, she wonders, if Winter had been able to cut himself free. Autumn, Spring, and Summer might have missed him, but it would have been awfully brave of him to go off all alone.

But she's still glad he didn't - because it might have been brave but being brave doesn't necessarily mean you'd be doing what's right.

Holding A Promise (In His Hand)
100 words, sam, east of the sun, g

Sam is certain that Frodo had meant to leave it behind if only because it had been far too easy to find. Tucked away carefully, on a bed of blue velvet in a dusty old box that had been hidden in the recesses beneath Frodo's bed.

It glimmered faintly when Sam held it, and he thought of losing Frodo and then finding him again. It had been years since Frodo had left him - them - now, years since he had sailed West.

The warm weight of shaped glass makes it feel as though he's holding a promise in his hand.

Found
200 words, frodo, sammie, rated g

Silence drifts in open air. Sunlight falls, cold, at Frodo's feet.

("Do you mind?" From Rose's tone of voice, Frodo does not think that it would matter, even if he did. No-nonsense, that one, and Rose Cotton - now Gamgee - never had been one for mincing and making light of her words.)

He is tired, worn. He could sleep a day, a lifetime, and it would not be enough: not as old hurts cut deep as though wound-day fresh. What day is it, he thinks, what season? Autumn, perhaps, or is it spring? He cannot tell.

(Perhaps he doesn't mind. The baby is a bundle in swaddling cloth, tiny hands curled in small fists, eyes closed as he sleeps. There is a fuzz of dark curls atop his hair, baby-soft-sweet, and he smells of spring, of flowers in bloom. No, Frodo thinks, perhaps I don't mind.)

He is lost. Lost. He cannot find his way. If he could only find his way -

("You are a bright one, Sam-lad," he says, and smiles. Sam-lad gives a yawn, overlarge for one so small. Now, his baby-eyes smile, his laughter is song, all sky-cheerful-blue.)

Perhaps it is summer, instead, warm and gold and green.

Heroes
100 words, bilbo-lad, robin, rated g

Being the second-most-youngest of fourteen children has advantages, and disadvantages, as well: he almost always gets his way, and he almost always has to do as his elder siblings say.

"Why do I have to be the sidekick?" he asks, because his big brother Bilbo decided, just this morning, that he was a hero, of super proportions: he will be the most grand of all hobbit-heroes, that have ever been.

"And heroes, most especially super-hobbit-heroes, are in need of sidekicks. You're just the right size, Robin – little Tom is just too little."

But Robin thinks, Robins can be heroes, too.

After a Kiss (and before another)
200 words, sammie/del/peony, rated g

Well. Isn't that something, he thinks, as he finds it oddly compelling, watching them as they argue no, now they're wrestling, Del with a hand fisted in Peony's copper-bright hair, Peony shrieking again as she angles her leg and kicks, and Del grunts, startled, and Peony is able to use that moment to roll her over and, quite effectively, keeps her pinned.

What was it that Peony had done oh yes, she'd kissed him, and for Del to see. Del, of course, hadn't been happy, though Sammie had he'd quite liked the kiss.

Well. They were still struggling and, like it as he did, it would probably be best if they were to stop

Peony grunts when Del kicks, who looks set to bite, so Sammie can't see what good it is for Peony doing what she does. But Del stops, dead in her tracks (not that she makes any, flat on her back), and her eyes widen at the press of Peony's kiss.

This, Sammie thinks, is even better, and when the lasses notice that he's still there, and watching, Del with her eyes narrowed, Peony almost set to laugh, he grins nervously and decides it best to run.

Too Old
200 words, tweener!elanor, rated g

She isn't going to cry. She's twenty-three, now, and she's old enough to know that you don't cry for no good reason, and she definitely has no good reason to cry. Merry-lad, or Pip-lad, they might laugh at her, if she did; but they're allowed to, she thinks, if only because they're still young. If they did, mum would chide them, but Elanor knows that would only do it again.

Sometimes, she thinks she has too many siblings. Sometimes, she wishes if could just be her, and mum, and da, and –

Oh, really now, she's far too old to want to cry.

Uncle Frodo is sitting in the parlour, and she remembers, clearly, when she small enough to fit on his lap. There's not enough colour in his cheeks, and his eyes are dark and distant, and she wonders, is he happy now, here, and does he ever wish it was only just them, too?

(There are times when she dreams, and he's gone, and that's not right at all, and she's always glad when she wakes. She'll check on him, on her mum and her da, and when she's content they're all where they ought, then she can sleep.)