The wind howls like a wounded beast through Hobbiton. The rain lashes down, feeling as sharp as daggers against your skin, icy-cold and pummeling.

You’re exhausted and freezing, a wet cough deep in your chest and your leg bound in sodden bandages from a run-in with a brigand several miles east of Bree. You had no money to pay a healer, even if you could manage to find one. And so you forged ahead, hobbling in pain.

You stumble up a rain-slicked hill before your wounded leg finally gives out, and you sink down in the lee of a house partially submerged in the earth. Bag End.

Another coughing fit overtakes you. You pray to the gods that it isn’t pneumonia, or you aren’t likely to see tomorrow’s dawn. Shivering pitifully and wrapped in your sodden cloak, you close your eyes and begin to doze off…

Sometime later in the night, a hand clamps down on your shoulder, jerking you awake. The moonlight just barely illuminates the frame of the thin, stout hobbit with short, auburn-blonde curls and kind green eyes leaning over you.

"Easy, easy," he murmurs over the screaming wind. "I won't harm you. Come, let's get you inside."

He takes you by the arm, helping you up and allowing you to lean on him as he leads you through a low doorway, rain dripping from your soaked form. You're shaking uncontrollably, chilled to the bone, your eyes glazed over.

With gentle hands, he begins to strip off your cloak and coat, letting them fall to the floor with a wet slap before guiding you over to an armchair in front of the crackling hearth. Your hands tremble as you outstretch them in front of the dancing flames, desperate for the warmth. The hobbit carefully takes your hands, rubbing them between his own to stimulate the circulation.

"You poor thing," he frets, draping a woolen blanket around your hunched shoulders. His tone is like that of a chiding mother. "You were close to freezing to death. What were you doing out there in the storm? Daft little creature."