Lilith followed with astonishment the conversation between Bilbo and Ruth Ann.

"You...you don't like to eat?" she finally asked to Ruth Ann, with surprise in her voice. Finding a hobbit that didn't like to eat was almost as rare as finding one who didn't like to talk about gossips.

"Our Ruth Ann here is a special hobbit through and through." Frodo said, trying to close the topic.

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"I like to eat," Ruth Ann smiled at Lilith and then Bilbo to then whisper to herself, "I just don't like to eat a lot."

Four dishes were placed before each of the four hobbits. Bilbo and Frodo started to eat casually while Ruth Ann meerily stared at the food, not hungry in the least.

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Lilith smiled back at Ruth Ann and then started to eat as Frodo and Bilbo were already doing. She stopped only for a moment, noticing that Ruth Ann was simply staring at the food in her place, with no apparent intention to eat it. Lilith gave a look at Bilbo, who was talking with a hobbit behind him and not paying attention of what happened in the table.

"If you don't want to eat that" Lilith whispered to Ruth Ann "You can put it in my plate, so that Bilbo won't scold you for not eating, now that he's not looking..."

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Ruth Ann nodded and slowly pushed her plate towards Lilith. "But don't take it all," she instructed, "I don't want it to look too suspicous."

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Lilith nodded and quickly started taking some of the food in her plate.

"Ehi!" Frodo exclaimed, seeing what they were doing and catching Bilbo's attention. Before Lilith could make up an excuse for what they were doing, a huge cake was taken into the dining area, received with many applauses.

"Speech!" one of the hobbits that was sitting at the nearer table cried out, soon followed by many others. "Bilbo, speech!".

Lilith joined the chorus of voices, happy that something distracted Bilbo. The hobbit stood up smiling and started to walk through the tables until he reached the cake and stopped, starting his speech.

((ahah I love your signature smeagollum! ))

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Ruth Ann gave a huge sigh, happy to see Bilbo was not going to be yelling at her all so soon, and then she looking at Frodo and quickly wrinkled and unwrinkled her face, showing how she felt about the little comment.

Frodo bit his lip and then smiled, knowing Ruth Ann was surely going to move past it by the time Bilbo said his first words. She wasn't one to hold onto such superflous arguement, especially when they are not life threatening.

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Lilith exchanged a knowing smile with Ruth Ann while Bilbo finally started his speech.

"My dear Bagginses and Boffins"he began "Tooks and Brandybucks, and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers, and Bracegirdles, and Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots!". Every name was greeted with an ovation of voices.

"Today is my one-hundred and eleventh birthday!" Bilbo continued. Lilith joined the load applauses, smiling. She couldn't believe Bilbo was 111. "Eleventy-one years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits! I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve!" Bilbo said.

Lilith laughted at the unexpected pun. She exchanged glances with Frodo, who was smiling as well. "That's so typical of Bilbo" she whispered to him, as most of the hobbits sitting in the field tried to work out what Bilbo said to see if it was a compliment.

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"Thank you Bilbo," Ruth Ann muttered to herself, flattered that he, indeed, did not include her name with the others, as he was threating earlier.

Looking up, Ruth Ann smiled happily through the speech. Any fears she would have of it turning horribly wrong had passed.

"He really is good at that, isn't he?" Ruth Ann giggled, agreeing with Lilith and then looked back up towards Bilbo.

"...I am going now. Good-bye," Bilbo concluded and disappeared causing everyone to gasp and then point the finger at their neighbor.

Ruth Ann simply stared in amazement at the stop Bilbo was standing whisphering, "That's not good."

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As Bilbo disappeared, Lilith pressed her hand on her mouth, astonished and shocked.

"What...what does this mean?" she asked to Frodo, who was simply sitting there, staring with a slighly surprised look at the place where Bilbo was only a few seconds before. Lilith saw Gandalf quickly walking through the part field.

"I don't know" he finally mourmured to Lilith. Ruth Ann whispered something.

Frodo pulled himself together and then turned to Ruth Ann "What did you say?" he asked "Do you know anything about this?"

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"I really hope I don't," Ruth Ann answered Frodo's question and then proceeded to look upon the ground, trying to place all of the different events together into a different common outcome. Unfortunately, there appeared to be no other than what she was enormously concerned about.

It was a little before that time that many of the hobbits began to point fingers at one another. One, named Fisco Bolger, had taken the initiative to walk up to Frodo and personally ask him who he thought it was.

"I.... don't... know," Frodo strolled on, trying to figure out what was going through both of the girl's minds.

Turning around, Fisco looked over at both of the girls and simply questioned, "Why are you not seeking to find who did this like the rest of us?" He paused for a moment and then brought out the accusation, "I think it was Gandalf, being a wizard and all." He continued to stare at both of the ladies and finally asked, "Do you both even care about Bilbo?"

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What?" Lilith raised her head, hearing what Fisco just said. "Of course we care about Bilbo!" she said upset.

"Then why you are both sitting there instead of helping us finding the responsible for this?" Fisco replied.

"Because...well.."Lilith raised her eyes, looking Frodo for help. It was always like that, she always wanted to be right, so sometimes she talked without thinking. And often she found herself in embarassing situation.

"I'm sure we'll work this out, Fisco" Frodo said, trying to appear calm "And by the way, I'm sure Galdalf is not involved in this."

"I'm not so sure about that." Fisco said, going off mumbling.

"I'll go up to Bag End just to see if I can figure out something" Frodo said "You two wait here, I will be back soon." he added.

"Do...do you think there is a responsible for...for what happened?" Lilith timidly asked to Ruth Ann, who was still silently sitting there.

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Ruth Ann remained completely silent, working out all possilbilies of everything that was just about to happen in her head. It wasn't until Lilith spoke that Ruth Ann jumped out of her dazed state. "I... I don't know," Ruth Ann half-paying-attention mumbled on solely to fulfill the answer to Lilith's question.

Instead of digging deeper into an answer, Ruth Ann meerly looked around. Frodo had left; she remembered that, but, in turn, Ruth Ann could not seem to place her eyes on Gandalf either.

It was then that the voices of the concerned hobbits fully occured to Ruth Ann. She began to hear about how Gandalf did all of these horrible things, and all of the halflings went through the line of any possible story of any possible outsider they could think of off the top of their head.

"I think I should go," Ruth Ann finally whisphered over to Lilith while staring in another direction and trailing off her voice. She did not wait for Lilith to respond; her mind was made up. One thing she did not need was Frodo to figure out what she knew, and the last thing she needed was for the rest of the hobbits to move on past Gandalf and start to blame the rumored Ruth Ann Underhill, which she began to hear as she soared past a small group of hobbits out the back of the partyyard.

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Lilith nodded at Ruth Ann while she stood up and walked away. Remained alone, sitting on the bench, Lilith decided to stand up and take a walk around the field, to see if she could find out something more than just rumors about Gandalf.

She ran into a group of hobbits where her good friend Rosie was. "Lilith!" she said "Have you seen..?"

"Yes" Lilith said with a low voice.

"They say it was Gandalf's fault.."Rosie continued.

"I don't think it was Gandalf's fault..."Lilith interrupted her.

"What about that strange hobbit that stood on the table when the dragon firework passed on the field? I think she could be involved.."Rosie said then.

"Rosie, you're only repeating the rumors you've heard around, aren't you? I was with Ruth Ann, that hobbit, when it happened, and, whatever happened, it wasn't her fault. I think she knows something we don't though..."Lilith said.

"You think so? What kind of thing?" Rosie asked.

"I don't know, but I'll find out I guess..."Lilith answered.

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Ruth Ann was up at the top of the hill and inside Bag End in a matter of moments. Her speed, flexibility, and drive she had gathered all of these years had finally paid off.

From the conversation taking place, Ruth Ann figured out that she was, unfortunately, right in her thought process.

Walking over to a room in the back, Ruth Ann sat down on top of her guest bed until the conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo died down.

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"How you will find out that?" Rosie asked to Lilith, hastening her pace to go after her.

Lilith turned and pur her hands on Rosie's shoulders. "You stay here Rosie. I'll be back soon, I promise, I'll just go check a thing."

"But where are you going? It could be dangerous, you saw what happened to Bilbo!" Rosie replied.

"Rosie, don't worry." Lilith turned and started walking away, quickening her pace as she walked out of the party field. She quickly walked through the silent streets of the Shire and finally reached Bag End. She had just hidden herself in a big and leafy bush in the garden when someone opened the door, making her jolt. She heard voices, but she could not see who was talking. She recognized Bilbo's voice saying something, then someone else's voice, maybe Gandalf's.

Lilith stood silent, her heart beating faster, scared of being discovered. She heard Bag End's small gate squeaking, then Bilbo's voice singing one of his old songs "The Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began..."

Lilith saw Gandalf's shadow on the ground growing littler as he went back inside Bag End. She sat on the ground , trying to decide what to do quickly.

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"Is it true?" Ruth Ann walked into the room and staring at Gandalf not knowing whether or not to tear.

Gandalf had just stood back up from discovering that it truely was the ring of power and looked over at Ruth Ann. "I am afraid so," he gently cautioned.

Fearing the worst, Ruth Ann was not immediately shocked, but, in turn, her hopes were dashed as she sat in a nearby chair in disbelief.

"My dear," Gandalf sighed and walked over, kneeled down, and looked directly into Ruth Ann's eys, "you cannot assume the worst.'

"Why should I not?" Ruth Ann blantantly attacked back, "when the worst is always what seems to happen?"

"There is more to life than what happens and what doesn't happen Ruth Ann. Someday you will see that."

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