[Child of the 7th Age]

The day had been long and tiring. Yet, strangely enough, in this place of hard labor, Nitir found she had little to do. The men had begun digging crude burrows along the bank of the river. And many of the women were at work clearing weeds in order to plant gardens. This initial labor had been performed totally without the guards, since the Orcs had spent most of the day finishing barrels of mead and ale.

Nitir felt at a loss what to do. She did not have the strength for heavy labor, nor did she have experience with gardens or agriculture. Her own background and training had been completely different. And who could possibly need a teacher in a prison camp, especially one who no longer remembered even the basic stories she had been taught?

That evening, as the sun dipped down, the hobbit decided she could no longer delay looking at the packet of seeds and letter tucked into her belt. When everyone had gone to bed, she carefully removed them.

First, she scrutinized the seeds. They looked just like those she had seen back home, although she couldn't quite remember where her home was.

Then she began to read the letter.

Little hobbit,

If you read this, our rescue of the hobbits will have failed and you will be with your kin in prison. I may be back with our friends on the Lonely Star, or perhaps not. Sometimes I look in the flame of the candle and wonder if it is time for Pio, who has dwelt on earth many years, to face judgment in Mandos and hopefully make my way to my kin in Aman. We will see.

Either way, I love you very much. I suspect you will be staying in an agricultural work camp, since even Morgoth can't get along without those skills. So I want you to be prepared! You can't have a hobbit community, even one imprisoned and in exile, without a blossom here and there.

I remember.......I remember my mother Holly always raised the most beautiful garden flowers, even more beautiful than my Elven kin. So take these seeds and share them with your neighbors. Please share them, Child!!! Rose tells me you are the only hobbit she knows who does not have a green thumb, so don't be stingy in passing these out.

I wish you luck in what you are attempting to do. I am part hobbit, and I could not bear if this productive people perished from the face of the earth. Be careful with your folk, and do your job well.

And I wouldn't be at all surprised if Rose came along with you. If so, give her a kiss from me.

When you see these flowers bloom, remember me. I will always be your friend.

Piosenniel

Before Nitir had finished reading this note, her eyes flooded with tears. She thought her heart would break. Her sobbing woke up Maura and Azra who both came over to see what was wrong. She wept in their arms for what seemed like hours. Then she told them of the second dream of Nienna, and the two gifts.

Maura smiled at her and said that it looked like the great Lady was making the hobbit swallow her words. For she had come to the community with a strange tale about forgetting, and now the forgetting was indeed coming true. Nitir shared with him how frustrated she felt that all her learning, all she had struggled to acquire over the past 40 years, had been stripped away as if it were nothing. She said quietly, "It is mostly gone now. I have nothing left. And I am broken in pieces. I do not know how I will live."

But Maura had hugged her and said that was the way of life. And that wisdom lay not in facts, but in understanding, and she was rich in that. And he told her that sometimes brokenness is not such a bad thing since it makes us more able to see and comprehend what is in the hearts of others.

Nitir was still hurt and sad. But the worst of the bitterness and chill was gone. Pio had done the impossible. With the help of Maura and Azra, she had accomplished in death what she could not do in life. For, in the middle of a crowded prison camp, she had looked in the face of Morgoth and stared him down.

The next day, Nitir and Maura distributed the seeds among the hobbits and, six weeks later, every tiny burrow which had been dug into the muddy bank had a small patch of color blooming by its side.

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Shortly after the hobbits arrived at the encampment, their council met to try and organize the community. On the second day after their arrival, the Orcs had ordered that the children be rounded up, and placed in a separate building. Their reason for doing this was apparent. This single building could be closely guarded, so there would be little need to station large numbers of Orcs near the burrows. For no hobbit would try to escape without his children.

The hobbits had been aghast at this decision and even sent Tomba Bullroarer as a spokeman to protest the move. The Orc leader had howled with laughter, and told him not to complain, or the children would end up in the river as fish fodder. He had said they could choose their own women to care for the brats, preferably ones that were older, and not much use in the fields.

The council had met and debated back and forth when Maura rose to speak. He said the community had little choice in the matter, but they could make a difference in how things were carried out. For, over weeks and months and years, there was the danger that they might lose their children's minds and hearts. For the Orcs constantly taunted the young ones, and yet tried to win them over with treats if they would turn against their parents. It was possible these children could forget they were hobbits, and just what that meant. And, whether the children lived in the burrows or in a separate building, the community must not let that happen.

So the council agreed that they needed to find a practical but stubborn hobbit, an experienced mother and teacher, to try and fight against that. And, given the large numbers of babies and young children, she would need other helpers. By the end of the meeting, Nitir found herself in charge of a contingent of some 150 children. To help carry out this plan, she had Zira the healer, Azra of the strong back and sharp tongue, and Lindo, who knew most about songs and Elvish ways. They found a ruined building that could be fixed up with only small repairs, and by the end of the week, the children had been moved over.

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In the coming weeks, the hobbits were quick to learn a number of things. They found that the camp was a place of terrible scarcity, filth, and, above all, fear, fear that someone would come and with the stroke of a sword or axe take away the person or persons whom you most cared about. And it was also a place of hard labor. Their job was to cut down the tall pine trees and then burn them to enrich the soil. After that crops could be planted. The felling of the trees was dangerous, back-breaking work.

But, while Orc guards were free to use their whips whenever they liked, these same guards were also lazy. They simply did not have the brains or the vigilence to keep on top of the hobbits every moment. This would be increasingly evident as the days rolled by. Morgoth had decreed that there would be no time off for either Orcs or their captives. But the camp operated differently. Whenever the guards got drunk, which happened with some regularity, the hobbits could take advantage to tend to private matters. These included a whole gammet of practical activities like raising small vegetable gardens or going off to catch fish or trying to dig their burrows out so that there would be enough space for people to sleep without toppling down on one another. Sometimes it even included less practical things like sharing tales of lore, dancing, or singing simple songs. The Orcs truly hated the hobbits to sing or dance, which was one of the reasons the hobbits enjoyed doing these things so much.

The hobbits quickly understood that there were some things that they could not do for the safety of their family. Any overt sign of resistence, possession or a weapon, or attempt to run away would be met with the summary death of one of the younger hobbits.

But there was a range of other options which the Orcs found harder to police. The hobbits found, for example, when felling trees, or planting a new field, they could work hard enough to avoid being whipped, but not so hard that someting serious would actually get accomplished. As the Orcs understood nothing about agriculture, this wasn't difficult to do. Bullroarer once laughed and pointed out to the hobbit council that it actually took more will power and effort to carefully pace the work rather than going all out. But the hobbits all agreed that it was preferable to do things that way rather than blindly following the command of the guards. The Orcs could never understand why the small fruit and vegetable patches tended by the i families produced more food than the much larger fields which were collectively tilled under the harsh whip of the Orcs. And the hobbits were not about to tell them why this was so.

But even with these simple acts of defiance, conditions in the camps remained harsh. The crowded housing, paucity of healthy foods, and general filth meant that the spread of disease was rampant. And although the hobbits did try and improve things, their burrows remained wet and soggy. In winter, conditions were abominably cold with few blankets or warm clothing. The rain fell into their shelters and made large puddles in the middle of the floor. Few babies were born and of those who came into the world, many died soon after birth. Added to this was the capricious behavior of the Orcs who sometimes, for no apparent reason, picked out a particular hobbit to whip and abuse.

And then there were those things that were hard to describe, but you knew somehow weren't right. This was Morgoth's realm, and there was a pervading sense of gloom over all. Even a hobbit like Maura, who had a true feeling for lore, and who understood right from wrong, sometimes found himself despairing. For the young ones it was especially difficult. They worked long hours in the fields and were separated from their parents for much of the day. And however hard Nitir tried to teach them a few things, or give them a sense of who they were, she sometimes felt she had been asked to roll an
impossibly large stone up a very steep hill.

[ August 13, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]