[Firefoot]

As the conversation drew on, Lily became more and more curious about Willow. It seemed to Lily that for all of her friendly, positive exterior Willow had experienced a lot of sorrow. And then there was the comment last night about the fiddle... Hm. I guess I'll just have to wait and find out, thought Lily. "Why is it that you came to Hobbiton anyhow?" asked Willow, yawning again.

"Well, my uncle travelled quite a bit when he was younger. He told lots of stories. No one ever knew if they were true or not, but they were good stories anyhow," Lily began, chuckling. "I guess I always sort of wanted to see the places he talked about. And the places in his books. It got to a point, I suppose, that Bree seemed too familiar. Like there was nothing new to see. So I decided to see the world, or some of it, anyway. Uncle Longo, he said I should start with the Shire, to see if exploring was really for me, and he recommended the Green Dragon as a good place to start. So here I am," Lily finished. She took another sip of tea, and ruefully realized it was nearly gone. It was good tea, too. I'll just have to get some more later, she decided.

"And you? What brings you to Hobbiton?" Lily asked. She glanced at Mira and Ferran. Lily felt kind of bad for excluding them, but they didn't appear to be listening anyway. Not my problem, she decided. They can join in if they want.