An angel from on high

Chapter 5

The ring was with Frodo. The ring which had made Bilbo act like... like... well, act so un-Bilbo-like was now in the possession of poor, sweet, young Frodo. Angel almost couldn't stand to think about it.

For the next few years, he woke up panting in the middle of the night to images of Frodo with a hunch in his back and a mad gleam in his eyes. He would spend his days watching the hobbit, tracking his every movement, eyes searching for any non-Frodo behaviour that the hobbit might display.

Eventually however, he convinced himself he was being silly. Bilbo had been a particularly old hobbit after all, was it that unbelievable that the hobbit had gone senile in his old age? Actually, that was a perfectly reasonable explanation. Obviously Gandalf had simply been worried for the hobbit and decided that intervention was needed before the obsession got any worse. Leaving the ring with Frodo had simply been an easy solution to the problem.

Yes, that made sense, he told himself, tweaking a feather lightly for not thinking of it sooner. What a waste of three perfectly happy years, worrying about some demon from his past, that couldn't possibly exist here. This wasn't even the same world anymore.

After that, Angel forgot all about silly old rings and whispered conversations in candle lit parlours. Such things became works of fiction, to be read about in novels (imported from Bree because no self-respecting hobbit would ever write a book which involved such things) and then put back on the shelf, where they were forgotten about and left to gather dust as they should.

The next fourteen years, he was glad to say, were much more pleasant. No one knew how to pass time like Hobbits, Angel had discovered fairly early on. Days were marked with home-made meals, small chores, light chats over afternoon tea and wondering what to eat the next day.

Angel had found employment as something like a delivery boy, moving small packages across Hobbiton in return for cakes and pies which Frodo appreciated at the very least, even if they were slightly too big for Angel's liking. Pippin, or it might have been Merry, had jokingly labelled him with the title of 'Delivery Pigeon' which had annoyingly stuck- not that he truly minded he supposed, he just didn't like being associated with flying rodents.

He sighed and stretched lazily. His revenge was a good memory, he lamented. The confused hobbit had been extremely confused when he discovered he couldn't escape from under the shade, despite the blazing summer sun and the utter lack of clouds. Angel had stalked him for most of the day, holding a tarp over the hobbit's head.

He wiggled a bit, shaking off his ruminations, and trying to find a more comfortable position in the tree he had claimed possession of. It was harder than it used to be. Despite this being his normal perch, he had grown some more in the past few years and was almost too tall for the tree now. He should have found a new one by now but he'd been too lazy to look. He needed a new tunic too, now that he thought about it.

He frowned tugging at the olive wool of his current outfit. It had been a gift; One of many, after that hobbits noticed how he preferred his original outfit to their own style of clothing. It was a shame that he'd outgrown it but at least he was growing. Being stuck as the eternal winged midget hadn't been an appealing prospect.

Not that he was particularly tall by some standards, but then the elves had always been an annoyingly tall race and it wasn't really fair to compare him to them.

Angel was shaken from this new line of thought by the crunch of hooves on gravel, which provided an unusual counterpoint for the clicking of Sam Gamgee's shears. That was strange, he noted. There weren't many animals with hooves in this part of the shire. There was no need for them seeing as Hobbits very rarely went much further than their own porches. The few mules that were used on a regular basis had already been and gone for the day.