[Nurumaiel]

Don sighed and gazed out the window. Rie was elsewhere, and the hobbit girl was left alone. Everyone in the inn seemed to be so happy. Why couldn't she be happy, too? Why did her parents have to die? Why did she have to be separated from the rest of her family? Why couldn't she have a home?

Don saw Rie talking with Nuru out of the corner of her eye. "She left," the hobbit girl whispered. "She wanted to run away from her family. She wanted to be alone. I want a family."

Rie and Nuru were the only ones at the inn who ever noticed her. She was small for a hobbit child, and she felt even smaller with all the Big People hurrying around. She was so small that they never even noticed her. Just Rie and Nuru. And Nuru hardly ever said anything to her. Rie was the one who was really her friend.

But Rie and I don't have as much in common as I thought at first, thought Don. She's runnin' away from a home.... I'm trying to find one.

Don approached Rie and said in a voice that was almost a whisper, "Rie, do you want to go outside for a moment? I... I want to say something to you."

Rie turned to Don, puzzled, and then followed the girl outside.

A soft breeze played through Don's brown curls as she looked around her. The white clouds were drifting by in the sky, and Don turned her dark eyes up to them. "Sometimes," she said, "I wish I could just go and sit on a cloud, and let it fly me somewhere."

"Where?" Rie asked.

"Some good place," Don replied. "Where I'll have a new family. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Rie didn't say anything. She waited for Don to continue.

"I guess what I really want to say to you is simply goodbye," said Don decidedly. "I don't have a family, but I want to try to find one. I can't do that by staying here. So I'm going to wander around the Shire until I find someone who will take me." She turned her big eyes to look up at Rie. "But you're the very best friend I've ever had, except for my twin, and I won't go if you don't want me to."

Don looked down at the ground. "Do you want me to go?" she said in a quiet voice. "Or do you think you can find better for me than a new family somewhere out there? I trust you, Rie."