Co-written by annoyingtalkinganimal (aka ATA). Co-blame us both for this.

WARNING!Now, as it has been pointed out by a cherished reviewer, we are morons. While we both were already aware of this, we feel it is important to warn you that this is mostly, especially in the early chapters, a just-for-fun parody. Concerning Tolkien, the two of us are rather irreverent. HAVING SAID THAT, in later chapters there may be some pretty substantial stuff going on. EVEN SOME ROMANCE! Especially when the ladies show up, about nine chapters in.

The Brilliant and Very Lengthy Prequel

In a hole there lived a hobbit. In another hole there lived a craaaal. It would soon be eating hobbit for dinner.

The First Chapter, In Which Bilbo Dies and Frodo Cries and Samwise Lies and Pippin Sighs and Merry Buys and Smeagol… er… Laughs

It was a warm summer morning in Hobbiton, and all of the hobbits were going about their daily business.

"Let's drink and smoke!" shouted a random hobbit.

"Not before second breakfast!" his wife called sternly back.

Old and irritable Bilbo Baggins was sitting on a stool at a small desk, writing a story about dragons and other nonsense creatures. He was reading aloud as he wrote like so: "Concerning hobbits… hobbits like food… hobbits like drinks… hobbits are the best…." It was not perhaps the most engaging of works, but then, no one had ever set out to write about Hobbits before, except perhaps Dalin, son of Dorkin, son of Lothlanderson, and his book was called "That One Time I Ran Over What I Thought was a Child But What Turned Out to Actually be a Hobbit when I was Chariot Racing near the Galloping Cow Pub" and therefore, Bilbo's efforts were very likely to become highly celebrated once he had finished.

His writing juices were really flowing, but he was interrupted when someone knocked on the door.

"FRODO! THE DOOR!" he commanded lazily before returning to his dismal book. The knock came again. "FRODO! GET THE DOOR!" he called again, but there was no answer. The visitor knocked for the third time. Bilbo set his quill down with an audible smack.

"FRODO! GET THE BLOODY DOOR! WHAT DO I PAY YOU FOR ANYWAY? BLOODY USELESS ORPHANS! ALL I EVER DO IS FEED AND CLOTH YOU OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF MINE OWN HEART, BUT ANSWERING THE DOOR FOR YOUR DECREPIT UNCLE IS APPARENTLY TOO MUCH TO ASK!" he bellowed.

Still, there was no sign that Frodo would obey his Uncle's orders. Finally, Bilbo, grumbling thoroughly, stumped to the round door, opened it, and saw a very old wizard wearing a pointy hat standing in front of him.

"I don't want any," he declared, and slammed the door shut.

A muffled voice complained, "But I'm a very old friend!"

"GAH! It's Gandalf!" He wrenched the door open and pulled the wizard inside.

"You're just in time for second breakfast!" he explained. He sat Gandalf in a short chair and hustled to the kitchen. "Do you want eggs?"

"Tea is fine, thank you."

"Crumpets?"

"Tea is fine, thank you."

"Toast?"

"Just tea, thanks."

"Freshly baked strawberry cake?"

"Tea is fine, thank you."

"What's wrong with you? You must want something to eat!"

"Tea would be lovely, thank you."

"Oh, all right," Bilbo sighed, before bringing all of the above food items anyway. Gandalf raised an eyebrow.

"So… what are you doing here?" Bilbo asked bluntly.

"I came to tell Frodo that the ring of power that you bestowed upon him last year is evil and that he must embark on a life-threatening journey at his earliest convenience."

"How nice," Bilbo said indifferently.

Just then, the craaaal burst through the door. It looked around, saliva dripping in threatening globs from its chops. It made a beeline for Bilbo and chomped him to pieces. The craaaal was finished eating in three minutes. It slithered away quietly, leaving no sign of its presence.

Gandalf stared. "That settles it. I'm giving up pipe-weed," he declared.

Frodo then burst through the door. "Oh… Bilbo's dead. HI GANDALF!"

The funeral was beautiful, although guests kept fainting when they peered into the casket. The only parts of Bilbo that the craaaal had left were very bloody. And very inappropriate. Craaaals are picky.

"Frodo," Gandalf whispered to Frodo as the Hobbit choir honked out a song about growing shrubs in Hobbit Heaven, "I have to tell you something incredibly important. Bilbo's ring – it is – but, alas, I cannot speak these words aloud, especially not within Hobbiton. Nonetheless, it is imperative that you take the ring. Take the ring that Bilbo gave you last year because he was too lazy to buy you a proper birthday present. You must take it, do you understand? And you must go. Go far, far away, where you will never be found, and live in seclusion for all of your days."

Frodo stared at him. "Uh, well, as fun as that sounds, I was kind of planning to, uh, not, uh… live in seclusion for the rest of my life."

"Yes, that's good, I knew you were the Hobbit to trust with this. It's very important. Your sacrifice will save millions of innocents all over Middle Earth. Okay, I'm out."

"Wait, Gandalf, I wasn't -" Frodo hissed as Gandalf exited the pew. But the grey wizard said nothing more. He got as far as the woods, and then took a wrong turn and fell off a rather large cliff. His piercing scream interrupted the abnormally long shrub-planting song. The Hobbits all began muttering in panic and confusion to each other.

"What was that?" asked Pippin, rather loudly and unconcernedly, from right behind Frodo's head.

"Your guess is as good as mine, Pip," said Merry, who was sitting next to Pippin, as he bit flippantly into an apple.

"Guys, be quiet, this is Frodo's Uncle Bilbo's funeral. Show some respect," Sam muttered from behind both of them and he glared at the two trouble makers.

"Look, I wasn't the one who screamed out there," Merry spewed, along with partially chewed chunks of apple.

"It sounded kind of like Gandalf," Frodo said thoughtfully. "Come on, let's go check it out."

The four crept from the panicked funeral parlour and bustled and bumbled in the direction of the scream, Sam lecturing Merry and Pippin all the way. When they reached it, Frodo had to fling out both arms to stop the lot of them from tumbling off the cliff as they were hardly paying attention to where they were stepping.

"Well I'll be," Sam said, awed. The four hobbits peered over the edge, and could still make out Gandalf the Grey falling magnificently to his doom.

"Oh, Mr. Frodo, I'm so sorry!" squeaked Sam, glancing hurriedly at the lad. "Losing your uncle and your… wizard, all in one day! It must be awful! You'll probably not feel better for years!"

"Thanks, Sam," Frodo snapped.

Merry nodded good-naturedly at the falling body and took another bite of apple. "So, what do you want to do now?"

"Some pipe-weed, I think. Pipe-weed'd be good," Pippin said, nodding intelligently.

"Oh, yes, that would be good -" Merry began, but Sam interrupted him.

"No, guys, we should do something actually important," he declared. "Frodo, what do you think we should do?"

Frodo looked from Merry and Pippin to Sam and pondered. "Well, Gandalf told me to take Bilbo's ring far away and live the rest of my life in seclusion. That sounded kind of important."

"Ugh, dull. I vote pipe-weed," Merry said.

Sam smacked him. "No, come on, let's go get the ring. In honour of Gandalf."

Groaning, Merry and Pippin led Sam and Frodo back into the church to retrieve the cherished piece of jewellery. The ring was to be buried with Bilbo, and currently sat between two questionable hunks of flesh.

The four young hobbits crept up to the casket, reached in and…

"AHH!" shrieked Pippin.

"WHAT?" asked Merry wildly.

"Nothing. I thought something dramatic should happen, that's all," Pippin told him unconcernedly.

"You are a moron," Sam told him seriously.

So. They took it.

"Now what?" asked Merry. "And don't say 'Let's go take it and live in seclusion.' I'm not doing that, that's lame."

"Hey, I have an idea! Let's go inside and throw it out the window," Pippin suggested.

"That idea's so crazy, it might actually work!" Merry yelled joyously.

"What do you mean, 'it might actually work'?" Sam asked, confused.

"I mean it might actually work! Come on, Sam Gamgee, live a little for once!"

Now it was Sam's turn to grumble as the hobbits went inside and threw the ring out the window. It smashed through the flimsy Hobbit-glass and landed in a patch of dry grass.

"Why is there a patch of dry grass on our lawn?" Frodo asked, looking at Sam. "It's the wet season!"

"Sorry," mumbled Sam.

All of a sudden, the twenty-pound ring came flying back through the glass. Frodo stared at the hole in the window. "That's a little weird," he pointed out.

"Yes… very," added Sam.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" laughed Smeagol's far away voice. "You call this torture?"

"… What was that?" Pippin asked uneasily.

"Why can we hear people's voices when they're kind of far away?" asked Merry, equally uneasily.

"I'll give you a hint! First word, five letters, second word, seven letters. First word starts with…? Oh, never mind, you'll never guess. You're just monstrous creations made to serve one not very interesting plot structure purpose. It's 'Shire' and 'Baggins'. Start looking, fools."

"Hey, that's me!" Pippin said, alarmed.

"No, idiot, it's Frodo!" Sam shrieked.

"Okay, you know what? I'll even give you directions to tell your wraithy masters. You go west a ways… and then a little to the south. Turn right at the Galloping Cow. Find the hobbit hole with arrogant, badly-phrased narration emitting from it and you'll have him," came the voice again.

"GET ON THE PONY!" yelled Sam.

Frodo leapt on old Bill. Then Sam leapt on behind him.

The pony sagged under the weight.

Merry and Pippin joined them. Now the pony could barely move at all, so they all got off the pony with the exception of Frodo.

Suddenly, Black Riders were chasing them.

"HOW did those things get here so fast?" asked Sam angrily.

"We rode. From Mordor." A Black Rider gestured at a huge, black gate about fifty yards to the right of them.

"Oh. I've always wondered what that was," said Pippin.

"THE BUCKLEBERRY FERRY! It's our only hope!" yelled Merry.

They rode to a plank of wood, on to which they jumped (Bill took a little convincing).

"Why aren't we moving?" Pippin asked, very confused.

"Because we're not in water, stupid!"

"It was your idea to jump on a raft in the first place!"

"I meant the raft that was IN THE WATER!" Merry yelled.

So they dragged the Buckleberry Ferry to the water, and now, instead of jumping on the raft, the riders decided to go all the way around the Ocean. Which was stupid, really, considering the hobbits were traveling across a pond.