Gollum was so distraught at his loss that rather than feeling the icy chill on his feet he was awoken from his state by the echoes of splashing water. When he wasn't shrieking and screaming of the ring's abandonment of him, lamenting words rose and were probably heard by every goblin and fish in the tunnels of the mountain. "Stolen from us! Filthy horrible Baggins has stolen our birthday present. He's a thief and we hates him forever!" Gollum was in such a babbling wretched state that he didn't notice how many times he repeated himself, and he didn't hear the shouts of scouting goblins until he had paddled some metres from the lake's edge.

"Find the perpetrators!" A savage voice commanded, "Anyone linked to the murder of the Great Goblin will be punished by pain of death! Bring me back a head or you will all be banished!" It must have been an important goblin who said this, and it was; he was the Great Goblin's only brother, and the second in command.

By the time Gollum heard the commotion behind him he had reached his small, slimy island. "Curse them!" he hissed, "Curse them! So close and no precious to help us catch them! Kill them! No precious to keep us out of danger. What are we to do now?"

Gollum spoke again, but this time his voice was softer and had a weak note of conciliation. "Don't fear, we just need to hide until they go away."

"Hide!" Gollum spat, "Hide until they go away? And where do we hide?"

"Well, w- well," Sméagol said, for this unusual, confusing creature had two sides to him, and the more conciliatory side was the last remaining shadow of the young man from the river that he used to be, "We could hide in the water."

"Hide in the water!" Gollum replied incredulously, "Even we cannot bear the cold of the black lakeses."

Sméagol was so flustered from Gollum's chastising that something strange happened that very rarely happened to him: he remembered back to before he had found the ring, before it had found him. It was a day when he was still a child, and the dusk was falling softly on the riverbank, and he could remember his mother urging him to hide under his bed in their hole and not come out until she had returned. It was before he lived with his grandmother in her hole. Why he was commanded to do so he could not remember, but the feeling he could recall from that day was all around him in the dark.

"Hide in the hole!" he squeaked loudly.

"What hole? There is no hole you stupid ugly wretch gollum."

"Then we get in the boat and paddle farther away. They won't be able to swim in the deep water."

"Yes. Now you are making sense."

So that is what Gollum did, and after a few minutes of paddling the faint outlines of goblins on the shore were small. The goblins' eyes weren't as good as his, and he knew he was out of arrowshot anyway.

Gollum then momentarily forgot all about his loss of the ring and cackled under his breath, which delivered a gurgling sound that some of the goblins mistook for stone scraping on stone. "They're on the move, wherever they are!" A goblin voice rang out to the left of Gollum.

"Somebody swim out to the lone island!" The goblin in command yelled. Gollum could hear the sound of shuffling feet. "No one can last in that water sir. There used to be a boat you could use to get across."

"Then where is it? It's not on this edge of the lake."

"If I remember correctly, the boat was always moored on the other side of the lake," a feeble sounding goblin sniffled.

"A search party will search the other side of the lake!" The commander screamed, "Everyone else scour every tunnel until you reach the secret exit. We will ride the Wargs tonight until we find them!"

And with that came a great commotion as the goblins moved off, leaving Gollum alone once more. He was now free to paddle back to the island, and that he did.

"What will we do to catch food now, precious?" Sméagol asked to break the silence.

"We had best look for blind fishes, gollum; we will never eat another goblin again."

"Oh but maybe if one comes to the edge of the lake and we catches it, and if the others hear, we can do just what we did now, precious, and they won't catch us."

"When will a lone goblin come to the lake? They never have before."

"They might start patrolling the lake now that the Great Goblin is dead, precious. We never did like the Great Goblin now did we?"

"No we didn't. We didn't like him at all. Now, to catch a fish."

"Swimming in the pool, it's nice and cool-"

"None of your sing-songs now!" Gollum snapped, "What we have lost today. What we have lost."

"Yes but we'll get it back!" Sméagol squeaked in reply, only to be met with silence. The silence went on and on, until he broke it by squeaking again, "Won't we?"

"Yes, precious. Yes, we will, gollum, gollum, gollum." Gollum coughed and coughed and coughed, and it was clear that the wretched, pathetic creature was lying to himself. "We will get it back, and that Baggins will be the feast that we celebrate with its return. Now, tomorrow we search. We search for the precious until we finds it."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow." Sméagol was surprised to hear the word 'tomorrow', for like his name, it was a word he hadn't heard for centuries. There were strange things brewing in his mind since his parting with the precious.

"But how will we know when it's tomorrow?"

Gollum was livid at hearing this. "We will know precious, when the sun comes up," he said, not knowing that the sun was quite high over his head as he spoke. The years spent under the mountain had transcended time so that decades felt like months and yet months felt like decades at the same time.

"How about we start searching… as… as soon as we wakes up after we sleeps?" Sméagol asked feebly, for when he made a suggestion he never knew how it would be taken by Gollum.

"Yes, my love, yes. Now rest. Sleep. The precious is not lost; it will be found again. For it is ours. Ours." Gollum's pale eyes shifted suspiciously until he lowered his head to rest between his skinny arms, which had elongated and twisted over years like gnarled tree branches.

Gollum quickly fell into a restless sleep that included much tossing and turning and rapid breathing. Though he had appeared to be relatively calm about his lost birthday present, his sleep was much more disturbed than it had been for a long long time. He did something that he hadn't done for so long that he started to believe what he was seeing and hearing was real: He started to dream. He dreamed he was a Stoor Hobbit again and that he was walking down a dusty road in the village, and alongside him was his brother, Déagol. They were laughing and scheming and hopping along at quite a fast pace, with Sméagol a few steps in front of Déagol.

"Sméagol, I don't think we should do this! If we get caught, the whole village will know!"

"It will be easy Déagol, easy. You just talk while I climb onto the wagon. Watch out of the corner of your eye for me."

Both quickened their pace and stifled their excited laughter, for they were about to attempt to steal as many fireworks as they could from the mysterious grey wizard, Gandalf Stormcrow. He was well versed on the party scene, which he did when he wasn't busy with other matters, providing villages with his fireworks and magic tricks, but they came at a price, a price too high for Sméagol and Déagol to buy them honestly. Déagol approached the front of the wagon where Gandalf was sitting smoking a pipe, his ragged pointed hat concealing all parts of his face save his bushy eyebrows. Déagol looked ahead and saw Sméagol dive into the back of the wagon.

"Greetings, Gandalf sir," Déagol said timidly. Gandalf started with a grunt and it appeared he had been sleeping. "Hello kind hobbit," Gandalf said politely, "Aah, you must be Féagol's boy."

Déagol was stunned at being recognized. "Yes sir, I am."

Sméagol had dove and landed between two large boxes stuffed full of fireworks sticking out in every direction. His excitement was so intense that he fought off shouting with glee, but he did let out quite a few quick chuckles. He snatched three large fireworks, one with a horse head, one with a frog head, and one with a fish head. He was so blinded by his delight that when he stepped down from the wagon he almost bounded in Gandalf's direction, but he quickly jumped behind a large oak tree and counted to ten. He closed his eyes and bounded with short, quick steps down the path to the river. His cheeks burned under the sun as his blood rushed close to his skin, the wind caught in his long locks and it whipped behind his shoulders. His feet thumped into the dust and onto the dewy grass. He couldn't wait until Déagol excused himself from Gandalf and joined him back in their hobbit hole.

"What are you looking for, young Déagol?" Gandalf asked, his head still buried under the brim of his hat.

"I would like to enquire about the cheapest fireworks you have," Déagol said with the straightest face he could manage.

"Well, master Déagol, let us start with the most expensive, and work our way down. The largest I have, the flying fire-breathing worm, would take almost a year of work for you to buy. The cheapest, the giant swooping eagle, would take you about a month."

"Oh if that's the case then I'll just be-"

"Not so fast master Déagol, for I haven't told you about the special deal," mumbled Gandalf, and Déagol felt his heart beat faster and louder, and a beam appeared on his face, "Though someone has already taken advantage of the special price." From here the beam vanished from Déagol's face and was replaced with a curious, suspicious look.

"Your brother Sméagol has just run away with three of my favourite fireworks to make: The horse, the frog, and the fish. But when you see him, pretend you didn't see him run away with them; they were hidden beneath his clothes."

Déagol was at once struck by Gandalf's calmness and acceptance of his lost stock, but he was more surprised by his call for Déagol to lie to Sméagol.

"Why?"

"Why, I shouldn't say, for it will spoil it, but I will. He wants to save them for your birthday."

"My birthday," Déagol said quietly, and the beam returned to his face, "He did all this just for my birthday."

"Yes, he did," Gandalf said in a low voice, "And I expect he will want something in return when the time comes."

Gollum opened his eyes and swiped the air, as if something there were annoying him. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the edge of the lake. He didn't know how much time had passed, but assumed that the goblins would have searched the other side of the lake by now. "They won't be able to see us anyway. Long long way from that edge." And with that reassurance he closed his eyes once more and drifted away into more vivid dreams.

It was still dark but that was because it was so early in the morning. Sméagol had been looking forward to this day for a long time, though he was disappointed that Déagol was too sick to join him. "How does Déagol have a cold when it is the middle of spring?" Sméagol asked his father as they walked downhill towards their boat moored on the riverbank.

"He always gets something at this time of year," Féagol replied with a smile, "It must be all the new life blowing in the air that sets his nose off."

"Oh well it's awful that he can't come today."

"Well he had his special day a few years back without you, so maybe it was meant to be this way; your first time fishing just with father and son." Sméagol heard his father and as they got closer to the boat, both with rods and bucket in hand, he began to think less of Déagol and more about the prospect of catching his first fish. He hadn't even begun to think of what gifts the day would bring him a bit later on. They reached the boat and Féagol helped Sméagol in. "Next foot in, good boy. Now, sit down here and we'll paddle a bit further downstream. There is magnificent cod past that copse yonder." Féagol pointed down to where the trees were thickest and closest to the water, and they began making their way there.

The sun was rising higher and letting out a thin shine over the water. Sparkles glinted over the ripples and caught Sméagol's eyes as he felt laughter rising in his throat and an indescribable energy well up within him. They paddled for some minutes and the further they went the more ecstatic Sméagol began to feel until he almost felt the urge to jump overboard and swim deep into the river. Without thinking he felt himself rise. He thought he could hear a faraway whisper, a beckoning for him to follow, to take a leap and never turn back, no matter the consequences. He was about to take a step before his father's voice interrupted him. "Sméagol lad, sit down, you're rocking the boat." And he sat back down. "Now, we're almost where we should be. Let's get a worm each out. I'll show you how to put it on the hook."

The lines were out each side of the boat, and as Sméagol looked above through the leaves to the clouds and sky above, he felt inside like his life had just begun.

"I've got one! I've got one pa!" Sméagol cried out in joy as he felt his rod jolting in his hands. "Keep your hands strong and don't let go!" Féagol said in delight, "Now, with one hand pull the line in. I'll get the net." It was only a small fish so it wasn't difficult for Sméagol to pull it in and he felt adulation escape him as he watched his father dip the net into the water and pull in the flapping fish. "Hooray! Hooray!" Sméagol crowed, and Féagol laughed boomingly for a Stoor Hobbit. "You've done it, my boy! Now you're truly one of the river-folk! On your birthday! Just like Déagol before you." And Sméagol felt proud to be a part of the family.

They were both so excited they decided to stop and show his mother and Déagol Sméagol's first catch. They filled a bucket with riverwater and dropped the fish in. "We can cook it up for your birthday lunch, Sméagol," Féagol said as they moored the boat on the riverbank, "In a few birthdays you and Déagol will be able to go fishing without me."

"We will?" Sméagol said wondrously.

"Oh yes you will, all by yourselves!"

Gollum coughed uncontrollably for almost a minute, though he was so inebriated by his dreams that he thought he was just recollecting another memory. The feeling he knew so well coursed through him and he was convinced he was somewhere else, with it on.

It had been one of the longest times he had kept the ring on; in the earlier years he had kept it on almost permanently, and at this time he hadn't taken it off for almost three years. It had taken months, and all his intuition, to find his way back home from the edge of Mirkwood, where he had been living after he was disturbed too much by the elves in Rivendell and was tired of living high in the cold Misty Mountains. Many times he had drunk the black water from the Mirkwood river, and it now had no effect on him.

Though it was many centuries before the night after Sméagol lost the ring, he had already fallen under its spell. All feelings had drained away, the past was the future, and he had become more and more convinced that something was burying itself in his head. In the dead hours of night he could hear something whispering his name, mocking him, calling for him. But one night all of these things has evaded from him and he felt as if he was waking up on the morning of his birthday, the day that him and Déagol were to go fishing by themselves together for the first time.