Frodo looked up from the book in his lap upon sensing someone enter his room and found lord Elrond walking towards him with Aragorn close on his heels and smiled softly in welcome. "Good day, Lord Elrond," He nodded to the elf and then let his blue eyes shift to his ranger friend, "Aragorn. What brings the two of you here this day?"

"We came to check up on you and see how you are faring Frodo." Aragorn said kindly, not wanting to upset his young friend as of yet about why the two were truly there, in his room.

They were checking up on the progress of his healing. To see if the ring of power had finally loosened it's grasp on the young hobbit or if they should make an attempt to seek out a new ring bearer to destroy Sauron's ring of power.

"I am feeling well this day. Though a little bit more tired than usual." Frodo said, his once impossibly bright blue eyes had become a dull, paler shade of what they had once been. Looking more and more like that of a corpse a bit more each day since he had first taken up the brave, yet wholly impossible task of being the ring bearer a month or so ago.

And though they had wished to continue their mission to destroy the ring that Frodo still held in his possession even now, they hadn't dared to once the young hobbit had begun to mentally breakdown.

As it was, Sam and Gimli had witnessed some of the worst of his deterioration. Both had found him at one point or another, attempting to kill himself. Once by hanging and the other time when he had simply stumbled over to the edge of a steep cliff and attempted to throw himself off of it.

Both times could have been easily mistaken as accident's if not for the frequency between them. Still both times he had been stopped, though only one of those times had left such lasting effects on the hearts and minds of his friends and comrades.

Even now, Frodo's neck had yet to completely heal due to the ring's dark power.

After all, it believed that if the current ring bearer perished then a new one would have to take his place. And it wanted someone easily manipulated into doing it's bidding.

And it was because of this and Frodo's mental stability that it had been decided in secret that the ring should be taken from him and placed in the hands of someone else. But so far, none among the fellowship felt brave enough to try and make an attempt to carry the accursed trinket.

The hobbit's were off limits after what had happened to Frodo.

Gimli was a dwarf and thus was a greedy being by nature. He could not carry the ring, though he had been trying to talk his way into doing just that.

Aragorn would not/could not carry the ring himself seeing as no one trusted him to do so, like his late father was once trusted.

Gandalf couldn't carry it, he was a being of great magical power. The ring would corrupt him faster than it had Frodo.

Which only left Legolas, however as an elf- he also couldn't carry the ring without being corrupted either. Elves always felt a natural pull towards objects of power. Almost like dwarfs. Though elves were not half as greedy as dwarf's. If he were to attempt carrying the ring, he would go mad.

Aragorn was beginning to think that fate was playing a cruel joke upon them because of how things had played out for the fellowship so far. And unless the ring was destroyed... Sauron would inevitably find it and kill them all. He hated seeing Frodo so broken and irreparaply damaged.

But he hated the fact that due to their first attempt to destroy the ring, failing- they were now placed in a position where they must place another innocent person in the same position that Frodo had been in before. And would possibly lead said person to their destruction doing so.

But as much as he hated that fact, they couldn't simply do nothing. All of middle Earth was counting on the ring's destruction.

What was one life to save so many from death?

He subconsciously fisted his hands at his sides and muttered that he needed to be somewhere and with a faint and barely audible 'goodbye' stalked from the room. He suddenly felt the urge to destroy something. Leaving his young hobbit friend to stare after him and wonder what he had done wrong.

(******************************************************************************************************************************)

Earth-

She was listening to Mal's song when it happened. The lyrics echoing so loudly in her ears that it managed to drown out any sound or warning that she might have been given if she hadn't been so desperate to block out the world around her and simply be in a world of her own making.

After all, why would she want to pay attention to anything in the world?

She had nothing to pay attention for- er, live for rather.

Her parents were gone. A month now, today was the anniversary of their bizarre ritualistic murder/suicide. Her older brother had left her, not wanting to help her get through her depression and whatnot.

He was getting married in two days, something that should have been a joyous occasion, and just last night she had called him up to scream at him for not just abandoning her when she was barely sixteen. No- he had abandoned her not even two days after their parents had died without any remorse, she might add, to go and fuck his little whore two hundred miles away.

Needless to say, her brother never wanted to speak to her again. Surprise, surprise.

Not that she really cared anyway, she'd give his marriage an hour before it devolved into the latest episode of Jerry Springer, complete with fist fights and chair throwing and shit.

She had no friends, thanks entirely to her dad sleeping with a bunch of them while they had barely been legal. So- there was that. She had her job and that was really about it. But even that wasn't all that great.

She may have worked for herself and stuff, but she barely made any money from her work. Certainly not enough to keep up with the rent and such. In fact she wouldn't be all that shocked to leave that she was homeless by the time that she returned to her...shed in the wall, apartment.

Looking down at her MP3 player, she paused in her steps slightly as she fished it out of her pocket to turn it up a little bit more, not caring in the least that the volume was up as far as it would go.

Once she was done fiddling with her MP3, she then tilted her head back as she reached up with one hand to brush her crimson hair out of her face and didn't even realize that she was in the street until the screech of tires reached her ears, even over the sound of her music and she turned her head just in time to see the vehicle careening towards her.

(***********************************************************************************************************************************************)

Aragorn didn't bother waiting around outside of Frodo's room to see if Elrond had managed to pry the ring from him. As far as he was currently concerned, the lord was on his own for now. Instead he decided to busy himself training or something.

Walking out of the palace with his sword in hand, he made a beeline straight for the forest in the hopes that he could have a few hours to himself before the next meeting took place to discuss possible candidates to carry the ring. Frankly speaking, he knew that finding the next person to be the ring bearer, would be an impossible task.

Especially since everyone was capable of being corrupted by the ring.

He was half way to the forest when there was a loud sound almost like a crash, followed by black smoke. Pausing because he was uncertain now if he wanted to bother entering to forest, he let his eyes scan the tree line anxiously. His hand automatically went to his sword, just in case, as he began to take a tentative step forward.

Some part of him instinctively aware that something lay just beyond the tree line, within the forest. Though whether or not it was something dangerous like a Wraith- he had no idea. But he decided not to take the chance.

Tightening his fingers around the handle of his sword, Aragorn slowly and cautiously made his way into the forest. Not bothering to look back towards the palace since he was sure that Gandolf and several of the palace guards were already on their way to make sure that there was nothing amiss.

He found a small trail of fire, nothing big or truly damaging. Merely tiny flames licking along the forest floor here and there. Making a peculiar sort of trail for him to follow.

And follow it, he did.

The trail moved through thickets and underbrush and only stopped once he reached the shallows of the river border of Elrond's lands. Dropping his hand away from his sword at the horrifying sight that greeted him, he picked up his pace enough to get him over to the small, child-like figure laying on it's back.

The little one was convulsing, damaged lungs struggling to breathe around the blood filling them as he dropped down to his knees next to him/her so that he could assess the damage to the little's one's body.

The first thing that he noticed, was that the 'little one' as he had dubbed him/her in his mind, was in fact female. A very young, very small, delicately boned- female. The second thing that he noticed, aside from her injuries and the amount of blood that she was loosing, was that she was not only fully conscious. But was fighting to remain so despite the apparent agony that she must have been in.

She looked at him with glistening, wide soft green eyes and he could almost read the panic in them. She was beyond afraid. She was outright terrified.

Her pale lips moved, as if to say something, but all that she managed to do was make a gurgling sound as she coughed up some blood.

Reaching out he took one of her small hands in his and tried to comfort her since he very much doubted that she would survive for much longer anyways, as he heard heavy footfalls heading their way, and quietly began speaking to the little one as he watched her slowly fade into unconsciousness.