Author's Note: A random dribble of drabble not meant to be taken seriously.

Disclaimer: I don't own the nazgul, and I think- I'm not ever sure I own Brenine. The nazgul seem to have a pretty tight hold on her ;)

The scenario that follows is based upon the question: what would have happened if Brenine found the ring? The following interactions between the characters are based in part upon my fic Rolling in the Deep, and some Tolkien's notes which have been provide at the bottom of the page.

Brenine the Ring Bearer

The ring was heavy as dangled from Brenine's hand by a swaying necklace of rawhide and twine. It was speaking, if that was the right way to describe it. Even as she stood contemplating the fate of the world, and her fate within it the ring was compelling her to go back, to return to nine, rather than cast it into the river, and letting the nazgul dive for it- or maybe the ocean. The Witch King might have been the only nazgul that didn't fear rivers, but even he probably feared the ocean. At least she hoped he did.

Maybe she could trick them into travelling south, sneak onto a boat and- the urge to turn around was suddenly too powerful to overcome.

Brenine's head whipped around to look at the top of the slope, just before a creeping chill made her hackles rise. Her hand fisted over the ring as she waited for blackness darker than the surrounding night to appear. It didn't take very long.

"That's strange. That's creepy-strange."

She could faintly hear the rushes and reeds swaying as he approached. Undoubtedly he wanted her to hear him approach, so as to either terrify her or scare her less. She wasn't sure which it was, because she was scared regardless.

Barely visible as more than a dark outline with a slight gleam above his head, the king himself paused a few feet away.

"I knew you were coming, before you actually-"

"It calls…"

Well, that made sense. For a little piece of metal it sure seemed rather vocal. "And you call to it." She frowned.

"Yes."

The ring was a constant voice in his head. It was so close and so far, and the long she had it, the longer she kept it away from him, the more likely it was to do something to her. He still need of her alive. The ring wouldn't care, but she'd already refused to give it up willingly out of some misplaces loyalty to her doomed country and family.

He couldn't just take it from her either. She wasn't some clueless Halfling. The girl was most certainly clueless, but she had done a fair bit of reading, and she some idea of what she was up to in a very vague half-brained manner.

If he attempted to force it from her she'd claim it, and he'd be subservient to her. She wouldn't become his new master entirely, but a master none the less, and he'd have to do what she wanted him to do as long as it did not impede on his true Master's wishes or until such time as he found a way to deprive her of it. At that point his master would most certainly want her dead.

Or she really might try to cast it in the river, and the river they stood by was big. The elvish voices singing among the ripples of the dark rushing current might be enough to confuse even his senses, and he was not looking forward to a swim. Especially in that torrent….

The girl shifted, crying out as her foot slipped. She caught herself as he started toward her.

"I'm alright. I'm alright." She regained her footing on the rock she was standing on. She was most certainly not alright; the ring was thrumming with anxiety, need, and wrath. He needed to return it to his master, where it could rest on the only hand that could safely wield it. He needed to get it away from her.

"Please come down from there."He held out his hand, beckoning her forward, knowing that even if he'd been standing much closer, she would not have accepted.

Caught off guard, by his tone, and the word 'please,' Brenine did step down from the rock and away from the edge of the water's rushing torrent.

His behaviour had been so different, the last few days. His demeanor toward her and around her was off…. He seemed to defer to her, when she had commanded nothing from him, while trying to act as if he had not deferred to her, and now he was saying 'please,' of all things. Where were threats?

She knew the nazgul had always acted servile toward the ring, and that was part of it, and he was still caught off guard, as the ring had sort of landed in her lap, after all this time he'd seeking it and serving its will.

She likened the nazgul to a religious cult, and here she was, an unwashed heathen holding their most sacred item hostage. Of course he was walking on eggshells around her. The last thing he wanted was for her to cast it in a river, or claim dominion over it and by extension him and the others. The former was tempting, but the latter was less so. She couldn't imagine what their master would do them for failing to wrest it from some girl and provide another the opportunity to claim it. She really did not want to be the reason they suffered that….

Of course she couldn't just hand it over, though there still be time to do so, and be the cause of the world's destruction, but maybe she'd get to live- in whatever Hell of darkness and ash Sauron turned the world into.

So she stood on the precipice of the inevitable conclusion that at some point, somehow the king would take the ring from her. And there he stood watching as her fear of death, and fear of witnessing the world turn black tugged her back and forth, while she clenched the ultimate power of destruction in her hand.

It was only a matter of time before his waiting paid off.

The need to approach the nazgul was incredible. The urge was stemming from hand, but it was swiftly travelling throughout her entire body. She bit her lip, struggling against it, and hating that it was happening in the first place. Life had been so easy prior the ring.

The girl's countenance changed, as did the air around her. For a moment he was unsure if the ring had momentarily won her over or if her thoughts had gone somewhere else.

"What would happen if I put it on?"

The king stiffened. That was just the thing he needed. He could seize it from her, he could punish her for denying it to him, and he could touch her in his world. All he had to do was goad her toward that end.

"Thou wouldst be made invisible to mortal eyes, and know firsthand, power grea enough to dominate the world." The nazgul's tone suggested she ought to know that.

Brenine bit her lip, feeling suddenly self conscious. The question she really wanted to ask of him made her feel awkward and wrong, like she was going to pry in affairs that she was not meant to be privy to.

"And I- would I, um- would I be able to see you?" Her face burned with shame. The last thing he could possibly want was to be ogled by a potential threat to his master, but she was curious. All the months she'd been trapped in Minas Morgul, with him stealing heat from her and nearly kissing her, and now she had an opportunity to see the face of the man that had tormented her.

The king was silent, but she could just make out the movement his head bowing.

"Yes."

"Am I allowed to do that?"

The king's head shot up. "The ring is thy hand is it not?"

Brenine shook her head, biting her lip, as her face burned. "That's-that's not what I meant. I meant, um-would you-would that bother you?"

She wanted to slap herself. How lame and pathetic did that sound? The ring was in her hand. She could put it on and look at his face regardless, but she felt that this was awkward for him too.

Did she want to see the man under the black mantel? Did he want to see her as anything other than a silhouette? And then what?

She'd be on his side of the world. If he wanted to take the ring he wouldn't get a better opportunity.

"It matters not to me." He had always wondered at her shadowy form, trying to make out her facial expressions, unable to do so, and he had the opportunity. "But thee shan't forget what thy eyes will see."

Brenine bit her lip. That was a valid point. It was a point of no return. She'd see the face of a nazgul. She'd see something few other mortals would ever see, and he could be hideous, ugly, and horrible, and maybe it was best that he remained mysterious and faceless.

Their relationship would be irrevocably altered, and there would be no going back. She wouldn't forget, and neither would he.

"What of you?" Did he want to see her? She couldn't imagine why he wanted to. He'd seen countless women, and undoubtedly hundreds of them had been far prettier than she was.

He shifted toward her. "For centuries I have had naught to look up but the ugly faces of eight ugly old men."

Brenine laughed, despite her anxiety. Of all the things she'd expected him to say, she hadn't expect him to crack a joke.

Her breath hitched as he made toward her, boots crunching and grinding on the stones. Frozen she watched his approach with the wide eyes of a bird watching the nearing of a serpent.

Still unable to breath she watched in muted terror, as his hands cupped hers: the one holding the ring. Reflexively her fingers clenched around it tighter.

Gently, too gently, the nazgul lord took her hand, the ring dangling between them. She wanted to scream, but she couldn't. He plucked the ring from her palm and held it aloft. It remained suspended between them a tense moment, and then with the necklace still attached he slipped it upon her finger.

Brenine jerked back, the black gloved hands were glowing white, wrinkled and lined with age, with long slender fingers, that held her wrist hard enough to keep her from escaping him. She looked away.

The world was dark, and everything flickered and wavered as if everything was a flame or being tattered by a constant wind. The very air was like ice, and seemed to steal the warm from her very core.

Above, the stars were dim and nearly lost in the darkness. One of those pale, haggard, ghostly hands entered his vision, and touched her cheek.

She trembled amid her shivering. His hands were cold as they always were, but his touch was unmistakably solid. He was real! In this world he was solid, and his touch was more than just cold tickle, it was a physical sensation, and it shocked her.

Brenine's breathing stopped as his fingers slid across her skin. They grazed the pink stain on her cheek, trailed down her lips, conjuring a spike of ticklishness and tingling, before cupping her chin.

Tenderly, her head was lifted.

He was clothed in grey robes of a kingly fashion, and he really was seven feet tall, the crown gleaming on his head added an additional foot to his monolithic height, but it was his eyes that held her spellbound.

The king's face was narrow, lined with age and care, but nowhere near to the extent of his hands. But it was his eyes. The horrific to behold; black, pitiless, and fell, they gazed at her with an intensity that left her unable to think, or breathe, or do anything but stare.

Those keen eyes, few mortals would ever see beyond a deadly glint within a shadowy hood, were fixed upon her now. After thousands of years of seeing mortals as nothing more than shadowy silhouettes, his eyes found the colours of the girl revealed before him fair.

Her eyes were grey like the seas surrounding the old kingdom of Numenor. They revealed that she was indeed Numenorean, but her hair which should have been black, was a rich auburn: a clear indication that her noble blood had been spoiled by lesser men.

"Ever hast thou been warm."

In the icy world he lived in, Brenine was a fire beneath his finger tips and the sudden flare of red blush on her cheeks, and the suddenly rapid palpitation of her artery so close to his hand made her that much more warmer.

Whether it was her will, the ring's, or his own that silently compelled her to step toward him neither could say.

Brenine's heart thumped, and every inch of her felt like it was thrumming with sudden heat. There was a pause. Something, was coming, and she should have cared a lot more than she did.

His other rose to cup the side of her face, while the fingers on his other invoked small shivers and shudders as they curled into her hair. Then he tugged her closer and his lips met hers.

Stunned she stared up at the dim stars, unaware that her lips were moving against his, because all she seemed to feel was boiling heat marred by ribbons of cold as his icy fingers moved.

They glided along her jaw, her neck, cheeks, shoulders, eliciting all sorts of embarrassing gasps and sighs.

She had just enough sense left to her to wrap her arms around his neck so she could tell if he made a move for the ring.

As if to punish her, for thinking such a thing his mouth abandoned hers long enough to trail kisses along her jaw, that tickled and tingled, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to attempt escaping from him because nothing other than pain had ever felt that intense and it was frightening. Then he kissed the hollow beneath her ear, and she whimpered. She received a mocking chuckle of amusement, before the nazgul did it again.

Eventually, his travelled down her sides, making her squirm as he unintentionally tickled her, but they never strayed farther, nor did his mouth go any lower than the base of her throat.

When they finished, after however long that had been- it couldn't have been more few minutes- she funder herself bowed backward, supported only by his arms unable to see straight. Her head was definitely buzzing, and she dizzily stared up at him, sucking in air and watching it escape as tiny ghosts.

Brenine couldn't remember much of what happened. It had been too much to take in at one time, and she wasn't sure if she'd liked it or not. The king pulled her into a standing position, and she pathetically and weakly slumped against him. How dizzy and tipsy she felt, she wasn't going to stand on her own, never mind pull away and try to walk.

Slowly she was becoming aware of her fingers aching, and she stared at the white knuckled grip she had on his shoulders. She hadn't moved them throughout that whole-whatever that was- too afraid to do so. She didn't even know how. Her face flushed as she tried to picture doing anything remotely close to the things she did remember him doing. Even running her fingers through his hair was frightening.

He didn't seem particularly upset with her timidity, nor did he complain now as her fingers refuse to slacken and she used him as leaning post. In fact he stooped to rest his chin on her head sniffing as nazgul sometimes did.

The Witch King let the barest trace of a smile curl his lips, as an idea occurred to him. Rather than taking the ring, he'd let her wear it- no, he'd insist that she wear it, because sometime two packages in one were much easier to carry. And in this case fun as well.