The frothy waves lapped lazily over the dull sand of the beach. Here and there they had to along the sides of rocks, or sweep over long-abandoned seashells. And they did it with ease: first engulfing then releasing the object from the endless ebb and flow of the sea's briny water. But there was one object on the shore that the tide could simply not flow over, but had to work its way around.
It lay on its side like the beached carcass of a wooden whale, or an oliphaunt painted mahogany. Leading up to it was a great gash in the sand that it had plowed through to land on this island. And there a single figure, small and with a head of adorably curly, brown hair, crouched.
He was watching the inrush or the water up the scar made by the ship. At first glance, one would have guessed him only a child. But a closer look revealed him to be far older; there hid years inside his baby-blue, maybe-gay eyes.
As he stared, a new figure emerged from a hole in the wooden bowels of the ship. This one was stocky, with blonde hair and a dumbfounded expression fixed as surely on his face as if someone had stuck it there with superglue. He, too, was small; far too small to play football.
Seeing the other person on the beach, the blonde lifted his hand to his mouth and shouted, "Ho, Master Frodo! Are you all right?"
The brunette, Frodo, stood straight and ran to the caller, embracing him like a very, extremely close, but totally platonic friend.
"Oh, Sam, I'm so glad to see you!" he cried. "This is all so terrible. I have no idea where we are!"
"It's an awful thing, to be sure, Master Frodo. I haven't seen any o' the others, not yet. And I've been lookin' around the ship for what seems like hours, I 'ave."
"Surely some of them are alive. I fell as if this is all my fault! I should never have convinced that ugly Elrond to let me bring everyone with me. And now, just think, we may never get to see any of their painfully attractive faces again! Oh, poor Merry and Pippin! Poor Bilbo! Poor Gandalf! And Legolas, and Boromir --"
"Who we brought back to life using the ancient, magical charms of Irish clogging, and some o' that ale from Bree," Sam interrupted.
"That's right, Sam," Frodo said, and continued. "Poor Aragorn! Poor Faramir! Poor Denethor and Theoden! Even Gollum, though I never really liked him much."
"Aye. We brought them last three back to life with the clogging, too. And some ale. Good thing you're such a good dancer, Mister Frodo, or we'd 'a' been in quite a bit of trouble."
"You're right about that, Sam," replied Frodo, his list come to an end. "I haven't explored much yet. Just this lovely gash in the sand, full of all that pretty water.," his voice faded off for a second as his gaze returned to the scar. "Oh, uhm ... yeah. There seems to be a long strip of beach running up down here, and then a rather large forest with big trees where the sand ends. I'm betting if we were to walk a little further, we'd find some cliffs and rocks and such. We can call that ... Inis Bob. It'll make things more like home if we name them, you see. The forest is Dirkwood.
"Oh, and there," he pointed to a smoking shape, very far away, looming above the trees, "in the middle of the forest, is what appears to be an enormous, active volcano. I've decided to call it Mt. Doom, Jr."
Sam nodded in appreciation. "Gosh, Mr. Frodo, you're so very clever."
"Thank you, Sam. And you're --" he stopped and stared back at the scar, out of which water was rapidly flowing. "What's that? Something sparkling, just underneath the sand, I think. Sam, did you --" He stopped again and ran to dig the object out.
It was a ring, made out of what looked to be pure gold, though it could very easily have been gold-plated copper. Emblazoned on the inside were strange red symbols that disappeared as soon as Frodo looked at them. "Why, look, Sam. It's a pretty pretty gold ring!"
"What are those mysterious symbols?" Sam asked.
"I think ... I think they said that 'Frodo Baggins is the Lord and Master of this whole island and everything on it!"
"Well, bless my soul!" Sam was murmuring, when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. "Shh! I saw something. I'll see if I can't scare it out!" he said, and shook his fist menacingly in the air.
"Hey, you!" he yelled to the unkown mover. "Come out or I swear I'll whack you in the head with this frying pan!"
Frodo looked at his companion's empty fist. "Sam, you don't have a frying pan," he reminded him.
"Oh. So I don't," said Sam. "But whoever that is don't know that."
"Dear, simple, Sam," Frodo sighed, not really believing there was anyone there at all. He decided everyone had probably drowned before they could make it ashore, or else were trapped screaming under heavy wooden planks somewhere in the ship. So he was doubly--no, triply surprised when two new people did emerge from behind the trees, and started jogging towards them.
"Sam, is that you?" one of them cried.
"Merry? Pippin?" Frodo returned?
"Aye, it's us," Pippin said, Irishly. "Let's all have a doch an' doris and call it a day.
"Fool of a Took!" a voice from nowhere accused. And then Gandalf appeared: a fabulous, tall, hairy figure of a man, wearing nothing but a blazingly white loincloth fashioned of some strange fabric from the east. Truth was, it looked kind of funny with his beard. But no one said anything.
"Just where do you think we're going to find a doch an' doris on a deserted island?"
"But it's time for second breakfast!" Pippin whined.
"There are some bananas in those trees," suggested Merry.
"Let's go eat those!" cried Pippin, and they ran off and immediately started stuffing themselves with over-ripe bananas and anything else that happened to be growing on the lower branches of the trees.
"Nice loincloth,' Frodo told Gandalf, trying not to look.
"I made it myself," replied the old wizard, nonchalantly.
"Gandalf, what should we do? I'm afraid everyone's dead!" said Frodo.
"We've not seen hide nor 'air of 'em since the giant squid attacked the ship," Sam agreed.
"I very much doubt that everyone's dead," said Gandalf, with a shake of his head.
"What we need is a fire," said Sam. "So's we can make a stew outta them bananas."
"Sam, you're a genius!" exclaimed Frodo. "We can light a fire and show everyone where we are! But ... what can we start it with?"
Sam and Frodo both looked at Gandalf, expectantly.
"Don't look at me," he said. "I lost my staff."
"Shucks," said Sam. "Oh, wait!" he started digging through his various pockets and pulled out a small box. "I've got my box of dirt with me!" He rifled in his pockets some more. "And this rope!"
"Rope?" Gandalf and Frodo echoed.
"It's always come in handy before," said Sam, snuggling the pale silver rope. "Haven't you, Shadowflax?"
"You named your rope?" asked Frodo.
"Well, you named the mountain, didn't you?" Sam retorted.
"I suppose we could reflect the sun off Galadriel's shiny dirt-box and onto the rope," said Frodo. "Hey, Sam, can I borrow your box and rope for a minute?"
"Oh, but I don't want to burn my pretty rope!" said Sam sadly. "We're very close, Shadowflax and me."
"Can you think of anything better to burn?" Frodo asked.
"Well, there are about a jiggety-billion trees over there," Sam said.
"True, but we it's a bad business, murdering trees. They might have Dryads in them!" said Frodo. "We don't want to go about angering Dryads, do we?"
"I do!" Merry shouted from across the sand, voice muffled because he was still stuffing his face with bananas.
"Good, then it's settled," said Gandalf. "We set the trees on fire."
"But they Dryads!" Frodo countered.
"Dryads only exist in Narnia," said Gandalf.
"Oh. Okay, then," said Frodo.
So they went off to the section of trees that looked the driest, Merry and Pippin tagging along behind. Gandalf pulled down some branches, and Frodo focused the sun on them with Sam's box of dirt. The wood began to smoke almost immediately. Within a few minutes, the whole pile was ablaze.
Merry chuckled. "Hey, I have some pipe-weed in my pocket! I'm going to light my favorite pipe!"
"Merry, wait! Don't! Pippin cried, but it was too late. Merry reached into the fire and suddenly his arm was engulfed in flames. He screamed, ran around like a headless chicken for a second, and made a mad dash right into the heart of the fire where he spun around wildly like a Sim caught in a housefire.
"Darn Elven fires," Gandalf muttered. "I lose more hobbits that way."
"We'll save you, Merry!" a chorus of voices chimed from afar. A group of four rugged men bounded over the hot sand and started hacking with their swords at the licking orange flames, and shouting random war-cries.
"Aragorn! Legolas! Boromir! Faramir!" Frodo greeted them.
"There's no point in trying to save Merry. Fire made with boxes of Elven silver filled with Elven dirt burns hot. I doubt you even find his teeth--oh, sorry Pippin," said Gandalf.
"That's okay," Pippin replied. "He cramped my style anyway. See, I worked it all out one day when I was bored in Rohan."
"You were never in Rohan!" came another voice from inside the non-burning portion of the forest. The King Theoden came crashing through the branches and leapt into the midst of the group like some old monkey-king.
"Say, you're right! I was in Gondor, wasn't I?"
Another crash heralded the arrival of Denethor, Steward of Gondor. He took a flying a leap and landed next to Theoden. "Yeah, whatever," he said in reply to Pippin.
"Anyway, I worked it out on some paper. Look." He picked up a nearby stick and started scribbling with it in the sand. The end result looked something like:
"Merry + Pippin = Comic relief + stupidity
Stupidity = A need for knowledge
Knowledge = Food for the brain, and
Hunger= A need for food, therefore:
Stupidity = Hunger.
Merry = Hunger
Merry = Stupidity
Stupidity + Pippin = Comic Relief + Stupidity
Pippin = Comic relief
Comedy = Truth
Pippin = Truth. So Pippin is now all things truthful.
Truth = Beauty
Pippin= Beauty. Now Pippin is beautiful.
Beauty = Everlasting
Pippin = Everlasting. Pippin is immortal."
"So," said Pippin, "That means that if Merry isn't around, I'm immortal." He shrugged. "It's as simple as that."
"Quite clever, Pippin. You deserve a banana," Gandalf commended him.
"Wait!" someone who was paying attention in the movie shouted. "Wasn't Pippin the one that was always hungry?"
Gandalf paused and though about it. "That's true," he said, after a moment. "It seems you're a fool of a Took after all," he growled. "You should really stop projecting like that."
"Beside, I didn't think beauty was everlasting," said the ever-beautiful Aragorn.
"It is if you're an Elf," said Legolas, with a flip of his long, blonde hair.
"Or a Steward of Gondor," said Denethor, with a flip of his long, gray beard.
"What's that?" asked Frodo, pointing across the length of the beach, where it looked as if some large, dark beast was crawling in their direction.
"Looks like the Balrog!" Boromir said, and slowly drew his sort out of its sheath. "I bet I kill it before you do, Aragorn!"
"You're on, Steward boy!" said Aragorn, attractively.
"And me without my staff," lamented Gandalf. "Wait!" He reached up and pulled a palm frond out of the tree above him. Waving it above his head, he stood up and shouted down the beach, "You cannot pass!" The black thing kept coming, and the wizard sat back down and glared at the leaf. "It's just not the same."
"What can't he pass, exactly?" asked Pippin.
"Oh," Gandalf paused. "Well," he grabbed the stick Pippin had been using to write out his equation, and he scratched a thin line in the sand. "That. He cannot pass that line. For it is the line of Catty Doom!"
"I'm just a simple country Hobbit," said Sam, "but I don't rightly think that is the Balrog. Actually, it looks sorta like Gollum and Wormtongue! And ... is that--why yes! Old Mr. Bilbo. And behind them there's somebody some'at taller. Can't tell who. Besides, isn't the Balrog covered in Hell-Fire?"
"Yes, I suppose it is," answered Gandalf.
And, indeed, Sam was right. What had appeared before to be one large beast was, now that it had come closer, a small troop of people. They marched single file down the sand, but the one in front went erratically this way and that as he walked. As the lines of heat rising from the sand cleared, it became evident that the people were Gollum, Wormtongue, Bilbo, and, in the back, Saruman.
"Don't trip over the line of Catty Doom!" Pippin called to the newcomers.
"Gandalf, you old fool, are you aware that your poorly made mire is destroying the whole forest? I'd fling you against a wall, but, alas! I've lost my staff," Saruman said, as soon as the group had crossed the line.
"Goodness," cried Bilbo. "What a large fire. And I am but a small and unadventurous Hobbit whose only goal in life is to write a large, heavy book."
The fire was burning away in every direction, eating the smaller, drier trees quickly and leaving the larger and damper ones to smolder. And then in some strange twist of fate, a cloud burst above it and rain fell in torrents. In a minute, the fire was gone.
"We demands to be made King of thisss island, we do," Gollum hissed, once everyone had recovered from the sudden downpour.
"You're gonna have to find some other island then. Mister Frodo's ruler of this one," Sam said.
"No, we issss ... Make us King or we will bites its fingers off, precioussss."
"I say we vote!" interrupted the hot genius Aragorn.
"Well, that is a good idea if I do say so myself," said Sam. "What would we do without you, Strider?"
"My name is Aragorn," he muttered.
"Who?" asked Sam.
Aragorn sighed. "All in favor of Frodo being King of the island, raise your hands.
Everyone but Gollum, Wormtongue, and Saruman immediately put their hands in the air. Aragorn counted, hotly.
"Eight and me. That's nine votes for Frodo. Now, who's for Gollum?"
Saruman, Wormtongue, Gollum himself, and Bilbo raised their hands.
Aragorn counted, attractively. "That's ... four. Wait. Bilbo, you can't vote twice! That means Frodo wins by default."
"What are we doing again?" Bilbo asked.
Everyone that had voted for Frodo cheered.
"Congratulations, Frodo, you're the new King of the island," Aragorn said.
"Hey, wait," said Boromir. "I want to be King, too!"
"No, Boromir. You are just a Steward of Gondor," said Aragorn.
"But I want to be King!" Boromir continued.
Denethor hugged his son. "I love you so much more than Faramir!"
Faramir went into a corner and cried.
"Did you name the whole island, yet?" Sam asked Frodo, ignoring the histrionics around them.
"Of course. It's Bottom Earth. You know, like Middle Earth. Only not."
"Aye," said Pippin. "What now? Can we smoke?"
Saruman shouted something in another language and a bolt of lightning shot from the sky and struck the sand directly in front of Pippin. "I hate you so much," the old man muttered, and with a wave of his arm to beckon those he'd come with, walked off into the forest.
"I'm going to form my own tribe. A tribe of wizards and ... little monster people!" he shouted as he left. Then, with an air of sudden inspiration, he bent down, grabbed a handful of mud from the ground and smeared it all over his face. Gollum and Wormtongue did the same, and scurried off behind.
When they were out of sight, Bilbo smeared his face with dirt too, and giggled madly. "Look! I'm an Ent!" he chuckled, and bounced away. Faint "Ho-hums" could be heard in varying directions for a few minutes, until they finally faded away completely.
"Oh dear!" said Frodo, a worried expression on his face. "Everything is just collapsing into chaos!"
"Don't worry," said Gandalf, reassuringly. "We have everyone we need right here," he indicated those that were left. "Now, I'm going off to some quieter place where I can sit cross-legged and look wise. I'm sure you can figure out something to do."
Frodo nodded. "Let's build shelters!"
"We can make magnificent tree-fortresses! And we can cover them with pretty pink flowers!" said Legolas.
"No!" said Aragorn, "They should be towering castles, built out of wood and stone and iron."
"Tree houses!" Legolas argued. "They're more attractive."
"Castles!" countered Aragorn.
"Holes in the ground!" Pippin suggested.
"I wish Gimli was here," said Legolas. "He would have agreed with me."
"He would have wanted to live in some dank cave in the mountain," said Aragorn, wisely.
"No, no, no," said Frodo, sternly. "Not castles, not tree houses, not holes in the ground. That's far too difficult. As King of the Island, I say we should lash some old palm tree trunks together with Aragorn's belt. And we can live there."
"Sounds good to me!" said Boromir.
And so everyone set to work building palm-tree wigwam things. It took several hours of work, but eventually Legolas stood next to it fastening Aragorn's belt around the top tightly to hold it together.
The group stood back and looked at it proudly. Four palm trees thrust deeply into the sand, attached together at a point.
"Now, let's cover it with palm fronds, so the wind can't get in," said Frodo. And so in a few minutes the shelter was a large, green, leafy pyramid.
"I wanna get in!" shouted Pippin, and crawled inside through a gap in the fronds. "It's so beautiful!" came his muffled voice after a second. "Rather small, though. Sam, Frodo, come in and try it out."
They did, and discovered that it was a tight fit for even three hobbits. Four Men, and Elf, and Gandalf would never fit. Frodo sighed, and squeezed through Sam and Pippin and out into the light. "It's too small," he said, sadly. "We need to build more. Anybody else have a belt?"
The men muttered under their breaths. "I told you we should have built tree houses," said Legolas. "And now I'm tired, and all sweaty. I say we go find a swimming hole and have a nice dip."
Most everyone agreed, so they went off through the forest, Legolas with a forked stick in his hand to use as a divining rod. Only Sam and Frodo were left.
Sam looked at Frodo and sighed. "Seems like it's just you and me again, Sam."
"Aw, can't I go swimmin' Master Frodo?" Sam asked.
Frodo glared at him. "No. It's just you and me," he said, slowly.
Sam, defeated, nodded. "Yessir. Just you and me."
"We were fools to try to form a democratic society on an island with these people."
"Technically, ain't it a monarchy? You was elected King, after all."
"I don't know Sam. I just don't know. You don't suppose if I put the ring on they'll all come back to me to bask in my power, do you?"
"I will."
"You don't count, Sam. I think I'll try it, though. And if it doesn't work, then we may as well give up all hope of ever coming together as a whole." Frodo removed the little golden ring from the pocket he had put it in. Slowly he slipped it on, and immediately disappeared.
Sam waited until Frodo reappeared. "No body come, Mister Frodo. Not a soul."
Frodo shrugged. "Oh well. It was bound to happen. How about we light another fire? On the beach this time."
"All right, as long as we don't have to use my Shadowflax."
"Of course not, Sam."
So they carried some larger sticks and branches onto the beach and carefully lit a fire with Sam's dirt box.
They were sitting on the beach, watching the waves come serenely in and out, when Wormtongue came rushing towards them. Frodo stood, armed with a sharpened stick in his hand. "What do you want?" he demanded.
"There're wild orcs up on the mountain," Wormtongue said. "Saruman demands fire to cook it with so we can eat it."
"Can't Saruman just summon fire for you?" asked Frodo.
"He lost his staff, you idiot," Wormtongue replied.
"You ain't getting none of our fire," said Sam, stalwart. "Eat your orc raw."
Wormtongue hissed and went back to the forest.
The two Hobbits soon fell asleep, lulled by the waves. No one else appeared for a few hours, so they slept in peace. The moon had just started to rise above the horizon of sea when a silhouette of something large passed over it. The object came closer and closer, and soon flew over the heads of the sleeping hobbits, making a loud noise as it came. Sam looked up, still half-asleep, and saw it.
"Monster!" he cried, waking up Frodo.
"What? Sam, what monster?" Frodo, who hadn't seen it, asked.
"Oh, never mind," said Sam, looking around. "Must have just dreamt it. Felt pretty real, though." He shrugged.
Just then, several dreadful shouts came from behind. Frodo and Sam turned around and saw their former party, all clad in rags and loincloths, lead by the muddy-faced Saruman.
"Get the box!" he shouted, and they rushed Sam. The little Hobbit couldn't escape, and they held him until Wormtongue could grab his dirt-box away.
"That's not fair!" shouted Frodo.
"It should have shared its fire with us, dirty Hobbitses," hissed Gollum.
"Sorry, Frodo," whispered Pippin from behind.
"You, too, Pippin?" Frodo asked, shocked.
"They killed an orc! Do you have any idea how hungry I am?" he said, as if that was an excuse. "They said you could have some if you wanted. But the box has to belong to us."
"We don't want none of your nasty orc!" said Sam. "Take the stupid box. Once Gandalf gets back, he'll fix all of you!"
***Earlier, on Mt. Doom, Jr.**
Gandalf sighed with pleasure as he dug his bare toes into the sandy dirt on which he was sitting. He hadn't exactly found any peaceful, flower-filled meadows to frolic in, but the large, dusty and hot outcropping of the mountain which he had found was fine with him.
"I sure do miss my staff," he was saying to himself, when he saw Saruman's tribe of small ugly people a few yards away. He immediately dove under a thorny bush, and, holding back various exclamations of annoyance as everything not covered by his loincloth was scratched, he watched, intrigued, as Saruman shoved a disembodied orc-head on a pike into the ground. The small group of unattractive people rejoiced, and pranced happily back down the mountain.
As soon as they left, he crawled out and got a little closer to the head. For reasons he didn't quite understand, he wanted to get nearer. It was as if the out-of-place body part beckoned him.
Dark blood dripped from the stump where its neck had once been attached, and its jaw hung open in a sardonic orc-grin. At least, it looked like an orc-grin, though one could never really be sure if an orc was grinning or just in great pain. Its eyes were white--disturbingly contrasting the darkness of its greenish-tinged skin. And when the little gusts of breeze that played on the mountain passed by, the several, greasy-black hairs on its head rustled in their direction. And now and then the stick on which it was stuck would sway, and the tongue would loll out like that of a hot dog.
A yellow butterfly fluttered past its ear and landed on its nose. The old wizard watching could have sworn he saw the dead eyes blink. But then the butterfly removed itself and gave its place to a swarm of dark flies that alighted and covered the orc's entire face, crawling in its mouth and ears. It appeared almost as if the orc was the Lord of the Flies, commanding the small insects to do what it would have them do. But Gandalf shook his head. That was a stupid idea.
You are a silly little Wizard, came the voice of the head.
"Orc's head on a stick," admonished Gandalf, not really bothered by the fact that the decapitated head was talking to him.
They don't want you. They're going to try to kill you, the Lord of the Flies said, his voice thick with threat. They just want to have fun. You're no fun, Gandalf.
"I'm fun when I smoke," said the wizard, a bit hurt.
They hate you because you are an old fool who relies on his pipe to be interesting ... the head hissed, and swayed.
"No," said Gandalf, with a shake of his head. "I understand the mysteries of the universe. They can't do without me."
They're going to do you in, said the Lord of the Flies, and said no more.
"Orc's head on a stick!" Gandalf cried, and kicked the stick out from under it. Without support, the head rolled down the mountain, and the flies billowed up and away. Gandalf grinned, pleased with himself. "I'll go make them remember how much they need me," he said, to no one in particular, and ran down the mountain to the beach.
**Back on the beach**
Everyone but Frodo and Sam cavorted merrily around the bonfire they'd made on the beach. The orc's body was spit above, and now and then Pippin would stop to turn it over. The smell of roast-orc was beginning to permeate the humid air.
"Psst ..." whispered Sam to Boromir, who was closest by. "Psst ..."
Boromir turned and looked down. "What do you want?" he growled.
"There's a monster on the island," said Sam, quietly. "You'd better put out the fire, or it will see it and eat everyone."
"A monster?" repeated Boromir, turning nervous. "Like ... like a Nazgul?"
"Right," said Sam. "That's right. And it's a-gonna stab everyone with its sword if the fire stays lit much longer, I wager."
Boromir kicked some sand at Sam. "Right," he said, gruffly. But underneath his facade of stalwartness, he was truly frightened. His cavorting got a little less cheerful as he stopped to whisper Sam's comment to everyone. "There's a Nazgul that wants to eat us in the forest ..."
Just then, a figure dashed out of the trees and made its way to the group. Everyone stopped dead and stared, before catching their wits.
"It's the monster!" screamed Denethor, and jumped behind Theoden.
"I'll kill it with my sword!" Aragorn shouted, and rushed at it. Everyone followed behind him, most with their swords and Pippin with a pointy stick.
They surrounded the monster and stabbed down with their various weapons until it stopped moving completely. In the midst of all their shouts it was only Legolas, with his super-keen Elf-ears that heard its cry, "God damn it! I can't believe the orc's head on a stick was right!" But he ignored it and kept on slashing.
When the furor died down they all stopped and took a good look at what they had just killed. There lay Gandalf, shiny white loincloth sullied by the sand.
"Good job, everyone," said Saruman. "You killed the monster. Now dance!"
"But it's Gandalf!" cried Pippin, aghast.
"No, it was a Nazgul disguised as Gandalf. I can't believe you could honestly mistake that horrible creature for our friend Gandalf," Saruman explained.
So everyone cavorted around the corpse, and as they danced, somebody, most likely Legolas, who everyone knows really like to sing, started up a song.
Kill the Nazgul!
Slit his throat!
Bash his brains!
Eat his horse!
Nazgul Fir! Nazgul Fir!
The rest joined in, and Sam and Frodo could only watch in horror.
"Well, it looks as if we're out of luck now, Sam. Without Gandalf, we'll never escape."
"But ... I thought that was the Nazgul," said Sam, confused.
"Sam, you just made that up."
"Oh. So that was Gandalf! Golly be! And I like the old feller, too."
"Looks like there's only one thing to do now."
"What would that be, Mister Frodo?"
"I say we up and run. I'll wear the ring so they can't see me and you ... you can run fast."
They got to their feet without anyone noticing, and Frodo slipped on the ring. Footsteps appeared in the sand as he ran invisibly toward the treeline, and Sam vainly tried to keep up. Unfortunately, his leg got snared in a vine that just happened to be laying in his path, and he fell head-over-heels with a shout. The chanters looked around, and realizing the source, rushed at him.
Saruman growled. "Don't want to join our tribe of small ugly people?" he asekd, with an malicious smirk on his wrinkled face. "I'll show you!" He snapped his fingers and a purple tentacle arose from the water and grabbed Sam's leg. The Hobbit struggled but couldn't escape, and soon was pulled under the briny depths of the sea.
Frodo stopped at the trees and took off the ring, wondering why Sam hadn't caught up yet. Saruman's bunch were laughing evilly by the water, and he knew in his heart that something terrible had happened. Filled with anger he snatched up another pointy stick and slowly snuck up behind them, prepared to stick Saruman with it and regain control of the island. He got there just in time to hear their plans.
"Where'd that other one go?" Saruman asked. Everyone collectively shook their heads.
"He probably ran off," proffered the wise Aragorn. "I'll wager he's hiding in the forest."
"We mussst hunt him," said Gollum. "Nasty Hobbit triesss to tricks us, and they must pays, they do."
"Good," said Saruman. "Everyone grab a pointy stick and we'll go after him."
"Say," said Faramir. "Couldn't we just use our swords? I mean, just about all of us have one."
"No!" shouted the wizard. "It must be sticks, sharpened at both ends!"
Frodo, afraid of what might happen if the whole group set on him, ran away in the direction of the far side of the beach, sure they'd check the trees first. He pulled the ring out of his pocket as he fled, but he stubbed his toe on a rock and it fell out his hands as he was jarred. "Frell!" he cursed, but kept on running.
"There!" shouted Denethor, armed with his pointy stick. He'd heard Frodo's out of place exclamation and was pointing in his direction.
"After him!" shouted Saruman, waving his large sleeves around wildly.
They ran for almost a mile, as Frodo was damn fast for a hobbit, until finally the beach ended and a lining of craggy rocks began. He stopped and looked around, trapped. Having nothing else to do, he held up his hand. "Stop!"
Oddly enough, everyone skidded to a stop in the sand.
"What?" asked Legolas.
"Just ... stop. Can you not see what you're doing?" Frodo implored. "You have managed to kill both Gandalf and Sam. None of you are any better than Easterlings!"
"Ouch, Frodo," said Pippin, accent as bold as ever. "Ouch."
"Why are you listening to him?" asked Saruman, picking up the rear. "Kill him!"
They all roared and ran towards Frodo, when a great scream came from the sky. It was Gwaihir, the king of the eagles! And between his wings crouched Gimli, wielding his Dwarven axe. At first behind them, and now all around soared a large flock of the majestic eagles, watching curiously the actions of the people on the ground.
Gwaihir swooped down and landed in the sand. Gimli jumped down and swung his axe a few times. "What are you doing here?" he asked.
"What are we doing here?" repeated Denethor. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm a scout for the Dwarves. Lookin' for good mining land. Saw the ruckus, and I thought I'd check it out. Didn't expect to find all of you."
"Gimli!" Legolas cried. He ran toward the Dwarf and embraced him.
"Hey, hey!" said Gimli, and brushed the Elf away. "You all need a ride back?"
"No!" said Saruman. "We are quite happy here."
"What are you talking about, Sharky?" asked Boromir. "This place is miserable! No shelter and you make us eat orcs!"
"Well, hop on. I'll take you back to Middle Earth," Gimli said. As they were picked up by eagles, Frodo kneeled in the sand and wept. He wept for the end of innocence, and the loss of his good, wise friend, Sam Gamgee.