Diem Kieu: Nah, that's all right; I hope you were doing something fun. :D Or at least productive, and if not that, then you had a reason.
Yay, clarity! XD I love my cliffhangers and my angst, and as will become perhaps more apparent-if it isn't already more obvious than Sam's infatuation with Rosie-I love my kissing scenes. O.o
Thanks. :D Hopefully most of the rest of the story is sad and romantic . . . especially for shippers of one pair or another.
Awesome! Well, here you are. :)

A/N: I was listening to "Storm" by Blackmore's Night for the climax of this story, and it was while I wrote that that I decided Frodo needed to be an archer. Thus this scene was born. :)

Frodo found Sev upstairs. She had a bowl by her side, and she stirred her finger in it. Something had happened to Smeagol, something she didn't care to explain. But he no longer cared much about her, and the orcs magically left her alone. She wanted to feel excited—despite her efforts she could muster no such mirth. The image of Frodo's beaten torso, the sting of the burns embedded within his skin, and the scrape of his screams in her ears would not leave. She winced to herself, trying to stir psychological healing from her tears.

But she knew it was impossible.

They'd dragged him away, and she tried to beat her way out of her cell when they locked her inside. She managed to wrest the majority of the bars out, but couldn't find him after she escaped. She searched every corner of the palace, smashed through every door she could find, and couldn't locate Frodo. She only pained and hoped she could find him.

"Sev?"

She perked up when she heard him, then settled with a slightly more satisfied expression. She smiled somewhat weakly. "You're alive."

Frodo grinned; he knew what she would have said if he reacted that way. It came out of him a little unnaturally, but he made it work. "You don't quite look happy to see me." He nudged her and sat down on her bed beside her.

Sev burst out laughing. "Has my jocosity really rubbed off on you that hard? That you'd actually make a bit of a sarcastic comment?"

"Perhaps."

She sighed. "Frodo, we've got to get out of here." Then she glanced down at his wrists, and her eyes popped wide open. She fingered the cuffs; she didn't understand what was wrong with them. They were seared into his skin.

"What happened?" Then she held up her hand. "The Ring, I'm sure. I'd better teach you how to shoot in case she comes after you again."

Frodo sat, stunned, as she circled the bed and dragged a huge, oak longbow out from under the bed. She twanged the bowstring, then drew it back easily. Frodo blinked; her muscles expanded through her baggy, white sleeve as she drew it back. The sight disturbed him immensely.

"That'll have to do," she muttered, throwing the bow onto the bed. She gathered some fine-shafted arrows—eight to ten—and gestured for him to follow. He grabbed the bow and walked with her into the dungeons, down the many flights of stairs.

She called back to him as they went down, being neatly avoided by squadrons of men and women. Sev didn't understand the change, but she preferred it that way. "You'll need to practice with it a great deal, and you might feel like your arms are going to fall off, but I don't have any lighter bows."

"Are you saying I can't pull a bow?" Frodo joked.

Sev halted on the stairs, and Frodo nearly tripped over her trailing, ripping wing. "No . . . just try this bow. I had to train for nine months to be able to pull it back." She shrugged. "Then again, dragons were not built for bows. Perhaps you can learn it faster." She lifted the beautiful oak piece. "I still can't really aim with it."

"Where did you find the time? Or the space?" Frodo asked finally.

Sev shrugged. "They gave me the opportunity to come down here. They had me imprisoned with Sauron for a while; I think they wanted me to burn him, turn him into a skullbird so he couldn't irritate them anymore. I did manage to quiet him."

Frodo cocked his head. Sev slipped down onto the main stone floor, and he followed as she walked through the dungeon. They passed through the room where blood of them both still stained a little bit of the floor, then into a darker corridor where Frodo could hardly see.

"Quiet him?"

A loud hiss sprang out from Sev's side of the hall, and a great hand swiped at Frodo. As the hobbit jumped back, surprised, Sev breathed a lick of fire. A screech followed, and whatever creature was inside fell away.

Sev grabbed an unlit torch and exhaled on it, lifting it to view the creature. It cowered in the corner; it looked almost animal, no longer human if it had been before. Tangled hair shielded most of its face, aside from two eyes that glowed in the firelight. It hunched over, and looked perhaps a little like what Smeagol might have after a month or two with the Ring.

"You," it snarled. Sev held up an arm, barring Frodo. The creature hissed again and pounced at the bars, desperately reaching for Frodo. Frodo backed away, and Sev finally hissed in response to the creature; her draconic sound easily drowned out the other, and it recoiled.

"Leave him be," Sev snapped. She turned back to Frodo and extended a hand; Frodo gripped it gratefully. "Frodo, this is Sauron."

Sauron glared at Frodo, malice lining his eyes. "You took her from me," he growled, pacing his cage. "You took her from me! I'll kill you, with my bare hands!" He sprang again for the door, and Sev reached back. His fingers scraped against her scales, igniting friction and a spark of flame. He yelped and retreated, curling into a ball under a measly bench at the back of the cell. He continued to hiss and growl, wounded but not willing to stop rebelling.

Sev led Frodo away. "He wouldn't quit going on about how you stole her, how you ruined his Precious." Sev shook her head. "I don't understand why you weren't blocked from departure by a million people; you got rid of that thing, and his cursed Ring."

"She let go," Frodo said numbly as Sev led him into a huge, one-door chamber, with a series of broken bows scattered about the room. Three targets stood at the opposite end of the stone. "I didn't have the strength to throw her in. She was right, and I failed."

Sev's eyebrows sharply narrowed, and she stared up at him. "Failed?!" He didn't look at her, suddenly feeling ashamed. "Frodo Baggins, you did not fail."

"Sev, you weren't there," he insisted. "She let go. I was going to save her." He winced when he remembered his own voice ringing out in Mount Doom, calling out her name. "I fell into her grasp; I did, I failed."

Sev grabbed his shoulder, and he glanced up at her. She looked hurt, and he didn't understand.

"You went through all of that pain for a reason," Sev persisted. "When you were sailing to Valinor, Amorhan didn't tell me Frodo Baggins, failure of Middle Earth, was coming. He said the Ringbearer, the destroyer of the One Ring, was given the great honor of being brought to Valinor. He knew you didn't throw her in; he told me so." Sev threw her free claw into the air. "I don't care if you threw her in, because whatever you did—if it had been taken out of everything, Middle Earth would have fallen." Sev swallowed. "You carried a burden greater than any ever before worn, and look at you!" She lightly squeezed his shoulder, taking in his features, everything she loved in this painful world she existed in. "Look at you."

Tears sprang to her eyes, and Frodo's eyebrow cocked slightly. "Sev?"

Sev bit her lip. "Did I tell you about the dragon's blessing I gave you?"

His other eyebrow shot straight up. "What?"

Sev shrugged, sniffling a little. "I guess not. Frodo, when I met your mother and felt you within her, I could foresee pain in your life. I couldn't have assumed you would ever heal, or need healing. I gave you my first dragon's blessing . . . and . . . and I really haven't been able to let you go since." She swallowed and turned away. "You can say all you want about what you deem to be your failures, about how the Ring was destroyed because she let go, but I can never see you as anything less than a martyr, than a warrior, that sacrificed everything he ever knew to save a world he hadn't even seen before." She moved her gaze to his. "And I can't see anything less than a hobbit I care about more than anything else in this world." She inhaled shakily, then chuckled a little. "So don't try to convince me that you're anything less than—," She searched for the right words. "Unbelievably stunning, because I won't believe it."

Frodo squeezed her close to him, and she gripped his tunic. He didn't entirely know how to take her opinion of him; he didn't quite believe her himself, but even if she was wrong she was aware of what had happened and still cared that much about him.

She moved to back away, but Frodo didn't feel ready to let go just yet. He rubbed his hands over her shoulders, then eyed the tear in her wing. He'd have to do something about that. What he could do he didn't know, but he wanted to help.

"What was your dragon's blessing?" he said quietly, swaying a little on his feet.

Sev paused, a blush creeping up to your face. "I gave you four things," she said slowly. "The wisdom of the ages, the beauty of the Elves, the innocence of youth, and the strength of Dragons." She swallowed. "I honestly didn't think about the impact it would have on me before."

Frodo slowly pulled away, not quiet sure what to think. "Do you think, then, that I could pull a bow as easily as you could? With the strength of Dragons?" He almost laughed at the thought, but waited for her to tell him.

She chuckled. "Perhaps, but I told you, it took a little while for me to attain strength sufficient for this bow." She stepped away from him, lifting a pair of long cuffs from the floor. "Regardless, these should protect your arms."

He cocked his head. "From what?"

Sev dropped the cuffs in his hands and grabbed the bow. "From this." She drew it back almost to a quarter weight, by her cheek, and tilted her extended arm closer to the weapon slightly. The bowstring snapped into place when she let it go, and it slapped against her crimson scales.

"That," she continued, "would give you a nasty welt." Then she paused. "And no, I'm not going to let you try it."

"And I wasn't going to ask," Frodo said. He strapped the cuffs onto his wrists, tucking the dark sleeves of his tunic into the ends of them.

Sev bit her lip. No whistle. Don't do it. Don't do it. She swallowed it back, tearing her gaze away from how the arm-guard collected his baggy sleeve into a slender warrior's cuff, outlining his lower arm/wrist and emphasizing his pale hands.

She rolled her eyes to herself. You're nuts, Sev; don't even think about it.

"Right. I suppose we'd better start this." She stepped forward, handing him the bow. He placed his fingers over hers, and she stiffened. Frodo hadn't expected that reaction from her; he just wanted to touch her. He shrugged it away, then tested the bow in his grip when she let go. It had a smooth handhold, notched to fit a hand just a little smaller than his own—her claw, probably.

"I carved it," she said apologetically as he smoothed the wood. "The Elves showed me how while I stayed with them in Rivendell, but there is no use for weapons in Valinor, and so I left it behind. I had to build another one here."

Frodo glanced down at the carving just above the handhold. A complex Celtic knot, niched with diamonds, wound up the front of the bow, ending at a curve that looked like an F.

"It's beautiful."

"I carved it for you." Sev bit her lip. "I didn't know if I'd ever see you again . . ." She shook it off. "I'm sorry. We should get moving." She turned him to face the targets, and he watched as she fumbled about, looking for the arrows. He cocked his head to study her blush, then slipped across the room to grab her shoulder. She jolted as he directed her gaze upwards.

He led her to the other side of the room. "You left them with the bow when you walked in," he said.

Sev slapped her forehead, grabbing one of the arrows. "I am so sorry; I don't know what's come over me." She shook her head. "I knew I wasn't good at archery, but I didn't think I couldn't find a few dozen arrows in plain sight on the floor."

Frodo laughed, and she blushed harder.

"Face the targets," she insisted, and he turned. She took the bow from him, showed him the parts of the arrow and how they worked. She nocked the arrow, but allowed the bow to relax.

"I'm not good at aiming," she admitted, "but the Elves showed me at least how to start. I won't try to make you pull the bow back today." She then set the bow down and rolled up her sleeves to her shoulders. Frodo gawked at the muscle lines in them; they looked unnatural.

She spotted his gaze and sighed. "I know. I didn't want to, but I suppose dragons are just so opposed to archers that we can't do well with bows, and need strength beyond what we have to deal with them. That, and Delamarth's powers took away my initial strength; I had to forge some of my own." She lifted the bow again and took a stance with her feet apart. She locked her second and third fingers around the notch of the arrow and pulled the string back.

"Keep your arm braced out," she said, "and you want to have your dominant thumb touch your mouth." She flicked it to show him where it was, then turned and eyed the left target. Her stare grew intent, and her eyes became draconic to pinpoint where she wanted to fire. "And when you release try to remain as still as possible." She jolted when she let the arrow fly—out of fear, Frodo guessed—and it it an inch or two off of the center dot of the wooden target. The loud thock echoed through the stone room, then cut off when the arrow shot right through the target and clattered into the wall. "Otherwise that will happen." She sighed. "That's why I made this for you; I just can't shoot." She gestured for him to follow. "Come; I'll see what I can do to build your strength capacity."

Frodo folded his arms. "Well, could I try now?"

Sev bit back a sour laugh. She held out the bow to him, and when he accepted she moved to grab another arrow. "Go ahead. If you can pull it back I'll give the arrow to you."

Frodo turned towards the target, then locked his fingers around the bowstring. It was a thick cord, thicker than he'd at first anticipated.

"It's six hundred pounds in draw weight," she said. "That's about the weight of a small horse, something I played around with when the Elves showed me how to add weight to a bow; it took a thousand tries before I could get a bow with that weight not to snap. Wood just isn't solid enough." She tsked to herself as she stepped back. "It shouldn't be so difficult for a dragon, but I'm not one." She shrugged.

Frodo furrowed his brow and moved to pull it back, but it wouldn't budge. He pulled harder, and it barely shifted when he exerted all of his effort.

Sev lifted an eyebrow.

Then, as Frodo turned to hand her the bow, some strength ignited within him. The strength from her blessing, he hoped, but he wasn't sure. He held out a hand for the arrow, and after a moment's hesitation she gave it to him, despite the fact that he hadn't pulled the string back.

"I'm not sure what you intend to do with that," she admitted.

Frodo simply nodded to her and nocked the arrow, then turned to the target, to the hole where her arrow had gone through. He grabbed the string, then inhaled and exhaled slowly. A fire filled his lungs, and energy prickled through his right arm as he drew the arrow back. A strength he'd never felt or known flooded every muscle in his shoulder, flowing down his arm. The bowstring came about halfway back, not as far as he wanted it, but far enough. He released. The arrow went wide, but it still came off, and the bowstring thwacked his arm cuff so hard he thought it would cut right through the leather. The strength in his arm whooshed out, and he shook his limb with the sudden, weakened ache.

Sev gawked, and he turned with a wince.

"I suppose I haven't adjusted to aim either," he admitted.

Sev's jaw stayed dropped.

"How did you do that?"

Frodo shrugged, glancing down at the bow. "I'm not sure . . . although I thought I felt something, some stroke of . . . of fire, in my chest." He held his hand to his heart, then turned back to her.

Sev threw her hands in the air. "The one with the blessing is stronger than the dragon; go figure." She approached him slowly, then walked right past him to grab the arrows. "I suppose you have a few benefits: mortal males are stronger than females, and you don't have the initial draconic hatred of archery. But despite that lack of antagonism you have an inner draconic strength." She sighed, picking up the arrows. "At least this won't be too difficult."

Frodo smiled slightly. "So I did well?"

She stared up at him, a little flabbergasted. "Did well?! Frodo, I couldn't pull that thing an inch back when I first built it!" She then hemmed and hawed. "I suppose I strengthened it after; it started out at about four hundred pounds. She handed him the arrows and clapped his shoulder. "I suppose, then, I should simply jump the adjustment; you may not have to work at this very much. Maybe we could get out of here faster."