With a cry, Aza, ran through the busy city streets of a man's city. Behind her were five or six children, all of which were bigger than her and all of which were male. They laughed and threw sticks and stones at her. Tears in her eyes and fear making her faster, she made her way to a tavern where she had left her caretaker.
He had told her to enjoy herself and explore the town. That had been a mistake on his part. Aza, still not quite over her fear of man, had edged around. Not quite getting involved and never getting to close. Her, apparent, shyness and timid nature made her a prime target for bullies and brutish children.
"Come back!" one of them taunted her.
She pushed her way through the doors and in to her master's lap. "Master!" she cried and threw herself at his side. Trying to hide herself in the material of his robe. "Master!"
Gandalf pulled his pipe from his mouth to look at his apprentice and then the children who chased her. "I don't believe I know this game."
The children, more intuitive than adults, ran from him as they sensed the anger they had aroused from.
He looked down at her and petted her head. She looked up. "Master?"
He smiled, "They are gone."
"Thank you," she whispered, still shaking from her experience with the children of men.
Yet another reason why she did not like or trust the race of men.
"Strangers from distant lands ... friends of old. You have been summoned here to answer the threat of Mordor. Middle-earth stands upon the brink of destruction. None can escape it. You will unite...or you will fall. Each race is bound to this fate...this one doom..."
"What did he say?" Cobryn asked his mistress.
Aza shushed him before turning her attention back on the meeting. She and her companion had managed to climb their way to a roof overlooking the council meeting. Among the attendees were dwarves, elves, and men. The only hobbits, however, were Frodo. "And the other three hiding in the bushes," Aza thought to herself.
Elrond continued, "Bring forth the ring, Frodo."
Frodo stepped forward and placed the small gold ring in the stone plinth.
Aza gripped the roof hard; greed began to filter in through the cracks of her control. She looked over at Cobryn through her peripheral vision. If it hadn't been for her control on him, he would have flown down and snatched up the ring without a second thought.
"So it is true!" a man shouted.
Aza's attention was back on the meeting.
A fair haired elf rose. Aza recognized him, "Sauron's Ring. The ring of power." Legolas. How could she forget that he would most certainly be there? She bit her lowerlip in an attempt to gain control over her reactions.
From then on the discussion was loud, but garbled. Aza frowned, didn't they know how to annunciate?
The discussion paused when a dwarf rushed forward to crush the ring with his axe. Instead of destroying the ring, the axe itself broke.
"Foolish dwarf," Cobryn muttered.
"Shhh!"
"The ring cannot be destroyed, Gimli, son of Gloin, by any craft that we here possess. The ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom...only there can it be unmade. It must be taken deep into Mordor, and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came. One of you must do this," Elrond said, addressing the counsel with wisdom.
Silence.
The counsel erupted in talk. Well, more like fighting. Dwarves argued with elves, men argued with dwarves, and elves argued with men. Altogether it looked to be a mess of a meeting.
Aza sighed. "If this is how they are going to act, then we are all doomed." Her gaze once more turned to the ring. It was so pretty. The power called to her like a song she couldn't quite remember. How she wanted to sneak down, while the others were busy bickering, and take it for herself. She licked her lips, wetting the chapped skin.
"I will take it!" Aza's attention turned to Frodo, who had stood. "I will take it...I will take the Ring to Mordor."
She sat up, breaking from their belly laying hiding.
"Though...I do not know the way. "
Gandalf rose to his feet, "I will help you bear this burden, Frodo Baggins, as long as it is yours to bear."
A man, who Aza knew to be Aragorn, stepped forward, "If, by my life or death, I can protect you, I will." He knelt before Frodo, "...you have my sword."
Legolas stepped forward, "And you have my bow."
"And my axe."
A man, whom Aza did not know but later learned to be a man from Gondor named Boromir, stepped up saying , "You carry the fate of us all, little one. If this is indeed the will of the Council, then Gondor will see it done."
It was then that the hiding hobbits emerged. Same shouted, "Here! Mr. Frodo's not gong anywhere without me."
Elrond, his expression not angry, said, "No, Indeed...it is hardly possible to separate you...even when he is summoned to a secret council and you are not.
Merry and Pippin jumped out from behind another bush
"Oi! We're coming too! You'll have to send us home tied up in a sack to stop us.
"Anyway...you need people of intelligence on this sort of mission...quest...thing..."
"Well, that rules you out, Pip."
A few of them laughed.
Aza stood and, in a very cinematic move, slid off the roof to land on some shrubbery. "Not without us!" She popped up, completely forgetting the company. "If they can go, surely I can as well." She ran over to her master.
Elrond surveyed them and watched, out of the corner of his eye as Cobryn joined her, "Eleven companions ... so be it. You shall be the "Fellowship of the ring"
"Great. Where are we going?"
