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"The Ring-bearer is setting out on the Quest of Mount Doom. On you who travel with him, no oath, nor bond is laid to go further than you will. Farewell. Hold to your purpose. May the blessings of Elves and Men and all Free Folk go with you." Lord Elrond bid farewell to them as a group of noble Elves gathered around the travellers as they strapped on their packs.

"The Fellowship awaits the Ringbearer." Gandalf announced. Ruby rolled her eyes at the theatrics. Frodo turned and started to walk out of the gates of Rivendell, faltering at a split in the path.

"Mordor, Gandalf, is it left or right?" he whispered.

"Left." The Wizard put a hand on his shoulder to help and suppressed a smile. Aragorn and Arwen exchanged a last look before he followed the rest of the Fellowship.

They walked from that early hour to the beginnings of the afternoon, when the Hobbits could no more. Ruby was discussing with Aragorn how she thought they could train the Halflings to match their pace, one day at a time. Boromir, who was keeping his distance from her, but could still listen, agreed and nodded silently. If this were a battalion from Gondor, they would have covered at least thrice the amount of ground by now and would not have stopped 'till nightfall.

"We must hold this course west of the Misty Mountains for fourty days. If our luck holds, the Gap of Rohan will still be open to us. From there our road turns east to Mordor." Gandalf was saying to the Fellowship as they set up camp. Soon, Boromir was training Merry and Pippin how to sword fight, with Aragorn watching and giving tips to the Halflings.

"Two, One, Five. Good, very good." Boromir praised.

"Move your feet." Aragorn scolded for the umpteenth time.

"You look good, Pippin." Merry smiled.

"Thanks." The other matched his grin. Ruby shook her head from her perch on one of the taller rocks she was standing on to keep watch. In a true battle they wouldn't look so good.

"Faster!" Boromir took up the tempo.

"If anyone was to ask for my opinion, which I note they're not," Gimli started, "I'd say we were taking the long way round. Gandalf, we could pass through the Mines of Moria. My cousin Balin would give us a royal welcome." Ruby looked to Gandalf for permission, a hopeful look on her face. It had been years since she had seen him, and Dwalin seemed to be omitting something from his letters to her.

"No Gimli, I would not take the roads through Moria unless I had no other choice." Ruby frowned at his response.

"Am I missing something?" she asked the Wizard. At his warning glare, she huffed and leapt from stone to stone to stand by Legolas, who was watching something far away in the South. Ruby was startled to hear Pippin cry out and snapped her head around to find that Boromir had accidentaly hurt Pippin's hand.

"Sorry!" the man called and went to bandage the small wound.

"Aaah!" Pippin shouted as he kicked the approaching Man's leg.

"Ah!" said Man hopped back, clutching his shin.

"Get him!" Merry attacked with Pippin as Aragorn laughed. "For the Shire!"

"Hold him! Hold him Merry!" Pippin called.

"Gentlemen, that's enough!" Aragorn was worried of the racket they were making, and more often than not, innocent roughhousing turned to brawls. He tried to intervene but the Hobbits each grabbed one of his legs and pulled, throwing him back.

"He got my arm! He got my arm!" Merry called for help. Ruby would have laughed at the situation, had it not been for the tense aura wafting off Legolas. She looked to him and saw he was still watching the South. Following his gaze, her keen eyesight discovered a shadow on the sky.

"What is that?" Sam had seen it too.

"Nothing, it's just a wisp of cloud." Gimli waved it off.

"It's moving fast. And against the wind." Boromir had succeeded in detangling himself from the pile.

"Draaf." Ruby cursed as she sprang down from their perch and put the fire out with a flick of her wrist.

"Crebain from Dunland!" Legolas called and also sprang down, aiding in hiding their camp.

"Hide!" Aragorn called and pulled the Halflings to lay under some thick shrubbery Ruby was growing for them.

"Hurry!" Boromir shoved Merry and Pippin under a dead piece of bark and looked around for any free hiding spots.

"Take cover!" Aragorn called to him. Suddenly, a small hand grabbed his arm and pulled him down, forcefully rolling him under a bush. Dry twigs scratched his face as he lay on his side, a warm body pushing against his front as his arm was bent in an awkward angle. He focused and saw the back of a head in front of him. Black hair was tied back with a brand new red ribbon: He recognized Ruby and lay very still as she raised her hand and willed the shrubbery to grow thicker around them.

Black birds flew over them, cawing loudly. They circled the hill twice, then turned and flew back towards Isengard. The Fellowship came out from their hiding places after Ruby pulled the branches back and freed them.

"Spies of Saruman!" Gandalf spat. "The passage south is being watched. We must take the Pass of Caradhras." A collective groan was heard as they shifted their gaze towards the icy mountain. Ruby tried to roll out of her hiding place, but a sharp tug on the back of her head impeded her. She looked back to see Boromir's shoulder laying on her hair. He followed the taut rope of hair from her head to his shoulder and scrambled to free it.

"Sorry." He muttered.

"No harm done." Ruby fixed her skew hair and looked him over, noticing he was rubbing his arm. "Are you alright?" she stepped closer.

"Yes, yes, I just twisted a shoulder, nothing serious." He waved her away as he saw Gandalf approach.

"Ruby." The Wizard called. "Secure the area. The enemy may know we are here, but it would be wise to make our way to Caradhras only at dawn." Ruby nodded in understanding, and with a last look at Boromir she went to look for Legolas.

"Come on." She called. "Time for some training." The Elf turned from the fire he was helping Sam rebuild and frowned at her.

"What, now?" he asked.

"No time like the present." She turned and went to the outskirts of their camp and sat on the floor. Legolas followed her and she patted the dry grass next to her. "Gandalf has asked me to protect the camp. Do you know the rydishbean shrub?" she asked. At Legolas' nod she put her hand to the ground and motioned for him to do so too. "Every plant has a different life force." She started to explain. "Try to recognize it, and pull it to the surface." She splayed her fingers and a small green sprout sprang up between her fore and middle finger.

Legolas felt the energy through the earth and concentrated. It took longer, but he was able to bring up a small sprout with a light green leaf on it.

"Good." Ruby praised. "Now, that little shrub needs to grow a circle around our camp. To do so naturally, it would take years, so to speed things up, you must yield your own life force to it." At his alarmed expression, she laughed. "Don't worry, even to sprout a full grown willow tree will barely leave you sweating." She paused. "If you do it right."

Legolas pulled his hand away from the tiny sprout of shrubbery. He'd rather stand watch the whole night if necessary, than give his life to make a plant grow faster.

"Come, now." Ruby took his hand and placed it on the ground, resting her own on top of it. "You're not going to give your life to it, you're just lending your force for a while to make it grow. Follow me." She closed her eyes and Legolas gasped as he felt her life force entering through the back of his hand, and exiting through his palm into the soil, and watched as the sprout grew rather quickly. Slowly, he concentrated and added his own to hers, and they fed the plant until it was as tall as a Man. "Good. Now, will it to grow in the direction you want." Ruby removed her hand from his.

It was difficult at first, especially since he got so distracted by the lack of her hand's warmth on his skin. The rydishbean shrub wanted to grow up, as it was in its nature to do so, Legolas had seen them many times, tall columns of poisonous thorns and berries. So, with a lot of patience, he explained in his mind to the shrub why he wanted it to grow to the side, and after a bit of coaxing, he managed to form a sloppy, crooked, but strong circle around their camp.

"Werid, Legolas, that was a fine start." Ruby smiled at him and inspected his work. "Better than my first try..." she muttered.

"I believe that my having a better teacher than you might have something to do with my success." He smiled at her blush.

"You know you're talking about your father, right?" she referred to her lessons so long ago, before she lived and learned from the Ents.

"I know." Legolas followed her back to the camp. "I also remember you stuck in a tree because you had insulted his teaching skills." He laughed as she scowled at the memory. They relayed to Gandalf that the camp was secure for the night, and warned the others. The shrub was as dangerous from the outside as it was from the inside.

Ruby sat by Pippin and took his hand in hers with a small smile. She inspected the cut that went from the side of his thumb to his wrist. With a sigh, she called to Aragorn, who was closest to her pack and bid him give it to her.

"This will sting a little." She warned as she pulled a small vial from her bag. "Luckily you won't need stitches." She poured the clear, strong smelling liquid, holding on to Pippin's other fingers as he tried to pull away. Dabbing the excess off with a cloth, she wrapped his wound tightly. "There."

"Thank you, Ruby!" he tried to flex his thumb. "How long till I can use my hand again?"

"If you keep the bandage clean and dry, maybe three or four days." She stood and went to sit by the fire, waiting as Gimli finished preparing their supper. They all sat in a circle around the fire as it got darker and darker. Having finished eating, the Hobbits were dozing on the moss beds Ruby had grown for them.

"You shouldn't make them so comfortable. They have to learn the harshness of the wild." Aragorn commented.

"Well, if you don't like it, you can sleep on the rocks." Ruby scrunched her nose at his offended glare. She looked around to see if anyone was still using the fire, and lowered it to embers. With her controlling it, it would warm them, but not call attention to them in the dark. She looked around and saw that Gandalf was already on his own bed of moss, his back to the warmth, probably thinking about their next days of journey. Aragorn was muttering as he lay down, Legolas was poking at the embers, and Gimli was still on watch. She saw Boromir shift and grunt softly as he tried to get comfortable on the bed of moss he had claimed as his own. Approaching him, she sat by his head, making him eye her curiously.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Let me see." She pointed at his shoulder.

"I told you, I'm fine." He tried to turn away, but she punched his armoured shoulder. His cry made Gandalf shush him, as it had broken his train of thought.

"Boromir, if you cannot raise that stupid shield of yours, then what good are you?" Ruby asked. Boromir was torn between giving in to reason, or scolding her for insulting him and his Gondorian armour.

"The sooner you let her fix you, the sooner she'll leave you in peace." Aragorn called from the other side of the camp. "Believe me, I know from experience. Ow!" He rubbed his forehead, where Ruby had thrown a pebble at him. Turning back to Boromir, she saw him sigh in defeat and unstrap his armour.

When he sat in a dark red tunic in front of her, he made to unbutton it, but the movement in his shoulder made him hiss and whisper a curse.

"Let me." Ruby helpfully unbuttoned it and pushed it down from his left shoulder. It was swollen and purple. "Hmm. I apologise for pulling you down so hard. You must have fallen on a root, or a rock."

"No need to apologize, my Lady." He watched as she pulled her pack close and rummaged in it. "I should thank you for your timely assistance. Were it not for you I would probably have had my eyes pecked out."

"Yes, you would have." She answered dryly as she spread a cold, strong smelling cream on his shoulder. He shivered at the cold and the strong smell stung his nose, and as soon as she put the jar back in her pack, she started massaging the cream into his skin. He groaned at first in pain at her jostling his hurt muscle, then in relief as her movements loosened the knots and tensions in it. "But there is no reason to thank me. In this Fellowship we are together. If one gets hurt, the whole group suffers." She pulled his tunic back up his arm and batted his hands away as he tried to do it himself. "Don't exert your muscle until tomorrow morning and you'll be fine by then." She scolded as she buttoned his tunic closed for him. She reached for his armour and clasped it securely on. "There."

"Thank you, my Lady." He nodded at her.

"Boromir, I'm not a Lady. Call me by my name." Ruby started to close her pack.

"Where did you get all these medical supplies? And where did you learn to use them?"

"I have journeyed far, and with many different peoples." She shrugged. "You pick up a few things along the years."

"Years? Surely you must be no older than five and twenty? How many winters have you seen?" he frowned in confusion.

"I do not know exactly how old I am, for I have no memory from before Gandalf found me in the Myr Forest. I believe it has been 1146 years since then." She suppressed a smirk as Boromir's eyes widened.

"Eleven hundred forty seven, Ruby. We have already passed August." Gandalf corrected.

"Oh,right." She nodded "My mistake."

"What are you?" Boromir asked rather bluntly. He knew she was no elf, she was far too short and her ears were round as a human's.

"I'm afraid I'll have to keep that a secret still. An enemy could be listening." She winked at him. He nodded in understanding. She stood and lifted her pack with her. "Good night, Boromir."

"Good night...Ruby" He watched as she went to lay by Aragorn. 'What is their connection?' he thought. He noticed the Elf relieving the Dwarf of his watch and made himself comfortable to sleep. His last thoughts as he slipped into a light sleep were of how the Elf had made their barrier grow under her guidance.

Translations:

draaf - shit

werid - praise