The next morning they approached the edge of the Shire, down by the Brandywine River and Buckleberry Ferry. Once they reached Farmer Maggot's cornfield, Frodo decided Sev might not be tired enough to carry conversation. So he initiated one with a question about a book they'd read recently, and Sev went right along with it rather well. They laughed rather openly, until Sev heard Sam behind her and quieted. Frodo followed suit.
"Mr. Frodo? Ms. Sev? Mr. Frodo? Frodo!"
Frodo turned back and around the corner.
"It's all right, Sam," Sev said, giving him a look: Frodo's safe.
Sam exhaled hard. "I thought I'd lost you."
Frodo lifted an eyebrow, and Sev felt worry creeping up on her. "What are you talking about?"
"It's just something Gandalf said," Sam admitted.
Frodo cocked his head a little, unsure of anything Gandalf would have to say. "What did he say?" Sev felt almost chagrined at being, perhaps, overbearing in wishing to protect him. He did have Sam, after all, and they were more than halfway to Bree. She made a mental note to back off, and did so physically. Frodo shot her a look, unsure at either of his friends. But the warmth left with her, and so he wished she wouldn't stay away.
Sam stepped forward slowly. "He said, 'Don't you lose him, Samwise Gamgee.' And I don't mean to."
Frodo chuckled a little. "Sam, we're still in the Shire! What could possibly happen?"
The moment his words were out, something barreled powerfully into his side, throwing him to the ground. Sev leaned forward to drag him to his feet, but something else slammed into her.
"Frodo!" Pippin sat up over Frodo, surveying the hobbit as though no harm had been done. And Frodo realized Pippin undoubtedly didn't care. "Merry, it's Frodo Baggins!"
"Hello, Frodo," Merry said cheerfully. Sev wriggled beneath the latter hobbit, having starkly felt her personal-space bubble pop. She shoved her feet beneath him, lifting him off of her. She abruptly stood while Sam yanked Pippin off of Frodo. Sev extended a hand and Frodo took it; she brought him to his feet.
Her warmth traveled up Frodo's arm, and without thinking about it too hard he didn't let her hand go. Sev didn't let go either, but the moment both became conscious of the moment she stiffened. Her fingers slipped out of Frodo's as his grip slackened, knowing he couldn't possibly keep it.
So he turned back to Pippin and Merry, eyeing the vegetables they were piling into Sam's arms. Sev didn't take any, backing away slowly. "What is the meaning of this?" he asked dangerously.
Merry piled Sam's arms with carrots. "Hold these, will you?"
"You've been into—,"
"—Farmer Maggot's crop!" Sev, to start the statement, sounded accusatory while Sam sounded epiphanic.
Before either Pippin or Merry could respond (or Sev could clunk each in the face with one of their own cabbages), barks and shouts rose from the cornfield behind them. Pippin took off, and Sev grabbed Frodo's hand as she dashed inside. Merry followed, as did Sam after hastily throwing his bundle aside.
"I don't know what he's upset about!" Merry protested. Frodo nearly tripped over his own feet at the pace Sev pulled him through the corn; fear did not drive her, however, just adrenaline at having taken Frodo's hand so initially that she wanted to get out of there before he noticed. "It's only a few carrots!"
"And some cabbages." Sev hissed when Pippin nearly halted to turn and speak to Merry while he dashed forward. "And the bag of potatoes we left last week; and those mushrooms the week before!"
Sev resisted rolling her eyes. Hobbits.
"Yes, Pippin! My point is, he's clearly overreacting!"
Sev abruptly pulled to a halt as Pippin stopped at the edge of a steep drop. Merry slammed into Pippin, followed by Frodo, and Sam catalyzed their fall. Sev released Frodo's hand and rolled away from the hobbits to tumble down the hill alone. The rest collapsed in heaps, landing on top of each other as Sev rolled off to the side. However she tried, she still slipped into the same path as the hobbits as they neared the end, and she fell the rest of the way with them. Her head unrolled right next to Frodo's shoulder, and he only felt the warmth for a moment before she scrambled to her feet.
Pippin started from underneath the pile. "Oh. That was close." Merry rolled off his back. "I think I've broken something." He produced a thick carrot, and Sev snickered as she backed away. Frodo stood and backed away from his companions.
"Trust a Brandybuck and a Took," Sam muttered, brushing himself off.
Merry did so as well. "What? That was just a detour . . . a shortcut!"
"Shortcut to what?" Sam said doubtfully.
Pippin gasped loudly. "Mushrooms!" he cried.
Immediately the three hobbits were scrambled to their feet, Pippin and Merry using Sam as physical leverage to get up. They raced to the mushrooms, piling them in sacks.
Sev glanced up at Frodo. He heard a noise . . . as though the earth were moaning in pain, dying even as it warned. Sev didn't hear the sound, but she could feel something approaching. As her gaze turned to the road, a darkness begged to drain her of her toxins and soak them in for itself, add to its blackness. The pains attacked her—those sharp, burning convulsions—and she collapsed to one knee, gasping to hold back tears.
She recovered quickly enough to hear him say, "I think we should get off the road." Frodo stared at the hobbits beside him, but they didn't seem to care for his warning. He turned back to the main road as Sev struggled to her feet. He turned to help her up . . . but then the earth moaned again, louder.
Frodo's gaze shot back to the trees beyond even as he moved to kneel by Sev. Sev glanced up as well while she shoved the pains away. Space itself bent, as though it were trying to run away but had nowhere to go. The odd illusion in the distance spread eerie fingers of wind that stirred the leaves at Frodo's feet.
"Get off the road!" he insisted. "Quick!" He and Sev leaped under the nearest tree root, and the other hobbits followed somewhat carelessly. As they all piled beneath the earth, three of the hobbits began bickering a little over the mushrooms they'd found.
Everything of their movements halted when the heavy hooves and labored breathing of a powerful battlehorse filled the forest air. Sev had to push back a growl at the darkness of this being now so close by. She turned back to inspect the horse and saw a black stallion with savage eyes; black liquid of an unidentifiable origin dripped down its legs and over its hooves.
Frodo glanced up when two armor-shod feet swung down from the horse and claimed the ground. The earth seemed to shiver within Frodo, and as the warrior's armored fingers crunched down on a tree root above him he could feel those tremors within the Ring as well.
Something begged him to put it on.
The blackness overtook Sev again, and she slumped into Frodo's side trying to fight the pain back. When her eyes flickered open, Frodo already had the Ring in his hand and slowly began moving it towards his beckoning pointer finger. Terrified, Sev grabbed his wrist. Warmth carved through the influence of the darkness, and Frodo quickly concealed the Ring.
The rider above them let out an epiphanic hiss, but when Merry threw his bag as far as it would go the intruder shrieked, chasing the sound with its horse. The hobbits scrambled out of the tree root, racing along in scattered order among the trees until they had run far enough away to avoid being heard by the black rider.
Merry, Pippin and Sam all collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily. Sev stood off to the side, feeling lost: getting to Bree wouldn't be as easy as it had been, although the short distance between them and their destination gladdened her.
"What was that?" Merry demanded.
Frodo glanced down at the Ring in his palm . . . he knew now more of its dangers, and only felt so much more inclined to get rid of it.
Before he could respond to Merry, the black rider's shriek rang out through the woods again. "Move!" Sev hissed. "Come on!" The hobbits began running again, dodging trees as they tried to avoid the black rider.
Night approached quickly, and Merry halted the group for a moment. Frodo stumbled against a nearby tree; Sev didn't mean to stand next to him, but happened to seek rest from the same tree. Frodo nestled a little bit in the warmth beside him until Merry stepped up to him.
"Frodo? That thing . . . I think it's looking for something." He sounded accusatory, and a growl built up in Sev's throat as she settled a hand on Frodo's shoulder. "Or someone." Sev's eyes darkened, but Frodo did not fear Merry.
He turned to the other hobbit, only exhausted and wishing to get home. "Sam and I must get to Bree," he said. He found no more room for explanation, not yet.
Merry's brow furrowed, and Sev relaxed. "Buckleberry Ferry," Merry whispered. "Come."
No sooner did they spring back into the woods than did they have to duck as a black rider crested the hill above them. The rider's horse snorted, carefully prowling the scent of the air for Frodo, for the Ring.
Merry turned them aside, only to run right in to the rider. The horse noised angrily, rearing up as its rider searched the hobbits from its vantage point. Sev hissed at the horse, drawing her sword as the other hobbits turned away. She managed to nick its leg before she would have gotten trampled. She turned and raced after her companions.
Frodo had somehow managed to wind up at the back of the group in dodging the black rider's horse, and Sev rolled her eyes. If anything, the others should have taken the initiative in protecting him, but she realized they were probably concerned enough for themselves. She could take it. She'd be useless if he had three others invested so heavily in his survival.
Sev had just cleared the fence all four hobbits managed to cross, but Pippin had already unhitched the ferry from its dock. The wooden raft began to float away as they shouted frightened encouragement to Frodo. Frodo turned to see the black rider tearing across the dock towards him and Sev.
Sev grabbed Frodo's shoulders and threw him forward even as she jumped. Both rolled against the planks of the raft, and when Sev sat up she watched the rider's horse abruptly halt before the river. It reared back angrily. The rider turned it away, and Sev's eyes widened in horror at the sight of their enemy joining three others identical to it.
"How far to the nearest crossing?" Sev insisted, turning back to Merry.
He began rowing, pushing them to Bree, to the end of this excursion. "Brandywine Bridge, 20 miles."
20 miles. They would be all right, Sev decided.
Frodo settled against the ferry. The Ring pulled on his pocket, and now this new weight of the black riders piled on it as though physically there. Sev could see his exhaustion, but couldn't have felt better for him still being alive and safe. Willation had warned her against the Ring: "For you and for most others, Sev, the One Ring is the most dangerous force of Middle Earth. Beware it, should you chance upon it."
She had. And she could feel its pull. Instead she knelt next to Frodo. He shivered against the chill of night, trying to calm his heart and lungs from the race against riders he did not know, but feared regardless.
Sev laid a hand on his shoulder, calming both of them and warming him. He laid his head against her hand, felt the heat from her clamber into his head and numb him to the dangers of the outside world. Sev could feel the beat of his heart surging through his thick, curly hair. Frodo was alive and in one piece; to have the Ring, Sev couldn't ask for more. Somehow he had managed to survive its influence and dangers thus far, more than she ever could have predicted.
He fell asleep there.