Disclaimer: You recognize it, I don't own it.
A/N: Aw shyte, this means that I have to think of an ending soon, doesn't it? Meh, I have time before that happens. I'll think of something. Does anyone else remember when this fic had no point to it?
Pippin was not quite in his accusation of Liz in control of the ring, but was close to it. Soon, as the completion of the ring drew nearer, she would be the possessor, but still a pawn to Radagast. Slowly, they were pulling the bits of the melted ring from the lava of the volcano, one molecule at a time, and they were nearly finished.
They still went every day for however long it was that they were in there and were very careful with their stories. She was, they remembered, a literary wizard and capable of using any power used in a story. They managed to get by with pitiful little stories about dragons making friend with bungling wizards who could make the flowers sing.
They did not know how long they were in there for, with a pitiful light source and no way to tell night from day and a minute from an hour or an hour to a day. They were quick to give up their count, realizing it futile, and moved their thoughts instead to how to get out of there and destroy the ring again.
"First we have to get out of this hole," Janet said, thinking out loud. "The only thing that ever comes in and out that isn't thrown at us is that thing with the orc on it. And we can't get rid of the orc if we have no weapons, so we're screwed that way."
"Uh, are you sure about that?" Louise asked, a flame flaring violently in her hand, stretching as high as Pippin before receding back into her palm for their small fire to talk by. She shot a triumphant look at Janet and smiled sweetly.
"Okay," Pippin said. "We have one weapon that will get us by until we find something for the rest of us. So what are we going to do? Burn out way out of the net, climb up and burn the orc so badly that he falls off?"
"Sounds good to me," Janet said, fully serious. "How about you?"
"Sure," Louise agreed. "Now who knows how to drive that big bird thing? Wait, what about those Riraams? Aren't they guarding this place? They could chase after us on the bird." She shuddered inwardly at the mention of the Moiriraamavoite, what they had dubbed the Riraams. They were the flying orcs that had captured them and, they learned, were only killed by elven weapons and no others.
"So we work on the plan a bit more," Pippin said with a sigh, giving in and realizing that their scheme was the only one they had to escape, "but the Riraams can't be that fast with all of that armor and weaponry on them. That bird can be pretty swift with the right motivation, but only then. So, how do we make it move quickly and take us where we want it to?"
"With a carrot," Louise responded, not actually intending for it to be an answer. At the confused look, she explained, "Like with the donkey, they dangled that carrot in front of it."
"Hey, that bird did look pretty hungry the last time it came down here," Janet said. "How do you think it likes cram?"
Their plan came into place and they were more or less ready the next time the orc came down to pick them up for their next session. Their planning, however, turned out to be more or less unneeded. They found the orcish rider was so drunk that he was nearly falling out of his saddle and the bird was more than willing to get rid of him. They took their bundle of cram and convinced the bird to take them where they directed. The Riraam were not present at the entrance and all of the orcs seemed to be too full of ale to do anything to prevent them from doing anything.
As they traveled the tunnels, they found no indication of where they were and were growing quite unnerved by it. Instead, they were catching a word or two here or there of what was going on and why all of the orcs were in such merriment. The ring was now made anew and on the finger of the bearer. This would be their last time to be as drunk as they wanted before they would go to war.
Eventually they came across a strip that seemed more or less empty. Aside from that, however, it was no different from the rest. They searched for some sort of exit, a light or a draft that might show the way. Instead, they caught sight of an orc moving through the tunnel. Growing more than a little aggravated at their lack of progress, Louise brought the bird to a total halt and brought a firewall up around the creature, preventing it's escape.
"Tell us the way out and maybe we won't torch you," Pippin offered threateningly, looking to the creature they had captured. He nearly jumped in surprise to find that it was not an orc, it was far too small. Instead they found a familiar hobbit in orc's clothing.
"Frodo?" Janet asked in near disbelief. "Where are the others? Is Legolas all right? What happened?"
The small hobbit looked up, eyes completely devoid of recognition and a blind fury imbedded in them as though something was drawing him elsewhere and telling him to use any means necessary to get there. His face was contorted and in the firelight they could see that it was almost transformed, much into one like Bilbo in the movie held when trying to see the ring again in Rivendell. He looked away from them quickly as though their eyes had hurt him and tried to find a way out of his fiery prison, circling the small area and reaching out tentatively to see if the fire would relent there, then recoil with a hiss.
Louise looked to the rest of them with both confusion and helplessness. No one really knew what to do, whether to let down the firewall and let the probably insane Frodo go free to run into the orcs or keep him in and risk him killing himself trying to get out. They did not know what had brought him here or where the others were, and the fact that Sam was not close by left them quite perplexed and no one had any clue as to what they should do.
The bird beneath them, growing fidgety with all of the waiting and took matters into it's own claws. Gingerly so as not to alarm it's passengers, it rose up and took flight, swooping back to pick up the little one in it's talons before flying away down the original path.
"Smart bird," Louise remarked as their speed seemed to pick up. "Do you think it knows where Liz and the ring are?"
The bird made a sharp turn to the right and seemed to steer towards a set destination. All the while, there were violent protests from Frodo, flailing and trying to fight his way out of the bird's hold on him. He managed to somehow reach his sword and pierced the toe of the mighty bird. It let out a loud screech of pain as it dropped him, but stayed on course to their destination.
The three watched, horrified from the bird's back at their dropped passenger. The could see his slowly disappearing form getting up and coming in pursuit of them, or possibly of something they were after. Relieved that he was still alive at least, they continued on, peering into the darkness and gaining odd looks from strangely sober orcs.
"I told you to find them!" they heard a faint voice call from down at the end of the tunnel. The bird seemed to slow and go higher up into the darkening shadows of the canopy. It managed to find a ledge to land on in the pitch blackness and let them off, a silent thanks for the food and a reluctance to continue, obvious in his manner.
Grudgingly, they took inventory of what few supplies they had left on them. It didn't take long, just a package of cram, a short sword for each of them and the clothes on their backs. They made their way along the wide ledge and listened intently for any orcs that might travel these paths. All the while, they heard the shoutings of what Radagast, outraged over missing persons, themselves by the reference to the story tellers.
They went slowly, looking before and behind them continuously because they were not prepared for an assault. They knew something was following them, small form crouched behind the rocks and moving amongst the shadows cast by Louise's flame. They thought at first that it was a trick of their anxiety and imaginations, but it did not go away.
"Who goes there?" Janet called so that whatever it was could hear, but soft enough for her voice not to reach the prying ears beneath them. Louise supported her by strengthening the flame and casting about in a wider circle.
An orc clad hobbit shied away from the light before letting out a cry and came out, deep rings around his eyes and a shake in every move. Pippin went up to him, asking Sam questions about what had happened. He seemed to have his sanity still, though it seemed much a frail thing.
They took a break, sitting against the wall and giving Sam a few pieces of cram as his story slowly unfolded with a few lapses into a ring hungry creature that was so much like the one Frodo was now. His memory seemed to be stagnant due to the lapses he had gone into over the past week or so, but it served well enough.
It seemed that they had been about a day away from Barad-Dur, but at the rate they had been going they would have taken three to arrive. Both he and Frodo had been trying to fight off the call of the ring, but it was too strong in the end and they had run off. He had vague memories of pursuit and hanging Merry from the canopy of thorns and nearly broke down after that, realizing how badly he had acted.
"It's okay Sam, you weren't yourself," Louise said, attempting to comfort him. "They'll forgive you. Don't worry about- Oh shoot, he's going into it again." She quickly withdrew her hand from his stiffening back and held her left hand in her right, hiding Narya.
"Ring!" Sam hissed, looking as though he was about to jump at Louise and try to get the ring he had in her possession. "It's mine! Preciousss…"
"Sam!" Pippin cried, locking Sam's arms behind him so that he could not do anything. "Sam, you don't want the ring! Remember all of the things we went through before to get rid of it? Would we have done all that if it were a good thing? And that's not even the ring."
Sam seemed to come out of it, shaking more than ever. "I'm sorry, sorry…" he said, seeming to withdraw into himself. "I didn't mean to, it's not safe with me here. I'll just go back as far as I can while I can before it happens again. Maybe that bird that helped you before can make sure I don't get too far."
He continued to mutter things as he went back, shaking every step of the way, like someone with little left for him. It was a sad sight, but they were able to let him continue on his own way and they went onwards. A few minutes later they heard fighting to their left and became curious. Coupled with their anxiety over Sam and Frodo, they went to see what was happening and hoping that it would make them forget about what they had seen.
From a cave opening that led to a straight drop down into an armory they saw that a battle raged below, though not as fierce as they had expected. Both sides were few and both seemed to be sluggish. They all seemed to be orcs at first glance, but it seemed this was not the case. Skull caps were knocked off from both sides and some of them sported long hair and the faces of friends.
Leaning down a little, and with Louise and Pippin ensuring that she would not fall, Janet managed to grab hold of the tip of a bow and pulled it up. The arrows were too far out of her reach, but it did not matter. There was a small littering of them now from their use in the battle now, and previous ones where they had gone too high. They all gathered them up and Janet began taking aim and knocking off those most threatening.
Taking a closer look at their formation, Louise noticed something peculiar. The orcs were all nearly dead now, and she felt no danger of exposing them. "Hey!" she yelled down to those below. "You're going the wrong way!"
"I hear them!" the voice of Radagast sounded throughout the tunnels. "They draw near, capture them and bring them to me!"
"Louise!" Leigh said, a happy squeal over seeing that her friend was still alive.
"Don't worry," Nicole called up before anyone could say anything else about their appearance. "It echoes too much for them to find out where you are. Go up, we'll meet you there!"
"Any sign of Liz?" Ruth called up, catching their attention as they left. They hesitated a bit, debating over whether or not to say anything, before leaving completely as though they had never heard her. They would see soon enough, they would all see what had become of her.
Pippin, found the staircase first and led them up the winding tower for what they thought was far too long before it ended. They looked out to find that the stair ended and opened up to a long hallway, devoid of everything but rats and spiders that seemed to feed off of each other. Their muscles were weary from the journey up and seeing a spider sucking the blood out of a rat, and then having another rat bite off the spider's head did not particularly help to make them feel any better.
They peered through a thinner part of a wall that would turn into a hole at the touch. It was thin enough for them to peer into silently and see Radagast shuffling through sheets upon sheets of notes frantically. They went a little farther over to find the next hole was large enough for them to step through onto a ledge.
Louise extinguished the flame by closing her hand and they continued on with the light from the torches in the doorway. It stopped after about ten feet and they peered around in the darkness to catch a glimpse of something, almost tempted to ask Louise for light again.
Radagast came in, a stern look on his face. A figure came out of the shadows, floating on nothing and landing softly on her feet before him eerily still. Liz was little different than when they had left her. She still donned the same clothing more or less, though the upper left side of her pants were soaked in a wide circle of deep crimson that spread up to the lower bit of her shirt. They were almost certain that, had her movements not seemed so rigid and forced, she would have great pain moving that half of her body.
"I need you to go to Tirith Ungol," Radagast told her simply. "It seems that the battle being waged there is not going well. They have reinforcements that need to be gotten rid of. Make sure that Tirith Ungol falls and do not come back before that unless you are called."
They moved on the ledge to get a better look at her and were shocked at what they saw. True, she seemed no different from before, but that was before they saw her face. An emotionless look lay plastered on it with pure white unseeing eyes. They saw her nod once, silent words forming on her lips, before she disappeared from sight.