Hello Everybody and welcome to my long awaited 4th chapter, thank you to everyone
who reviewed and Congrats to Kierce who figured out the meaning of Liam's name! Mucho
brownie points for you! Anyway, as always I own none of the origenial charas, whish belong to
Mr. J.R.R. Tolkien and am making no money. Now, onto the story!


Welcome to Middle-Earth!

"Come along Mr. Frodo, you must eat." Sam urged his companion.
"I'm not hungry." Frodo mumbled
Sam's eyes widened, this was must un-Hobbit like behavior! "Not hungry Mr. Frodo?" he asked
worried, "Your not sick are you?"
Frodo shook his head "No Sam, I'm alright."
"Then please eat Mr. Frodo! You need to keep your strength up! After all, you don't want me to
have to carry you all the way the Mordor do you?" he joked
Frodo shook his head and managed to grin at the very bad joke. "Hand it here then." he assented
and began to eat. 'What would I do without Sam?' he wondered.

Sam looked at his Master 'Poor Master' he thought 'If only..' but he shook his head and
let it go, it was no use wishing for something that was unreachable.
_____

Liam woke up feeling sore 'What a strange dream.' she thought. She stood and stretched,
not yet opening her eyes. Feeling the need to shake herself out she did so and then yawned.
Finally she opened her eyes and looked around 'A forest?' she thought, 'What am I doing in a
forest?' she began taking better stock of her surroundings and realized her eye level was lower
then it should be, or maybe everything was bigger 'I could have sworn I stood...AHHH!'
It had finally occurred to the Liam to look down. To her complete and utter shock she
found instead of two feet she had paws. She screeched in surprise but to her ears it sound more
like a shocked 'yip' and a loud bark.
She circled around twice and this time took stock of herself, remembering the dream.
She indeed had four large black paws, a muzzle and black fur. She was, for all intents and
purposes, a wolf. 'But I thought wolves were color blind...' she wondered but let it go, realizing
she should not question small miracles. She remembered what the voice had told her last night,
'Ringbearer eh?' checking the sun she figured it was still early morning and turning her nose
into the wind she found she knew the scent of the one she hunted and with that, she set out.


It had been two days since her arrival in.. were ever she was. Not once had she ever
experienced a time when neither sun nor moon touched the Earth and she had begun to think it
was just a bit of false hope, like throwing a rabid dog an old bone to get it to behave. Worthless.
But she had other things to think of. In her two days she had learned much of this place, if not
it's name. She had began to hear the talk of the animals around her, and learn their words. She
learned she was in a forested valley below what her fellows called 'New Mountain.' Animals
she
found had an old and wide stretching sense of memory and she felt awkward suddenly immersed
in it. She meet other wolves and ran with them for a short time. She gained their memory of
times long forgotten. She remembered great wars and times of light and times of darkness that
she knew in the human part of her mind, even if she had been born in this place, she could not
have seen. She was given the great memory of when Elves called them Brother and Sister and of
the Birth of Men and Dwarves. Of course the wolves and other animals did not use those words,
they called Elves 'The First' and 'First Brothers' and 'First Sisters'. Dwarves were called 'The
Children of the Mountain' and 'Mountain Brother' and though they were rare 'Mountain Sister'.
Man as a whole had no names yet, they were not yet old enough she learned, but some of them
did have special names. Some who had earned a special place among the wolves and all the
animals and she learned their names too.
She also learned of the Great Darkness that had fallen over the land once more. The other
animals of the valley whispered to her of the awful creatures which walked the world at it's beck
and call. They spoke of creatures called 'The Lost' which had once been Men but had been
twisted by some power and had fallen to the darkness. She learned of members of the First
which had been taken and hurt beyond repair by the Darkness and now were called 'The
Twisted'. And she learned of new creatures, wrought of Twisted and Man which had no name
but above all else all animals seemed to despise. There was nothing natural to them, they hated
for the pure purpose of it, they destroyed to destroy. The Lost were to be avoided, the Twisted to
be pitied and killed but their children, these new creatures, were to be hated and destroyed, for
they killed without reason, and without rhyme. All these things Liam learned as she sought the
Ringbearer.
And so it came that on the eve of her second day Liam found what she had hunted for.
She recognized the Ringbearer from the image she had been given but she did not recognize his
companion, whom she soon learned was named Sam. Sam called the Ringbearer 'Mr. Frodo' so
she did too, though she thought them queer little creatures. They were short and reminded her of
Man, but seemed ... better somehow. That was the best words she could think of to describe
these little creatures she was set to protect. 'Now to get them to trust me?' she wondered and
then the idea came to her. She gave a wolfish smile and raced off into the forest.
_____

"Let's stop here Sam." Frodo asked. Sam nodded and began to set up camp, starting a
fire and taking out what little they had left to eat. Frodo sat down on a log and stared up at the
mountain they would cross tomorrow. The ring grew heavier and heavier on his mind every day.
Some nights he prayed he wished they could get to Mordor tomorrow and he could be rid of this
horrible thing. Others nights he wished they would never find Mordor and he could keep the ring
forever.

As Sam began to prepare their meager dinner, he heard something in the forest and his
head snapped up "Did you hear that Mr. Frodo?" he asked. Frodo was on his feet with Sting
already out, it wasn't glowing. Sam straightened up further and drew his own little sword, the
noise had come again. "Who's there?" Sam shouted. "I warn you if..."

A wolf stepped out of the forest.

A huge, black, with glowing eyes and large teeth wolf stepped out of the forest.

Sam began to shake. He had faced the Nine, Orcs and Galadriel but not wolves, not yet.
He stepped infront of Mr. Frodo to protect him and brandished his sword "Don't you come any
closer you.. you"
The wolf cocked it's head to the side, as if it was confused and took a few steps closer.
That's when they noticed it had something in it's mouth. "What's that Sam?" Frodo asked.
Sam looked at it "I don't rightly know Mr. Frodo."
At this point the wolf did the strangest thing. It dropped it's eyes and lowered it's head,
as if it was bowing and then it dropped what ever it had in it's mouth. Next it turned and ran
back into the forest, stopping only once to gaze back at them before disappearing.

The two hobbits stood, stilling brandishing their swords, trying to absorb the bit of
weirdness they had just gone through. Finally Frodo sheathed his sword and asked "What did it
drop Sam?"
Sam put his sword back and went over to see. His grimaced slightly in distaste as he got
blood on his hands. "It looks like the better part of a rabbit. Do you think it's poisoned? Or got
something wrong with it? Other then being dead?"
Frodo shook his head "I don't know."
Sam shrugged "Well there's no use wasting good rabbit then Mr. Frodo." Sam walked
back to the fire and taking out a little knife, began to skin the rabbit.
_____

Liam watched as the two little ones ate her gift and she smiled. 'This is good,' she
thought 'This is defiantly good thing.'
____

"This is not good." Gimli announced. The three Companions had followed the Orcs up
the river and now across it.
Legolas agreed with him "Master Gimli speaks the truth Aragorn, Orcs normally do not
cross water, so what are they after? And with living prisoners."
"I don't know Legolas." Aragorn admitted "But stay sharp, we don't have Pippin and
Merry yet."
The other two agreed and they were off again. Running swiftly in the night, praying for
the safety of their friends.