Title: The One I Call "Master"
By: Bill-the-Pony
Archive: Just ask, and I'll be happy to accommodate
Summary: Bill the Pony's pov when he leaves Sam as they enter Moria. Simple, short, but hopefully sweet.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bill, Sam, or any other recognizable feature in this. But if it is possible then I do own the little story itself. I have no clue how the whole ownership thing works so don't sue!
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The night was dark, darker than any in which I had ever been ensnared. The soft glow of the moon and her servants had long ago fled from the impenetrable bulwark of dense, black night clouds.

My head drooped lower, I was hardly aware of my flaxen forelock falling into my downcast eyes. I yearned to flee back to my dear Master even if it meant crossing over the threshold of that dank, yawning cavern. It would be a lie if I said that I did not feel fear or that my body did not quail at the prospect of surrendering to be led into such a dreadful place, but my heart had been prepared to travel through at my Master's side.
But the human had forbidden it and I am ashamed to admit that I was grateful for an excuse to escape what seemed to be a doomed path to certain death. Yet I had to ask myself if my own lonely journey that had been predestined for me was any safer or less perilous. Never the less I turned aside, away from the gentle hobbit which had shown me a way of living, outside of cruelty and harshness into which I had been sired.

I looked back at my weeping master; I could feel that heavy weight grow anew within me, which I now had come to know as sorrow. His tears burn themselves in my mind, forever imbedded on my heart. If there was ever to be a pony to cry, I was sure that I would have the right to be the first. Was this really supposed to be the end of such a brief, happy time? Even with my short lived memory I could remember the smell of the sweet grasses flowering with new seed around the wooded knolls of the Elf-city. My Master and I had trodden far in safety, with no fear or remembrance of the evil creatures which yet sought to bring destruction to the one whom Sam called his Master. We had explored blossoming glades, waded in cool, glistening pools, and much to my delight, tasted the choice fruits of lush orchards.
Never had I known such freedom and ease. Ever since I was a yearling, lying sickly in a sodden stall, I had fantasized of the time I would find careless freedom. I had never dreamed that I would find that joy in the serving of one I called Master.
My hooves stumbled for what seemed the hundredth time. I could not resist one last look back at my dear, kind Master. Even as I watched him turn away with a bowed head, a foreboding fog settled between us. It cut me off and boxed me in; an air of suffocation seemed to fill my lungs, choking me. But when the last glimmer of hope seemed to succumb to the vileness of the darkness, a brilliant, growing light, filled the sky above. It shifted and filtered through the mist and confusion, bringing sight and a refreshing breeze in its wake. The moon had broken through, triumphant and gleaming anew. The Valar had not forsaken us, and by the new light, which brought sight and clarity, had shown it to be true.
Filled with a new feeling of wonder, which I had only just experienced in the Elf-city, I watched with growing awe as the moon's soft glow sent forth brilliant shafts of piercing light, reaping out the clouding mist and sowing seeds of brightness.
Even now, as I watched my Master enter the newly opened mines, I knew that we would meet again on a brighter day, with a new beginning in a better Age.
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Author's Note: This was my first try with anything like this, let me know if I should continue or stop right here. This was a little more serious than I usually lean...but I found this in a pile of my notorious unfinished story folder/box/trash pile, and decided to kick back and finish it for once! Let me know your thoughts and felling on this! Thanks!
Bill-the-Pony