Chapter 5: Trail Ride
I awoke the next morning and I was surprised to find a hobbit staring at me in the face.
"Ahhh!!!" I screamed. "What are you doing? I'm not dressed!" I tried covering up with my blanket while I was yelling.
"I just wanted to know if you wanted any breakfast," he said innocently. "You looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you."
"Whatever. I'll be right out for breakfast, just let me get dressed." He didn't move. "Go! I'm not getting out of bed until you leave, I'm not wearing anything." He left the room. I felt kind of bad for yelling at him but I didn't expect him to come into my room while I was naked.
~ ~ ~ 15 minutes later~ ~ ~
I walked out into the eating area after I was dressed and clean. Pippin was sulking. "Oh great," I thought. "I made him mope."
"Pippin, look, I'm sorry I yelled at you. I just wasn't expecting you to be in my room."
"I'm sorry, Lady Vanessa," he said looking at me as if he was truly sorry.
"Awww... its ok Pippin. By the way, you can just call me Nessa. That's what everyone calls me."
"Ok, Nessa, how would you like to go riding today with the others?"
"Sounds like fun. I haven't ridden in about 5 days."
~ ~ ~ 30 minutes later ~ ~ ~
All of the hobbits and I were standing around the stable deciding on which pony to ride.
"You guys really aren't as short as I thought you hobbits were. I thought you were supposed to be 3 feet. It looks as if you're more around 5 feet."
"Easy mistake, Lady Vanessa," Sam said.
"For the last time! It's Nessa! None of my friends ever call me Vanessa."
"Well, what horse do you want, Nessa?" Frodo asked.
"I kinda like that one there on the end," I said. "It reminds me of my horse back home."
Sam took out the horse, (its name was Colt I learned) and I asked, "What are you doing?"
"Getting your horse ready," he answered as if it were plain as day.
"I can see that, but why? How do you expect me to get to know my horse if I don't do all that?"
Each of us got our horses ready and mounted and we went on our way. We let Merry and Pippin lead because they knew the area the best. Pretty soon into our ride Merry called me up to the front with him and Pip.
"So Nessa, do you have a special friend back home?" Merry asked.
"If by that you mean a boyfriend, no." I saw Pippin's face perk up a little at my statement. "But there is a guy who I hang out with quite a bit just me and him. His name is Jake." I noticed Merry looked at his cousin after I said that. "You know, Pip, you kinda remind me of him."
"Really?" he asked eagerly.
"Yeah. You two look a lot a like and act the same too." I turned back around toward the trail and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Pippin Stick his tongue out at his cousin.
Fairly soon after we came to a small stream. We all dismounted and let our horses drink.
I sat down fairly close to my horse while Frodo and Sam prepared Elevenses. Merry and Pippin were wrestling with each other a little too close to the horses.
"Knock it off you two," I said to them. They didn't even pretend to have heard me. "Hey, I thought I said to kn-," I was cut short by the searing pain in my head as I blacked out.