As the dinner bell was ringing back in Lothlorien, the fellowship pulled their boats to shore and disembarked. Merry and Pippin took to building a fire in order to dry their clothes (Mental note, do not under any circumstances go water-skiing with half a cloak on).
"Hey Pippin, I'll bet I can build a fire pit that's bigger than yours."
"Oh yeah, you're on." The two hobbits dug into the shore, creating a sand shower. Most of the fellowship was covered in flying sand within a few minutes.
Legolas looked down at Merry and Pippin, "Are you sure that this is um such a bright idea. I mean the Orcs could uh see the fire."
Aragorn shrugged his shoulders and sorted through the different packs. Boromir, who was still catatonic, remained in his boat trying to rebuild lost muscle strength (ATP for any of you science geeks out there). Gimli dug out his whetstone (before Aragorn got to it) and sharpened his axe. Thankfully to Legolas' brain, he was too busy to notice the Elf's 'um's.'
Mar joined Aragorn in his hunt through the luggage, "What are you doing?"
"Looking for something, something that will help me in making my decisions," the Ranger answered as he shuffled through Boromir's Hawaiian shirts and Giml's NAA (National Axe Association) magazines.
"Oh okay," Mar said, "hey Frodo, I just wanted you to know that I would be totally okay with you dying to save my life."
Frodo started, which was a bit of a problem as Mar made her statement just as he was crawling out of his boat. His back hit the water hard, silencing the hobbit, and he slipped into the river. Sam rolled his eyes and reached down into the water. He pulled Frodo's face out by a clump of curly hair. Frodo sputtered as water ran over his features. "I had to end up protecting the biggest dunce in the Shire," Sam mumbled. Frodo crawled to the shore and collapsed.
After collecting most of his thoughts, Frodo raised his head and found that a good deal of sand adhered to his lower face. Merry took a chance from his digging operation (that now required a pulley system to dump buckets of sand into the forest) to look up, "Hey Frodo, looks like you could beat Gimli in a beard contest."
"Come on Frodo," Pippin said, "you're making all of us Hobbits look bad. We've spent centuries trying to convince people we can't grow beards and then you go and muck it all up."
Frodo wiped at his face while the two cousins returned to their dig. "I found it!" Aragorn yelled. He removed a round stone that barely fit into his palm and as black as the Nazgul. Carrying the stone carefully, he sat down in a circle created by the others (aside from Merry and Pippin of course). "With this," Aragorn said proudly, "I can make decisions that won't end in people being kidnapped and or perforated with arrows. Right, magic ball?" As he asked this, Aragorn gave a good shake to the stone and peered into a small hole cut into its face. "It says' 'Yes' see," he said as he displayed the stone. A small white 'yes' was clearly visible within the hole.
"Oh oh, what are we going to ask first?" Mar asked as she skipped back and forth on her feet, "I know," she picked the stone out of Aragorn's hands and gave it a good shake, "will I marry Frodo?"
'It seems doubtful' the stone proclaimed.
Frodo released a sigh he was not aware he was holding and said, "Had we better not ask of this stone a question regarding our journey?" Everyone stared dumbfounded at the Hobbit. "Where next we should go? Which path we should take," nothing was getting through, "Whether or not we should carry on to Minas Tirith or Mordor?!"
The group stared hard, trying to digest the information but it wasn't getting through. "Oh that's stupid," Gimli said, "here give me that. I want to know how many Orcs I get to kill."
Sam looked over at Frodo and shook his head slowly, "I do not know why you insist on acting as though you are the end all be all of this group, but it really is grinding on my nerves. I wish Bilbo had given the ring to Lotho." Then Sam walked away from Frodo and peered over Gimli's shoulder to get a better look at the stone.
Frodo's mouth worked but no sound could come from his lips. He could not understand what had overcome all his friends. Blindly he headed into the forest turning over the events of the past few months. For hours he passed tree after tree never really noticing where he was, trying to understand what could have changed Sam and the others so much. It was possible that stress and fear could alter and warp even the most stable mind but never in his wildest dreams could Frodo imagine Sam acting this way. As he stumbled and climbed ever upwards, Frodo's smallest toe caught on a large stone ruin grounding the Hobbit. He screamed in fury and pain not over his much-bruised toe but the entire situation. Emotionally exhausted he collapsed onto a pair of ruins and sobbed.
Back at the shore, Merry and Pippin reached the end of their digging (after hitting bedrock) and, forgetting about the original dare, agreed on their next move for a fire. "Hey Boromir," Pippin yelled two inches from the man's face, "get up!"
Boromir sprung up out of his slumber, effectively head butting Pippin, causing the Hobbit to stagger backwards, "What?! Oh it is you, and the other one of you. What is it that you require from me?"
Merry, who was still conscious (unlike his counterpart) said, "We need firewood, lots of firewood."
"And it is not possible that another member of this fellowship could help you in anyway? Possibly Aragorn could gather some wood for you? Or Gimli might chop some down? I do not know what Legolas is doing but . . ."
"No, they're all busy making important decisions and stuff."
"Hey guess what, Legolas is gonna have five kids," Aragorn shouted for no good reason.
Boromir rubbed his massively sore arms and sighed, "I suppose I could go into the forest and remove some bark for your little fire pit over there." He slid his half-awake body out of the boat and shuffled into the forest. Much to the man's annoyance, he soon discovered that practically none of the trees dropped any old branches anywhere near the shore. He was forced deeper and deeper into the woods.
Anyway, quick jump back to Frodo who was still sitting on that ruined thing losing his marbles. "Perhaps it is this ring. Mayhap the pull of it has driven anyone I've come in contact with mad?" Frodo tugged on the chain dangling from his neck, his fingers coming to rest on the ring.
"What are you doing?"
"Ah!" Frodo screamed, the sudden voice causing him to jump and rip the chain from his neck. It left a stinging red scar that Frodo would bear to the end of his days. "You frightened me Boromir."
"Oh sorry, I was just sent out here to collect firewood and kindling for the Took's and Brandybuck's fire. So," Boromir said as he picked up his third piece of wood, "what has brought you out here so far into the deep woods without any mosquito repellent?"
Frodo eyed the man cautiously, thinking that it may not be wise to discuss his current thoughts. He kept his right fist closed about the ring and placed his left hand over that, "I just came out here to think."
"Oh," Boromir said as he sat down next to Frodo, easily edging the Hobbit off the ruin, "Yes I often try to remove myself from those degenerates in order to have a few moments of peace and quiet to think for myself. I often think about many things, why the birds fly, what color the sky could be if it had a choice in the matter, whether or not steroids should be outlawed in baseball. What is it that you were thinking about?"
Frodo, who was now standing freely, backed further and further away from the man of Gondor. The Hobbit thought he detected a shift in the man's voice. It seemed genuine, but there was an undercurrent of menace running about him, "I am simply contemplating on what would be the best route to take."
"Oh okay," Boromir said happily and turned back to his growing woodpile.
"No no no," a voice from the forest called out, "Now you're supposed to tell him to take the ring to Minas Tirith!"
"Who, who said that?" Frodo stuttered staring about the trees.
He was answered by a sigh and then a rustling from the high branches of a tree. A girl, no older than fourteen, fell from the tree landing on her feet. Her face was covered fully in something black and green causing her to appear more evil than usual. "Boromir, I thought we were clear on this."
"Mar!" Frodo's uneasiness was not subdued from the appearance of this girl. In fact, he was now wishing Boromir had tried to take the ring without her interference.
"I know," Boromir answered, "but you're too hung up on possessions man. I say that we should cast all of our belongings aside and run wild through the forest."
"I told you there was no getting through to him," a new voice said. A harried (In fact he's always harry) Gimli joined the rest of the group. "We should have just taken the ring ourselves and hid it in Boromir's pocket or something."
"No no no," Mar argued (In fact that seems to be her only way to argue) "that's not what happens in the movie, er, book. See I have watched it like fifty times and I know that Boromir has to take the ring so that everyone thinks he's evil and hates him otherwise he'll get more fan girls than Aragorn."
"And, uh, what makes this 'fan girls' so important that Aragorn cannot bear to lose it?" Legolas said.
"Oh it's not like you should care, I'm pretty sure it could be revealed in the third movie that you're Sauron and no one would care." Mar said to the elf that had magically appeared. Last Legolas knew he had been standing on the shore watching Merry and Pippin rip apart a boat for their own kindling.
"And this is, um, a good thing?" Legolas stammered out.
No one listened to him because at that moment Gandalf appeared dressed all in white. Wait, that doesn't sound right. Hang on. *Rummages through piles of used paper and other things writers have, right?* Oh okay, sorry Gandalf didn't appear scratch that. Anyway, no one listened to him because at that moment Aragorn showed up just because he didn't like being abandoned at the shore. "Hey guys, what are you up to?"
"Boromir dropped the ball that's what," Gimli said, as he now tried his sharpened axe against some of the stone ruins.
"It is not as though this is entirely my fault," Boromir countered.
Frodo, who watched the entire scene unfold in pure disbelief, could not stand idly by anymore, "I cannot let the ring destroy their minds like this. I must set off alone." As the group argued over exactly who messed up Boromir's attempt to take the ring, Frodo dashed away, his fist still clenched tightly.
The Hobbit ran over hill and dale, took the low road while I took the high road and I'll be in Scotland before ye. No wait, that's not right. Sorry, actually he found himself back at the shore, with only Sam to be seen. Sam was sitting next to one of the large holes, now full of water for some reason. Frodo tried to creep past without catching Sam's attention but the rustling of his cloak was enough to catch the other Hobbit's ears.
Sam swiveled his head and saw Frodo pushing one of the boats away from the shore, "Hi! What are you doing? Frodo's stealing one of our boats!"
Frodo paused for a moment and looked back at his friend, he had to do this to save them from themselves (or something like that), "I am sorry Sam but I must leave, and you cannot come with me."
"Oh okay. Bye."
Frodo shook his head in a moment, "You mean you are not going to demand to follow me, to keep your old promise?"
Sam's face began to cloud in an anger that was becoming all too familiar to Frodo, "Why in the world would I want to do that? End up half dead, lying on some mountain that's about to erupt. Uh no, Frodo I'll be fine without you, I'm sure." Then without turning to look back at Frodo, the Hobbit walked into the forest to find Aragorn and the rest.
Frodo squeezed his eyes tightly and turned to push the boat fully into the water. Suddenly two familiar heads sprung up, "We can go with you!"
"AH!" For the second time that day Frodo screamed and paused for a moment to put his thoughts back in order. "Merry, Pippin, what are you doing in that boat?"
Merry looked over at his cousin and shrugged, "We were playing hide and seek with Aragorn, but he's not very good at this game."
"Yeah," Pippin chimed in, "it's been almost three hours and he still hasn't found us."
"Listen, I . . ." Frodo began but the two younger Hobbits interrupted him.
"Oh come on we'd be a great crew, I mean, Merry here knows how to row a boat and everything."
"Yeah and um, we could help you pack and stuff," Merry said as Pippin and he started to go through Frodo's pack. "There's no way we'll need this stupid elf rope. It's so thin I'll bet it couldn't support a fly."
"Perfect Merry, now we'll have more room for food," Pippin said as he stuffed in a handful of lembas, "and this thing. What is this thing," he asked as he held up the Lady's phial, "I mean what are you going to do with it, it's nothing but flea market junk." He threw the phial overboard and it sank to the bottom, "There, now we have enough room to bring Merry's putter."
Frodo tried to catch the phial but his right hand still clutched the ring and out of shock his fist fell open. Merry took this moment to pick up the ring and hold it up to the light, "How much do you think this thing is worth anyway?"
Pippin stared at the ring and then at Frodo's outstretched hand, "Not very much because it's fake."
"Fake," Frodo garbled.
"Yeah look at your hand," Pippin said, "the ring's already turned it green." Sure enough, the ring had left behind a circle of green on Frodo's palm.
"You know what," Merry said as he bit into the ring, "I'll bet when that half Elf guy was operating on Frodo, he switched the real ring with this cheap knock off."
"Hold on a moment," Frodo said as he tried to keep from hyperventilating, "what you're telling me is that we have come through eternal peril, lost Gandalf, had that mockery of a person join with us, wasted months traveling through Middle Earth and that is not the One Ring?"
"Nope," Pippin said.
Frodo shook his head as his eyes grew larger. He muttered something inaudible under his breath, "I can't bloody . . . brought this stupid piece of . . . all the way with scarcely a stop . . . almost died . . . and now it's nothing but a . . . fake."
"So," Merry said, "are we going to leave now?"
Frodo raised his head and looked at them, for the first time in this long and confusing journey coming to a clear decision, "You know what, you keep the ring and do with it what you like. I am heading back to the Shire for a long rest in my bed at Bag End." And with that Frodo shouldered his pack, turned North West, and began his long trek for home.
"What are we going to do with the ring?" Pippin asked.
Merry stared at the retreating figure of Frodo, who
was still grumbling, then a light came on over his head, "Who's up for
a game of ring toss!"