*I don't own the characters. I own the depressing story I put them in. and I own Merry's little brown box. My school uniform's brown. There's this shop that has paper bags that say 'brown is beautiful'. That means I'm beautiful!*

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Chapter three: Of doubting the leader, mistaken identities and lonely hobbitses.

Merry sat back in the snow and sighed heavily. The box was empty. He had expected that - after all, he was just a useless hobbit. Surely he didn't think that there could be anything in a random little box that he was meant to find!

He put the box down, intending to discard it, but then thought that there might be some further need for the box - say, for example, a place to put the Ring in once he found it. He didn't tell himself that he probably would not be able to find the Ring anyway. He slipped the nondescript brown box into his pack and picked up a little hunk of bread. He began to chew, and lay back, his sack pillowing his head. He closed his eyes and felt the cold and the staleness of his bread, and he sighed, wondering why he had wanted to come on this crazy quest in the first place.

Soon, he fell asleep.

Gollum had been watching this little hobbit. He reminded him of Baggins, whom he had met in his cave. Was this Baggins? Did he have his precious? And that little box, very suspicious. Just the right size for holding Gollum's precious. Hmm… he would need to follow this little hobbit around…

***

Aragorn realised that he had made a mistake sending only one person to look for er... Merry. Now the rest of the Fellowship were extremely bored, having nothing to do in the past fifteen minutes Pippin had been gone.

"I'm bored!" cried Legolas, sitting in the snow and pouting like some weird little elfling. There were no orcs to fight, no people to meet, no trees to climb, no horses to ride…

"I wish Gandalf was here and leading us," said Gimli sulkily, "he'd know exactly what to do." Gimli glared at Aragorn and we back to pouting with Legolas.

"Yes," added Boromir, also glaring at Aragorn and sneering at the same time, "Gandalf the White was a very good leader."

Aragorn frowned. What did he do wrong? Wasn't it just a few hours ago when Frodo was telling him that he'd be the best King ever?

"Well, look," Aragorn tried to reason with everyone, "We must be patient. When Pippin returns with the missing person, er… Merry, that's it, when he returns with Merry, we shall be able to continue on our quest as usual."

"Without the Ring?" Boromir questioned.

"Well, we'll be able to go one finding the Ring as usual." Aragorn nodded once. There. That was the closing statement from the leader.

"That Ring is pure evil," said Sam, patting a shaking Frodo on the back, "Look what it's done to Mister Frodo!"

"My preciousssss," whispered Frodo.

Everyone shuddered at the sound of Frodo's voice. If they didn't find the Ring soon, Frodo was likely to turn into another Gollum!

"Alright," Aragorn announced, taking a few deep breaths, "let's try to find the Ring around here, but we will return to this campsite within a short period of time, so that when Pippin comes back with Merry, they would see us here." He stood up and brushed snow of his trousers and picked up his sword, ready to go.

Everyone else started picking up their packs and packing up the campsite.

"Wait a minute," said Aragorn, "We're still coming back you know."

"How would we be able to find our way back, with you leading us?" scoffed Boromir.

Aragorn drew himself up with dignity. "I happen to be a very good Ranger, thank you very much!"

Everyone nodded sarcastically. "Sure you are," added Legolas.

"Well, fine, if you want to take your stuff, go ahead. But I know I'll be able to lead you back here."

Eventually, everyone was ready to go. Poor Sam had to carry two loads as Frodo didn't seem fit enough to carry his own. Boromir was given the job to prevent Frodo from falling over, which he wasn't too happy about.

And so the remaining members of the Fellowship of the Ring set out to actually find the Ring, and if Aragorn had known that they would not be returning to their campsite he would have taken the piece of beef jerky in his pack, because as soon as they left, another one of Saruman's avalanches hit.

***

Pippin heard the avalanche from where he was standing, and he shuddered, wondering why Saruman was still bothering with the avalanches. Maybe this wizard was bored. Pippin would be bored if he had to be a wizard.

He hadn't found Merry, but he had a feeling that he was getting close. Pippin was a little angry at Merry, but not too much as he wanted the pipeweed that they usually shared, that Merry had so cleverly taken with him.

Pippin began to hum to himself, even dancing a little as he walked. He was trying to do the Macarena when his legs got tangled up as he tried to jump and he fell forward and landed face-first in the snow.

Pippin spluttered as he lifted his head clear of the snow. It tasted nice, but it wasn't the same catching the occasional snowflake on your tongue and getting the stuff halfway down your throat. He steeled himself to get up when a shadow fell over him.

"Don't worry, young hobbit, Sméagol will take you to your friend."

Pippin pushed himself off the snow and looked up into the face of the ugliest creature he had ever seen. It had big, wide blue eyes, yellowish skin and very little hair. It reminded him of a mushroom he had grown once, one which had gone horribly mutated.

"Who are you?" he asked, disgust in his voice.

"I am Sméagol, master hobbit," the creature said. Pippin was surprised to see that it could talk understandably at all.

"And Sméagol knows where master hobbit might find his friend."

"Friend?" Pippin asked, suddenly excited, "You mean Merry?"

But Sméagol was already prancing off, and Pippin had no choice other than to follow him.

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So what did you think of that, eh? I know there was a little long wait in between the last chapter and this one, but this is a really fun story to write and I like to do so very much. So far, so good. No flames as of yet! I think that's almost a record for me!

Next chapter will involve more of Gandalf and our other friends.