Angel
Chapter 29: Captain Faramir
Authoress Notes: Yoohulloo after two weeks absence due to vacationing! For all who have waited patiently, thank you. - I really wish I could have written in my favorite bits of dialogue from the Herbs and Stewed Rabbit scene in this chapter, but I thought that would be over doing it, since you have all read/seen it.. Drat, my favorite all time scene and I have to cut bits of it out. ;;; Also, when Gollum/Sméagol are arguing with each other, instead of saying 'the Gollum half' or 'the Sméagol half' I'm just going to have each one like it was another person talking. I will still refer to him as Gollum when he isn't arguing with himself, just like I always have.
"Ssss! Nassty hobbitses, they stealses our rabbits." Gollum glared over at Sam, whom was cutting up the two rabbits Gollum caught. "Always watching, he makes things hard for us, precious."
"No harder than you make it for him." Tersa commented as she walked by.
"And the long-haired one is always listening! We has no thoughts to ourselves, precious! We doesn't!" Sméagol added.
"We will get rid of them precious, we will. And we will get back the precious, we promise." Gollum scowled. "And if they tries to stop us, we shall kill them ourselves."
"Sméagol, is that you talking to yourself over there?" Frodo asked sleepily, waking up from his nap under one of the trees around the clearing.
"No master. Good Sméagol didn't say anything." Gollum replied with mock-cheerfulness. He then slinked over to Sam. "What is you doing, gollum?"
"He's making food." Tersa said, tossing a few more sticks on the fire then sitting down beside Sam. "Hacking up innocent rabbits to do it, but still…"
"Do you want to eat or not?" Sam laughed.
"SSS!!! Those are our rabbitses! Stupid fat hobbitses, you ruins them!" Gollum cried, looking at the pot in horror. "You plans to scorch them!"
"You insult him again and I'll hit you so hard you'll fly from here to Mount Doom!" Tersa growled, holding up a nearby pan.
Sam sighed, taking the pan away from Tersa. "Don't worry about it. I offered him fish and chips earlier and he cringed."
"Spoiling nice cool fish, scorching it." Gollum shook his head, and slunk off. "Stupid fat hobbitses… gollum…"
"Are you sure you don't want me to hit him again?" Tersa asked, watching Gollum disappear into the trees.
"Yes, I'm sure." Sam laughed, shaking his head. 'Crazy, I swear…' "Tersa, could you go and wake Frodo up? This is nearly done."
"I'm already awake Sam, She doesn't need to wake me." Frodo said, sitting down beside Sam, still groggy from a few hours uninterrupted sleep. "What have you made? Either I am still dreaming or something is cooking."
"Rabbit stew. It's not much, but it's a nice change from lembas bread." Sam shrugged, ladling some of the stew into a mug and handing it to Frodo.
"Well, it's good anyway." Frodo said, sipping as he looked up at the blue sky. "It has been so long since I have seen a blue sky." He commented. "The sky has been ashen and gray for so long, I've nearly forgotten what blue looked like."
"I know. Lovely isn't it? There are birds singing as well, I thought I'd never hear another bird until we went back home. I don't quite recognize one of their songs though." Tersa looked to see if she could see any birds in the trees around them. "Then again, I never did pay much attention back home."
After the three hobbits finished eating, Tersa and Sam went down to the nearby steam to wash what few dishes they used, leaving Frodo to get some more sleep.
"Is your neck better yet?" Sam asked, breaking the silence that hung around them.
"Yes. It stopped hurting a few days ago." Tersa shrugged, gathering up the pans, hanging them on Sam's pack. "Sam? Did you put out the fire you started earlier?"
"I think so… Why? It's not smoking is it?!" Sam turned and sure enough, right above the treetops, a thin spiral of smoke was visible in the sunlight. "Snakes and adders, it is! We have to get back Tersa, Frodo could be in all sorts of trouble."
The two stuffed the few remaining dishes in their packs and ran back to the campsite. As soon as they reached the clearing they heard voices, which nearly started Sam cursing himself again but Tersa put a hand over his mouth before he could say anything and dragged him behind some bushes so they wouldn't be seen.
"Well, he certainly is not an orc." One of the men said, walking in a circle around Frodo. "But he doesn't seem to be an elf either. We have not seen elves here in Ithilian for many years, and elves are much taller and fairer." He stopped in front of Frodo. "Tell us what you are."
Frodo said nothing for a moment. "I am Frodo, Son of Drogo, a hobbit of the Shire."
"Are these friends of yours?" One of the men asked, dragging Tersa and Sam out into the clearing. "I found them in the bushes, spying."
"We're not spies!"
"Even if we were you caught us, so we're obviously not good ones. Why worry about us?"
"Tersa will you be quiet? You'll just make things worse."
"ME? What did I ever do to you?!"
"You don't make sense, that's what."
Frodo smiled, shaking his head as he listened to his friends bickering. "Yes, they are companions of mine."
"And your names?" Faramir asked, walking over to Tersa and Sam.
"Samwise, son of Hamfast." Sam replied, giving Faramir a suspicious look. "Sir, what do you plan on doing with us, if you don't mind my asking."
"That shall be decided after I learn all of your names." Faramir said, a bit of humor in his voice, turning to Tersa.
"Tersa, daughter of Brigina and the person who will 'just makes things worse.'" Tersa shot a glare at Sam.
"Now that you have told us your names and what you are, why are you h-?" Faramir was cut off by the sound of a horn blowing. "SOUTHRONS! Quickly, fetch the other men! Damrod, keep watch over them." Faramir disappeared into the trees, using the strange birdcall Tersa had noticed earlier to call the other men for battle.
"Lovely. We've landed in the middle of an attack." Tersa sighed. "Perhaps I do make things worse."
"Stop dwelling on that and look over there. It's an Oliphaunt!" Sam motioned over to the road. "No one at home will believe this. I've actually seen one now."
Tersa looked over and gasped. "Bloody! They do exist."
"Of course they exist! You didn't believe me until now?" Sam asked.
"Well, I thought you were just being odd." Tersa shrugged sheepishly. "You can be quite imaginative when you feel like it… especially with your poetry." After Sam didn't say anything, she added: "But I like your poetry, it's sweet."
Sam just sighed irritably and shook his head.
"Give up Tersa, Sam is going to ignore you for a bit." Frodo grinned. "He feels a bit insulted, I think."
"Well he can just feel insulted, I had nothing to do with it." Tersa said.
"If you two are not married, you certainly seem it with your bickering." Damrod commented.
Sam and Tersa blushed, but said nothing and moved a bit farther away from each other.
"At least they fed us after they interrogated us." Tersa said, dipping her hair into a nearby basin of water. "And gave us something to get all of this dirt off of us."
"What did they give you? They just gave us bowls of water." Frodo said, looking around the curtain that was strung up to separate their sleeping quarters temporarily while they washed up. "Where the did you get the soap from?" He asked.
"I brought it with me." Tersa said rubbing a bit more soap into her brown hair. "Get back on your side and I might let you use some."
Frodo disappeared behind the curtain again, and after a few moments, a small bar of soap was thrown over the curtain and nearly hit him in the head.
"There. Just put it in my pack if there is any left when you are done with it. I'm going to go watch the sunset." Tersa said, rinsing the last bits of soap out of her hair.
When Tersa reached the stone balcony overlooking the horizon, she found Sam was already there. "Hello."
"Hm." Sam said, looking over the stone railing.
"You're not still annoyed with me are you?" Tersa asked, looking over at Sam.
"No Tersa. I never really was." Sam replied, returning Tersa's gaze until she looked away. "Ters, why is your hair wet?"
"Washed it. Didn't have a chance to at the stream we were at today." Tersa shrugged, shivering a bit. "I wish I hadn't now… it makes it colder out here."
"Do you ever think before you do something?" Sam laughed, taking off his vest and putting it over Tersa's shoulders. "Hopefully that will help a little."
"Thanks. And I do think before I do something, just not enough. Besides, you do too much thinking. You worry yourself to death over something before you actually do it." Tersa narrowed her eyes at Sam. "You're just as bad as I am, just in the opposite way."
"I do not 'worry myself to death' about something before I do it." Sam said. "You know you should be nice to me, I'm the one that gave you my vest to keep you from freezing."
"Meh. You still couldn't do something spontaneous even if you wanted to." Tersa smirked. "Nice, quiet, dependable Sam." She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment.
"Ters, you're not going to fall asleep on me again are you?" Sam asked.
"I don't know. I don't really have much control over that." Tersa yawned. She put her head on Sam's shoulder again, closing her eyes.
"The only lass I know that can fall asleep on her feet." Sam sighed a few minutes later, looking at Tersa, seemingly asleep. He shook her a bit and she opened an eye.
'Drat you, you were supposed to carry me to bed, not wake me up.' Tersa thought irritably. She turned and sulked off to bed, after giving Sam a 'Why must you be romantically impaired?' look.
"And once again I have done something wrong." Sam said to himself, watching Tersa sulkily walk off.
"Men never do anything right in women's eyes.." Faramir said, walking out onto the balcony. "They are called the fairer sex, but I believe they should be called the fickle sex, if anything."
"You have noticed that too?" Sam laughed.
"Indeed I have. Go and rest, Master Samwise, I will keep watch over the horizon." Faramir smirked. "You just keep watch over your lady fair. If it is not to bold, I would say you fancy her."
"Yes I do. In all of her strangeness, I suppose I do." Sam nodded, then walked off.
When Sam reached their sleeping quarters he found Tersa and Frodo already asleep, with Tersa still wearing his vest around her shoulders. Sam couldn't help smiling, which seemed to be becoming a common thing around Tersa. 'In all of her strangeness, her fickleness, and every thing else about her I suppose I do love her.' He kissed her, softly so she wouldn't wake up. "I promise I'll tell you I love you, once all this is over. I can't now, not until we destroy the ring, but I will tell you." Sam smiled at the sleeping girl.
'I told you.'
'But he's not going to tell her he loves her, not until after this so that we can destroy you!'
'Destroy you is more like it. We nearly got rid of that wretched girl once, we'll finish it this time.'
'No! You're not going to make me kill her!'
'Who says you have to do it? Gollum will do anything for me. He doesn't like her, just tell him a few choice things to get him angry or say I want him to. Your hands will stay clean.'
'My hands may but my conscience will not.'
'Fine, we won't kill her. But just remember this, I'm the only one that really cares about you, that's been made clear. You have been replaced.'
'Replaced?! What do you mean!?'
The ring said nothing, and became a lifeless band of gold in Frodo's hand once more. Frodo looked over at Tersa, asleep across the room. 'How can so small, so seemingly innocent a thing, do so much harm…' He looked down at the ring. 'It is trying to turn me against my friends… Or friend now, since Tersa is so wrapped up in Sam.' He thought bitterly. 'She could care less if I died, probably.' He shot a hateful glare at Tersa. 'And I could care less if she did.'
'And so it begins…' The ring chuckled to itself. 'You merely have to plant the seeds and they shall grow.'
Bloody evil ring! Aww, Sam loves Tersa. Cuteness. Anyway, time to respond to reviews!
Lothliana: Really? I thought I was strange for loving this part of the book. ;; Glad to know someone else likes it too. It is awfully hard on poor Frodo thinking his best friend is being taken away, but we need some sort of tension in this story. I wish it could be all sweetness and fluff (I love writing it ;;;) but it still has to have some sort of plot.
Lindsey: Heeehehehehe.;; You are quite a hyper little person when you review, aren't you?
EJ Kridom: Yup, I love writing fluff. ;;; I'm addicted to it, practically.
Cavca: Don't hurt yourself falling off those chairs. Don't worry about reviewing quickly, so long as you review I'm a happy camper.
Silvar: I didn't know Lindsey had a sister… hmmm… Hello and welcome to the fic! I am always happy to get new reviewers.