Disclaimer: If I owned LotR, Legolas would not even appear in this fiction. He'd be at my house, having hot cocoa. And I'd be making that hot cocoa with milk instead of hot water. And with marshmellows and cinnamon and with Legolas...

Chapter Seven

We waited a while before setting out after Frodo and Sam.

Specifically, after the shredded, dirty, and thankfully still living remnants of the Fellowship got out of sight of shore. Which took a while, actually.

The four of them started on a miniature search party once they discovered that I was gone. Maybe I should be flattered or something because they valued me enough to be worried about me, or something else like that. But frankly, as nice as it looks on a greeting card, I was a little bit eager to get out of these guys' heads. True, stalking them in secret was plenty of fun, but now that the secret was out (and the memmory of me in my undies fresh in everyone's mind), I came to the realization that I was needed elsewhere.

Preferably somewhere where my cheeks wouldn't burn nearly as much.

Thankfully, after about a half hour of solid searching, it was determined that I had dissapeared.

"But where under the Mountain did the lass get to?" Gimli demanded. Boromir looked pensively at the river.

"I don't think you will find her under the mountain," he said.

"Do you have any clues?" Aragorn asked.

"Perhaps," Boromir said. "Or perhaps not. I have seen her three times..." Oh no, I thought, my face flushing crimson. Please don't... "Once in a pond in Lorien. Once in the river. And before we were attacked, she approached me, not far from the shore. I noticed her clothes were wet..."I looked down and realized that my clothes were still wet. Uncomfortably so, in fact. Which suprised me, considering that I hadn't noticed up until then, and he had. "...And the magics she used..." he trailed off. This all meant nothing to me, except that I had spent an uncomfortable amount of time in water recently, and I could probably afford to do less bathing. But it seemed to greatly impress his companions.

"A water spirit!" Aragorn said reverently.

I almost fell out of my tree.

"This bodes well," Legolas breathed.

"We're going to need all the luck we can get, laddie," Gimli nodded. But Boromir wasn't listening. He had walked over to the river, and was now gazing at it with a soft smile on his face. Slowly, reverently, he knelt down and lowered his precious horn into the waters.

"Thank you," he murmured, unaware that I was sitting a few dozen feet away from him. His sacrifice was touching, even though his horn had been split in half, and I had to fight the urge to run down and rescue the heirloom before it dissappeared.

Legolas finally approached, though not to join his freind. I was personally very happy about this. I had a feeling that bad things would probably follow if the Elf's bow suddenly floated away on the currents of the vast river. Instead, he bowed his head in respect for a moment, then grabbed one of the Lorien boats and shoved it into the water.

"Hurry!" he said. "Frodo and Sam have reached the eastern shore." I looked up. True enough, another boat had been hauled up on the opposite bank, and two Hobbits could be seen scurrying through the trees not far away from it. My gaze fell on the Hobbits' former companions.

Legolas still looked determined, as did Gimli. But the two humans stood perfectly still, absolutely silent.

"You do not mean to follow them?" Legolas asked, a slight pain entering his normally composed voice.

"Frodo's fate is no longer in our hands..." Aragorn said quietly.

"Then it has all been in vain!" Gimli cried in despair. I flinched. "The fellowship has failed." Boromir looked away. Aragorn stepped forward, putting his hands on Legolas and Gimli's shoulders.

"Not if we hold true to each other," he said softly. "We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death. Not while we have strength left." He stood up. "Leave all that can be spared behind. We travel light." He looked his three companions in the eyes. "Let us hunt some orc!" The three looked at each other, finding heart in his words. Smiles began to form on their faces.

"YES!" Gimli cried, laughing maniacally. A few moments later Aragorn took off through the trees, followed closely by a dwarf, an elf, and another man.

Elvis and I crept down from our perch when they were gone.

"Good luck, boys," I said with a soft smile before turning to my friend. "What luck! They left us a boat!" Elvis grimaced, obviously still offended at the suggestion that we might actually sit inside a nice, safe, dry, pretty elvish boat. Knowing better than to argue, I looked dryly down at him. "All rightie, Captain Pikard, what do you suggest?" Elvis looked at me blankly for a few moments, then scurried back to our faithful log. I decided to, for the sake of a good atitude, replace my scream of annoyance with a chipper 'All righty! Down, down, and a-wet!'. Again, Elvis shot me a blank stare.

As revenge for making me get in the icy water again, I told Elvis that I was tired, and sat uselessly on our little raft, giving a new meaning to the pharse 'bump on a log' and let him do all the paddling. He didn't seem to mind.

Once we reached the opposite shore, we left our wretched little log in the company of the grand elvish boat, which seemed to mock be mocking our ragged state and transportation. I shrugged it off and quickly followed Elvis, who had started galloping after the hobbits, still distantly visible through the trees.

"Stay down, Stephses," he whispered as we went further from the shore.

"Right," I said. He had a point in his warning: up until then, there had been almost no need for discretion (evidenced by the incident with me bathing...) due to dark, panic, and a general lack of attention up until then. So I solemnly agreed to be more careful.

Of course, this is coming from the girl who was covered in tapioca and hung from the High School flagpole...

"Mordor..." Frodo said an hour later. The sky was beginning to darken, and they had stopped by a large pool of water, probably meant to go along with the crumbled statues, at the top of a high hill. "I hope they find a safer road..." Safe from my perch behind one of said statues, I decided that he was talking about his friends. Evidently he didn't know about the kidnapping of Merry and Pippin.

"Strider will look after them," Sam said. This made me wonder. Was strider some kind of hobbit diety? I had heard Frodo calling that name before, once. In the mines, though it had been thouroughly muffled, and I had been running for my life.

"I don't suppose we'll ever see them again," Frodo mused sadly, returning me to the present reality.

"We may yet, Mr. Frodo. We may." I liked that about Sam. He always brough a bright side to a situation.

And a toaster, and a television, and a length of rope, and an inflatable rubber raft...

"Sam, I'm glad you're with me," Frodo said, turning to his freind with a faint smile. I silently agreed. Frodo was just too angsty to be on a dangerous journey like this by himself. The whole balance of YinYang and Karma might be displaced, if not for someone upbeat and positive and able to carry thousands of pounds on his back like Sam.

Frodo evidently did not catch on to my mental musings, and began to walk on. Sam hesitated for a moment, glancing behind him in our general direction, as though he had heard something. He shrugged and hurried after Frodo, down the slope.

AN: That was short, but hey, you had a six page chapter last time (how long ago...oops...) and besides, that's the end of the movie. More in a little bit on TTT. I swear. I've already written a few scenes, but the Taming of Smeagol is probably going to take me a while, so don't hold your breath. I'm serious. Don't. I need my reviewers.