Title: The Good in Everything
Author: Rachel Stonebreaker
Credits and disclaimers at the end
Chapter 2: The Good in Everything
And far, far away, in the land once called Mordor where not much moved other than the wind and a few small animals … Sawg, the troll wandered about aimlessly through the rocky hills. The night was young and Sawg was hungry. Sawg was always hungry these days. Since Masters went away and took all of Sawg's kin, Sawg was lonely. But mostly Sawg was hungry. Masters might be Masters but if they could be caught unawares they were dinner.
Every now and then the troll heard a bird or the scratching of some small furry creature. But being a troll, she didn't know they were animals, quite possibly breakfast. They just sounded like endless clawings in her mind. Why? Why had everyone gone away? Where had all the Others gone? She had a niggling feeling that they were gone, gone, gone. GONE. When her brother walked down the slope of their mountain home following after those tiny little creatures they called Master she'd started to follow. But fear stopped her. They tried to entice her, oh, yes they did, with their hunks of meat on a string. Her brother, stupid troll, followed, but she stayed. NOW where was he? She'd given up safety when she got hungry and thought, just for a tiny moment that perhaps her brother had made a good choice in following those wicked Masters with the sharp sticks and the collars. Yes. Collars. Her brother had easily let them put a collar on him. He got food when he did. But Sawg balked. She instinctively knew that to put on that necklace was to no longer be free.
But what Good was free? She was hungry. No more squishy little meaty bits of Master to chomp down when no one was looking. No more pots of boiling stew to knock over and slurp up when all the Masters shouted angrily. No more baby trolls to eat up when there was nothing else to eat. She was the last of her kind. What Good did it serve to stay behind? Where were the Others?
She wandered about hour after hour, always finding shelter from the strong, strong Bright. In the years of growing up, the Bright had not been so. It had been quiet and not so Bright. It had even gotten less and less as she got older and older. But now that her brother had wandered off with the Masters and they were all Gone, the Bright got Brighter and she couldn't stay outside without her skin feeling hard and crackly at its first threatening glance.
For nights on end and then weeks on end, though Sawg knew nothing of time and its passing, she wandered about the hills and the flats looking for someone or something she knew. Everywhere she trod, the ground split and cracked beneath her huge feet, under her hulking weight. And the rains of the new age and the light of the new dawn and the seeds of the new life filtered in and took root in the cracks in the ropey lava rock broken by her footsteps.
One late evening as Sawg wandered aimlessly she finally heard the scratchings of a field mouse and decided that maybe, just maybe, it might be food. Hunger will drive anyone to do the most absurd things. And on this night, it drove Sawg to stay just a little too long, too far away from the safety of her den. As the Bright crept up over the horizon she began to feel her skin crackling. But fascinated as she was at the sounds of potential dinner, or was it breakfast, she'd lost track, she didn't realize until it was too late that she'd stayed out far, far too long in the night.
The Bright caught her looking up to the East, hunched as she was, just a little bit over a smallish bush housing quite a large family of field mice. She had been reaching out to touch the bush. It didn't take very long for the roots of a Purple Bell to start to weave its way around her now stone legs. It took even less time for a mother and father starling to find her outstretched hand and make it a platform for their new family's nest. The birds and later the beasties that followed, never made a nod in the direction of the stone basilisk that supplied them with a foundation for their homes. They just knew that Now, right Now, there was Good to be found.
End Chapter 2
Title: The Good in Everything
Author: Rachel Stonebreaker
Email: reach me through fanfiction net
Rating: G
Characters: Sam, Pippin, a troll named Sawg and a bird or two and some mice and a cameo by Rosie.
Publish Date: March 2005
Summary: Sam cautions Pippin to remember that there can be good in nearly everything.
Disclaimer: JRRT created these wonderful creatures. His estate owns all rights. I just take them out to the pub for a drink now and again. I do NOT make any money, fame or other gain from them. Don't sue. It's bad for your karma.
Authors Notes: This is in answer to Marigold's Challenge 14 as seen on The World Wide Web livejournal's talechallenge14 (sorry you have to build your own URL as ff has rules about inserting URLs)
Part of my story must take place in Mordor after the Quest. After the Quest in Mordor? Was there anything left after the Quest? Was there anyone there? I commented to Marigold that maybe a few orcs or a troll or something might be there … But as I haven't written anything in years, AND as I asked for this challenge, I accepted. Naturally, there is a Pub in it. Sort of.
The flowers referred to in this story are Rhodochiton Atrosanguineum and Iochroma. They are similar in colour and both have bell shaped flowers though Rhodochiton Atrosanguineum grows significantly further south than the Iochroma. I've never seen "common" names for either so I made them up for this story. Purple Bells and Purple Trumpets respectively.
Beta: The kind Dreamflower email for her address pointed out many helpful things most importantly (as I do love my Pub Series) that I'd gotten it wrong to have a pub open so soon after the Scouring as they'd all been closed down and probably trashed and that I hadn't a clue about writing Sam. She insists, how did she put it, that I had a clue about Sam because I "had the bones of his personality" I just needed a few pointers. Nah. She added some depth to my Sam. She's a good beta pointing out areas that are in need of more development (yeah, and just why was Pippin in Hobbiton just hanging out anyways considering the mess that was waiting at home). She also found some truly weird British spellings, such as titbit instead of tidbit (weird to Americans that is).
