As usual, Legolas was the first to rise from sleep. For a moment, with the crisp morning air in his nose, the morning singing of the birds in his ears and the sight of so many trees in his sight, he thought that he was still in Middle-Earth with the Fellowship. After the wind ruffled his short hair and waved his long jacket in the wind, his thoughts came back to the present.

"Too bad," he sighed. "The past is so much easier to deal with, compared to the present."

As he watched the sky turn from steel gray to a pale pink-gold, the bundle of cloth nearby began to stir. It tried to get untangled but failed spectacularly. Legolas watched with amusement from the tree where he sat.

"Who the hell did this to me?" Pippin asked in frustration. He continued to struggle with the cloak that was wrapped tightly around him.

"It was Aragorn," laughed Legolas. He went over and untangled the Hobbit from the tied-up, rumpled cloak. "Never let him wrap anything with a cloak, especially if it's living."

"Yeah," agreed Pippin. He scrambled away from the cloak and stood next to Legolas, never taking his eyes off of the cloak. "It might try to eat whatever it's wrapped around."

"Does it hurt?"

"Does what hurt?"

"This." He poked Pippin's arm wound.

"Aaah! Yes! But not as much as yesterday, thank god." He pulled up his bloodstained sleeve to inspect the large wound underneath. "It looks a hell of a lot better, too."

"You can thank Treebeard for that," Legolas said jovially. He deliberately patted the injured arm to provoke him.

"I will... after I make you eat the grass!" Returning to his teenage state of mind, he tackled Legolas to the ground and tried to force him to stay there.

For a few moments, all they were at that time were a couple of teenage boys playing around in a forest. At the end, Legolas stopped Pippin's attacks with a simple outstretched hand on his forehead. Pippin's fists came short of his body by several inches.

A slow, low rumbling and creaking was heard from deep within the forest and caught their attention.

"What was that?" Legolas asked. His hand released Pippin when they both stopped and looked in the direction of the noise. He immediately heightened his senses, especially his Elvish eyesight and hearing, to gather any clue about the source of the noise.

"Oh, are you talking about that strange rumbling noise? It's the Ents," Pippin said knowledgeably. "That's Old Entish, if I'm not mistaken. I'd have thought that you elves would've remembered what the Ents sounded like, Legolas."

"It's been nearly seven thousand years since I've last heard a tree talk," he said plainly. "Unless, of course, you count last night."

Without warning, Pippin took Legolas' hand and started to go deeper into the forest, towards the Entmoot. But since Pippin was a Hobbit, he took a route that was full of branches and shrubbery that he could avoid easily but Legolas, unfortunately, had a harder time. Because of this, they came to the Entmoot a little more than dirty and scratched up.

"I am never taking after your lead ever again," said Legolas as he brushed a leaf from his hair. "You only take the road that's meant for Hobbits like you."

"No, I only take that road whenever I'm leading you."

"Peace," rumbled Treebeard as Legolas made a distinct growling noise at Pippin. "It is not ideal for allied sides to fight amongst one another." Despite his advice, Legolas still gave his Hobbit friend a friendly push. "Well, I suppose I must not expect the same behavior as I did before."

"Have you made a decision about our war?" Legolas asked the Entmoot. "Have you at least talked about our situation?"

A great rumbling and creaking came from the Entmoot. Legolas looked at Pippin nervously as the creaking continued for several minutes. Pippin was much more calm than him and just stood beside him, waiting. Finally, the noise stopped.

"Our answer is no."

"No?" he exclaimed. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

"No, we have not discussed that matter yet," Treebeard said slowly. "You must have patience, Master Elf, like the halfling has." The low rumbling started again.

Once again, Legolas looked at Pippin who looked very smug and pleased about himself.

"Yeah, Legolas. Show more patience like me."

"Pip," sighed Legolas as he put his hand on his shoulder, "we all know that you have the patience of a goldfish."

For the next few hours, the two of them burned away the hours by watching the sun fully rise and by climbing the trees while they waited for the rest of the Fellowship to wake up.

While Legolas and Pippin were at the Entmoot, the rest of the Fellowship began to rise. Aragorn woke up first after having the morning dew splash onto his face from the leaves above. The Horn of Gondor was still safely by his side.

He looked around drowsily and realized that two of them were missing. Panicking slightly, he used his tracking skills to find out what had happened to them.

"They were standing here," he muttered as he looked around and secured the Horn by his side, "but they soon ran off into the woods." He followed their tracks through the thick bushes and trees with some difficulty. "The Hobbit was in front, with Legolas close behind. But there are no other tracks to follow them..."

Confused and concerned, he ran straight through the clearing ahead and a loud rumbling met his ears. Out of instinct, he clapped his hands over his ears. When he put them down, he heard Legolas' and Pippin's voices above him.

"No, Legolas, not that one. It's not ripe yet."

"No? How about this one?" A rustle in the branches overhead was heard. "This one was practically going to fall off. Looks red enough, too."

Aragorn looked straight up and saw his friends sitting in the tree with their legs dangling and choosing which apples they should eat. It looked as if Pippin was directing Legolas to the apples that he thought were best.

"Yeah, that one looks really good," said Pippin.

"Let's give this to Aragorn, shall we?" He put out his hand and dropped the apple. Aragorn caught it in time to see Pippin's horrified look and taunted him with a satisfying crunch of the apple. Because Pippin was on the verge of sinking into depression, he picked another beautifully ripe apple and gave it to him.

"How long has the Entmoot been going on?" Aragorn asked through his apple.

Glancing at his watch, Legolas replied, "They're on their eighth hour. How long an Entmoot is, I don't really know." He started to eat his own apple and watched the Ents sway in rhythm to the wind and their own sounds.

When Aragorn finished eating, he told the others that he was going off to get a drink from a nearby stream.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," Pippin called down.

"And why is that?"

"Because that stream is full of the Ent draught they use to make the trees grow. That's why we have these beautiful, succulent apples in the middle of spring."

"So why shouldn't I drink from it?"

Pippin stole a glance at Legolas, who just shrugged in response.

"Because," Pippin began slowly, "even though it makes you taller, it'll give you a horrible stomachache. Yeah, that's it."

"That and Treebeard said not to drink from it," added Legolas. He directed him to a normal stream to drink from. He looked after the Horn while he was gone.

Over time, the rest of the Fellowship woke up and all of them spent the day trying to relax after a very long night.

--- ---

"Hobbitses and their friends didn't come back last night," hissed Gollum. "Maybe Master has captured them, precious. Perhaps we will have some help when helping Master now. We all knows that Master could use some extra help. Right, Smeagol?"

"Go away," sobbed Smeagol. "We hurts too much to listen."

"Oh, what are you complaining about now, you little stinker?" Sam asked roughly. After spending a night alone with the double-faced Smeagol, he was reaching the end of his temper.

"This nasty rope hurts us," whimpered Smeagol. He struggled to loosen himself a little bit. "And we are hungry. We wants something to eat."

"Once Master finds us, the fat Hobbit will suffer," growled Gollum. "He keeps us tethered like an animal, starves us with scrap food and abuses us through the night with his nasty rope. Yes, precious. He will be the first to suffer with Master's help."

Smeagol had no reply except for a constant whimpering. Gollum became sedated on the surface and had let Smeagol take full control of their consciousness.

"I can't believe I'm hearing this again," muttered Sam. He went to the fridge and made himself some breakfast. He was so preoccupied about his friends that he managed to tune out Smeagol's ramblings to himself.

"Smeagol doesn't want to hurts anyone anymore," he said nervously in a low voice. "We learned what happens when we tries to hurts others; we get hurts ourselves, precious. That's what happened in Middle-Earth. We's don't want to feel burnings again, precious."

"The pain we felt was because of the stupid Hobbitses," snarled Gollum. Evidently, he decided that he needed to talk. "They should feel what we felt. They should have to feel the emptiness of time. They should feel the pain of being enslaved with a nasty rope and being starved to death. They should feel how cold it is with no friends. Gollum, gollum."

"Master is our friend. Master feeds us and gives us shelter."

"Master only does that because he needs us! He needs us to help him carry out Master's plans and keep his monsters alive and well. He needs us to help him grow strong. That's all he needs for, precious. He is not our friend."

"Don't say that!" Smeagol screeched, trying not to listen to the voice inside his head. "Master is our friend, Master is our friend!"

"He beats us, precious! Kicks us, yells at us, hurts us! Our every move in that slimy, wretched hole is a command to us! Abuse, torture and slavery we are. He is not our friend!"

"He can be our friend. Perhaps if..." Smeagol trailed off hopefully.

"If what?" Gollum asked curiously.

"If we give him the nasty Hobbitses and their friends," he said gleefully, careful not to let Sam hear.

"Yes! Then we can strangle their little Hobbit necks, starve them and hit them like they did to us in the past!" Gollum savored that thought as if it was his last. But, something caught his attention. "Do you smell that, precious?"

His nose sniffed the air wildly. "Smeagol does. It smells like... fishies."

Sam was just finishing his breakfast with some tuna fish on toast, among other things. He had sat down at the opposite end of the table that was furthest from Smeagol. Through Smeagol and Gollum's eyes, he was taunting them with the succulent fish.

"See how he provokes us with his fish, precious?" Gollum said. "He tortures us while he gets to eat the tasty fishies. He will definitely be the first to suffer." He continued on, muttering ominously to himself.

Sam had already got up and cleared the table. However, before he started on cleaning the dishes, he got something from the counter and put it next to Gollum.

"What's this stuff that the fat hobbit has given us?" Gollum said aloud. He poke and prodded the food on the dish.

"It's the tuna fish I didn't use," replied Sam. His tone was softer than usual when directed to Gollum. "You must be hungry but that's the only kind of fish we have in here." He went back to washing the dishes.

As Gollum gobbled up the tuna fish from the plate on the floor, he started to rethink his plans.

"This fish isn't that bad," Smeagol told him. "Maybe he doesn't need to suffer first."

"Maybe, precious. Maybe. But he will feel pain from us, precious. Yes. Lots of pain he's caused us tonight and many nights before."

"No! We don't wants to hurts anyone! We won't let you!"

Gollum didn't reply him. He actually left Smeagol's consciousness and stayed quiet inside their mind. Smeagol barely noticed that he finished his fish in peace until he realized how quiet it had become.

"We won't hurts anyone," Smeagol said defiantly. "Not anymore, we won't."

But Master will, Gollum silently thought. Master will hurt them for us.