Last updated: 9-28-2004

wow…sorry its been so long. I was busy with school and horses and such and my muses were not helping me out whatsoever. This is the last chapter that I will write by myself (if you want to say ive been writing this by myself, as I have had quite a bit of help from one of my friends). After this chapter I will be receiving a lot of help from two of my friends because my ideas are just running out as is my sense of humor, so two of my friends will be cowriting alone with me. Hopefully that'll speed along the process a little. I hope you like this chapter!

MC, Merry, and Pippin mounted their ponies. MC was still stuck riding with Merry's pony. Even though he wasn't displaying his extreme stalking tendencies, for the moment, MC didn't want to encourage any behaviour of that nature. She'd tried to pay Pippin to allow her to ride with him, or for Pippin to ride with Merry, but he was too entertained by her agony.

The trio set off in the direction of Rivendell, figuring that's probably where the others had went, since they knew the way there. About half an hour into the ride, MC wanted to strangle Merry. He would not shut up.

"Do you talk simply for the sake of talking, or do you actually think we care to know if this is the spot you decided to stalk me?" MC screamed, huffing at the end of the sentence. Merry stared at her, wide eyed.

"I thought you'd care. It was a milestone in our lives," Merry said, blinking.

"Do you think I really want to remember that?" MC shrieked.

"Yes," Merry answered, not realizing what exactly was going on.

"Men are impossible!" MC shoved Merry off the pony and galloped off into the woods. A couple of moments later they heard a horrible roar and MC galloped back out of the woods waving her arms wildly, screaming. Merry and Pippin cocked their heads in confusion, then heard another roar and saw trees moving and heard some crashing. They then saw one of the ringwraith's flying beasts fly up out of the trees (there was no wraith, of course). Merry jumped onto Pippin's pony as they took off in the other direction, MC was not far behind. The dragon screamed and flew after them. It swooped down and landed, then stared at its prey. MC's mount tripped and flipped over. MC landed face down, she got up and faced the creature.

"It's so cute!" she squealed. She walked up to the creature and pet it on the nose. She walked around and disappeared under the beast for a few moments, then emerged. Merry and Pippin were riding tentatively over to her. MC declared: "I'm naming her Aragorn!"

TC stalked out of the forest and into the clearing. Sam and Rhia stared at her.

"Where's Merry?" Rhia asked, thinking TC may have taken him into the woods and slaughtered him.

"What?" TC asked, grinning as though she didn't know what Rhia was talking about. TC's companions stared at her nervously, not sure what to expect. TC hopped onto Sammy. "Come on! We've got to get going!" TC and Sammy trotted off, amazingly in the right direction. Sam and Rhia quickly saddled and bridled their mounts, then got on and hurried to catch up to TC.

For the rest of the way through the woods, Sam and Rhia looked around nervously for any reason why TC may have acted the way she did. They expected to see the rooster in a noose hanging from a tree somewhere, but they didn't.

The trio exited the woods, and saw open land for miles. TC halted Sammy and sat there, not saying anything. Sam and Rhia looked around nervously.

Finally, Sam spoke. "TC, what is going on?"

"What do you mean?" TC asked.

"You've been acting very strange this morning. What did you do?"

"I took Merry for a walk," TC stated.

"But he didn't come back," Rhia pointed out.

"Way to go Captain Obvious."

"Nice. Why didn't he come back?"

"You'll see."

"So we're just going to chill out here until he returns?"

"Why not?" TC asked. A couple minutes later a horrible squawking was heard. A very familiar black mass of feathers flew down and landed on Sam.

"What the…Merry!" Sam smacked the chicken off his head. The rooster got back up and flew back at Sam. The hobbit drew his sword. Rhia and TC stared curiously, wondering how this would turn out. TC knew one of them would be eliminated, and she didn't like either, so it was a win-win situation for her.

As Merry flew at Sam, the hobbit thrust his sword, separating the chicken's head from his body.

"I can't believe you killed Merry!" TC screamed, dismounting Sammy and throwing a rock at Sam. Of course TC wasn't really mad, but she liked screwing with Sam. She didn't really care whether or not the chicken was dead (though his death was rather gruesome as his body was still running around while his head was on the ground creating a bloody river).

"You hated that chicken! I know you made him attack me! What did you want to happen?"

"The opposite of what did!" TC screeched. Sam screamed and dismounted Bill. He ran over and tackled TC. The two began wrestling furiously. Rhia watched in amusement. It was amazing how someone like Sam, who was normally such a nice guy, could become that mean so quickly. TC seemed to bring that out in people.

Sam punched TC in the face, giving her a bloody nose. She sneezed on him (quite intentionally), spraying him with blood. She pulled his hair, which didn't have the effect she'd hoped for, as he seemed unphased by the action. She kicked him in the groin, and that was that.

As Sam was rolling on the ground in pain, clutching himself, TC quickly mounted Sammy and ran off. Rhia had to get off her horse (which she'd named Ponder) and she put Sam back on Bill. They galloped to catch up with TC, Sam had to stand in the saddle to keep from passing out in pain.

"She will die one day, by my hand if no one does it first," Sam muttered, but Rhia could only hear a squeaking sound as he said it.

"You can't seriously be keeping that!" Pippin exclaimed, staring in disbelief at the dragon.

"Of course I am. We can't just leave her here on her own to fend for herself! The poor thing would never make it," MC told him. Pippin and Merry looked at her doubtfully. They were quite sure that…Aragorn could fend for herself. "Plus," MC continued, "I don't have to ride with Merry anymore."

Merry kicked his pony's hoof. "My pony's lame, I can't ride him."

"That's great, Merry. Why don't you lead him? You could use the exercise."

"What?"

"You're kind of letting yourself go, if you walk you can work off all those extra hobbit meals."

"Are you calling me fat?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry," Merry apologized, quite sincerely.

"That's amazing," MC said to Pippin. "Where I come from, if one person called another person fat, they'd have to apologize for insulting them, not the other way around!"

Pippin stared at Merry, trying to figure out why MC thought he was fat. It didn't occur to him that MC was being MC and simply messing with Merry's mind.

"He's not fat," Pippin finally pointed out.

"Merry can not ride Aragorn!" MC declared, as if that explained it. She forgot about the hobbits' stupidity.

"That's random," Pippin told her.

MC dropped her face into her hands. "Unbelievable," she muttered. "Let's just get to Rivendell, okay?"

"Fine, how far is it?" Pippin asked.

"I think a couple of days. We passed Weathertop a while ago. If we head into the woods—" MC stopped when she noticed Merry sitting on her beast, facing her. He was sitting right in front of the saddle. Merry had removed his cape and was using it as a polishing cloth to clean the saddle off with. He had chosen a very interesting (and for MC, inconvenient) area to polish. "MERRY! DISMOUNT ARAGORN!" MC yelled.

Merry looked forlorn as he slid off the dragon. He tried to look pitiful by giving MC the pathetic puppy dog eyes, but only succeeded in creeping her out.

"Anyways, as I was saying," MC said, "I think if we go through the woods we'll hit Bilbo's trolls. Let's chill there for the night."

The trio headed into the woods. MC lead the way on Aragorn, Pippin followed on his pony, and Merry brought up the rear leading his pony. Even though they were on the path, MC's dragon was a little big and bent trees as they went.