A/N: First of all, I'm sorry I missed ShaedowCat's birthday! I didn't check my e-mail until I had missed it by a long shot, but happy belated birthday, okay? Everyone, say happy belated birthday to ShaedowCat, who read my Smallville fic and gave me an awesome review. I love you, ShaedowCat! Also, much love everyone one else who reviewed—I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes the head-dunking Ent that much. Yay, we can all love him together! (pauses to think about the inherent wrongness of that exclamation) School has been hell on me, but I promise I'll try to update once every two weeks. I'd like to update weekly, but I'm trying to keep my goals realistic.

Disclaimers: If I owned the LotR universe, I wouldn't be writing this fic—I'd be too busy playing with the Ents all day.

Chapter 21: Faramir Decieved Us . . .

Finally, after an exhausting day of telepathy, I returned my mind back to my own body. Ah, it sure feels good to be home… Except not. Because home was currently somewhere in the vicinity of the dreary Gondorian moors outside of Osgiliath.

And if the moors weren't depressing enough, one only had to look at the city of Osgiliath itself to be plunged headlong into a depthless pit of permanent despair. Even under the best of circumstances, the city would've been kind of drab—it was built almost entirely out of imposing grey stone and had a very sombre look. But under the present circumstances? It was enough to make anyone within a ten mile radius run for some razors and slash their wrists.

The city was under siege.

"Look! Osgiliath burns! Mordor has come!" one of Faramir's Merry Men, who apparently had Legolas's gift of pointing out the obvious, pointed out.

Faramir's face looked almost as grim as the city itself. He assessed the situation. It was pretty much hopeless: there was no way his little ragtag group of men was going to be of any help to the city. The best they could do was probably get in an Orc's way and delay his slaying of the innocent for a few seconds.

"Fear not, my brave men," he started in on his pep talk. "The Ring shall save us."

Wait, wait, wait…what? How the hell do you think I'm gonna save you?

"The Ring does not possess the power to save you," Frodo pointed out to Faramir.

Faramir ignored him and signalled his men to get ready to charge into Osgiliath. "This is a time when we have no choice but to fight fire with fire. We shall use Sauron's own Ring of power to defeat him, and liberate Gondor from his oppressive Evil!"

Oh my god oh my god, Faramir, you canNOT be serious. You're dragging us horribly outnumbered and unprepared into a battle we're certain to lose, because you're counting on me to save you?

Frodo and Sam were looking ashen with fear. "Oh great, we're all screwed now," Sam muttered. Faramir caught up Frodo and seated him on his saddle securely, in front of him, so he couldn't run away. A Merry Man picked up Sam and did the same to him.

The signal was given to ride into the city.

Fuck, I exclaimed, as the horse began to gallop towards our certain death. Do something, Frodo!

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked, eyes as big as dinner plates.

I don't know, tell him I don't have any powers, I screamed. The city was getting closer and closer.

Frodo tried to get Faramir's attention, but he didn't even acknowledge him. "Oh, shite, we're gonna diiiiiiieeeeeeeee!" Frodo squealed like a scared little girl.

Dammit, Faramir, I THOUGHT YOU WERE SMART!

We rode into the city, under a rain of arrows and fire.

Faramir's men immediately split up, because apparently their battle plan was to make it easier for the enemy to pick them off one by one. Who knows why—Faramir was obviously insane, and who knows why insane people do anything?

The Orcs definitely had the upper hand. Osgiliath was getting the shit, crap, stuffing, and living daylights beat out of it. Most of the city lay in little smouldering heaps, and anyone who was still alive was trying to hide behind and/or under said heaps.

And what the hell are those? Are those dragons? We're being attacked from the air now? Hey, what are those on the dragons? Oh my god, are those the Ringwraiths?

Hey guys! I thought you were all dead!

"Alfonso? Is that you?" Larry the Ringwraith asked. "It is you! What are you doing here? What'd you do, switch sides? Are you on the other team now?"

Well, it's complicated, but you know, I rethought the whole deal and decided I had to do what felt right. These guys treat me way nicer that Sauron ever treated me, and I never liked Saruman, anyway. So, yeah, I guess I did switch sides.

Larry and the other Ringwraiths were very much taken aback. "Well," Larry said rather stiffly, "I guess we're enemies now. And since we're enemies, nothing prevents me from doing this!"

He steered his dragon into a sudden swoop, diving straight down toward Frodo and me. He made a menacing grab at us, but before he could lay a hand on us, Sam (bless his creepy stalker heart) appeared from the shadows and tackled Frodo out of the way.

Larry's dragon dove right past, lost control and had to pull back up quickly. It circled in the air a few times before flying off. Meanwhile, Sam, Frodo, and I tumbled to the ground and rolled several times before coming to a stop.

"Mr. Frodo!" Sam cried breathlessly from his position atop Frodo.

Frodo lay on the ground looking up at Sam with just a little teeny tiny bit of apprehension. "Um, Sam? Thank you. Uh. Thank you. You can get off of me now."

Sam scrambled up and blushed.

Faramir rushed over to make sure everyone was okay.

Leave us alone, you psycho. I thought you were on my side. I thought you were the only smart person I'd encountered in the past few months. I thought we could be friends.

"Ring. Al. Please, hear me out. I know that you do not possess any powers, but I had to tell the men something. Their knees were knocking with fear! I had to boost their spirits, or they would never have found the courage to come to Osgiliath's defence."

Oh. Well, okay. So that was just a fib, about the whole using me for power thing.

"Yes."

You should know I'm kind of touchy about the whole using me for power thing. You shouldn't tell lies about it, even if they're white lies. The only reason I'm even involved in this mess is because a bunch of well-intentioned people told some white lies.

"And for that, I am truly sorry."

Fine. Apology accepted. You really had me going there, though. I thought you had gone crazy like your brother and really convinced yourself that I actually possess Sauron's power.

"I shall never bring it up again, if you never insult my brother again."

Never insult Boromir again? Okay, fine. Deal. As much as it pains me, I shall never speak ill of Boromir again, if you promise to never, ever, EVER even imply that I have any sort of evil powers.

Faramir quickly agreed.

You're still a psycho, though. You dragged your men into this knowing full well that I didn't have any powers? So you knew that you had nothing to back you up, no safety net, no anything? And you still dove into this fracas? What are you, on drugs?

"Gondor is my country," he said fiercely, "and no amount of danger could keep me from defending her."

Yeah, I can see why your crew might not necessarily share that attitude, and would therefore require a fair amount of fibbing to motivate them. You're crazy.

Faramir shrugged and rode off to kill some more Orcs.

Just what was it with scruffy human males and their need for brutality? Were they all overcompensating for something?

Frodo snorted at my comment. "If we want to live through this, we must lay low and find a place to hide."

Sam lit up at the thought of huddling in a lone, dark corner all pressed up against Frodo.

This really, really sucks, I said, as we hid behind a half-crumbled wall. To emphasize my point, a dead soldier fell and nearly crushed us.

In fact, I think this is almost as bad as the rocks of Mordor.

"At least Gollum isn't here," Frodo pointed out.

Eww, Gollum. Please, don't mention his name again. I was just starting to forget about him. Where did Faramir stash him, anyway?

"I thought you said you didn't want to talk about him," Frodo pointed out.

I don't, but I'm using this conversation to distract myself from the fact that we're probably going to die in the next few minutes. Sitting around like ducks waiting to be shot is killing my nerves. I didn't think it was possible, but this city might actually be worse off than Helm's Deep.

"Then why don't you go back to Helm's Deep? Go, and rid us of your running commentary. You're beginning to give me a headache." Frodo said with a tired sigh. He leaned against the disintegrating wall and sulked.

Fine, maybe I'll do just that.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TBC