AU- The Fellowship is introduced to some of the most reprehensible beasts in Middle Earth short of Mary Sues: Wargs that even the orcs can't stand. Can't we all just get along? The enemy of my enemy... (Later chapters contain swearing and brief sensuality)
Author's Notes: Same two characters as last time. We'll get to the whole reason this is in the Boromir pull-down subcategory shortly enough, I promise. Also, look closely for a Nanny Ogg reference for all the Discworld fans out there.
There is nothing in the piece worth claiming. Tolkien owns Middle Earth, Terry P. owns the song about the stoic animal, and Jak is owned by fear.
The next fortnight passed much in the same way as the end of that day. The alpha female stayed with Tasana and the alpha male most of the time; roving for short excursions from whence she never failed to return with some small game animal that filled up the bellies of both healer and healing patient, despite the mediocre size of such kills. The other wolves began to visit more frequently: at first in ones and twos, then as Tasana began to recognize individuals and their alpha started to recover enough strength to stay awake longer and eat more, the whole pack seemed to appear at once. There were a good twenty Wargs all told: some pure white, others silver like their seeress, still others grizzled brown, but most were dark jet like the wounded male. They slowly welcomed Tasana into their midst, grudgingly accepting her right to the pack's respect. Though the young healer breached their etiquette several times, her camaraderie with their lady seer seemed to smooth over the woods-woman's difficulties enough that she avoided any serious consequences with the pack, at least; although she would have a long way yet to go before she earned the friendship of some of the more aloof pack members, including the young beta who had been the first to growl at her.
She was nowhere close to speaking the Warg tongue yet, but many of their expressions easily translated interspecies bounds. By the end of her time with the wolves, Tasana had learned that love and loyalty, tireless as the Wargs' run on a hunt, were shown to all the members of this pack. On the fifteenth day after she had foolishly run in the wrong direction during a battle, Tasana took the bandages off the wounds to find little more than a scar across the Warg's side. He got up to his feet, greeted his mate, and sounded a hunting howl. The rest of the pack picked it up, and with but a single glance in the healer's direction given by the she wolf; ran on light padded paws to the south. As the howls disappeared into the distance, Tasana heard a familiar voice calling from the north. "Tasi! Tasana Rivermerchant!"
"Stop your twittering, Jakinson, unless you want every orc, dragon, and wolf within twenty leagues to hear you," Tasana said, calculating her emergence from the trees for the most surprise. Her father's apprentice looked very shocked indeed as she vaulted onto the back of his horse wearing his old threadbare breeches.
"That's –that's the third time you've run away from home, Tasana. Your father won't be pleased if he sees you like this." Jak's face was turning white, but Tasana was willing to bet her dowry twice over that her father's possible wrath was much more of a cause of this young bean counter's blanched complexion than all the combined forces of the Blasted Lands of the east. Jak pretended to be unafraid of the old myths, but his master's occasional bouts of fiery temper were legendary enough. While Tamithor Rivermerchant's hair had grayed from its original flaming red, his emotions and old-fashioned values showed few signs of fading, and his uptight, effeminate apprentice was developing an even stricter sense of propriety under his tutelage.
"Then we'll stop by my cache. I have an old dress about there someplace. But first, I have a gift from a friend here I need to pick up." The scimitar lie in the center of the clearing, not far from where Tasana had pulled it loose from the lordly Warg's wound. The light streaming down through the forest canopy reflected peculiarly in her leaf green eyes as she picked up the poisoned orc blade and sealed her fate. She had become the queen of those who shall have no royalty in that instant: a lady among those who do not tolerate nobility. The Queen of Wargs was born, though she would not recognize her power for years yet to come. As if in a dream, Tasana raised the sword above her head. "I know this, the wolves, and this land. On these I swear, with the South Woods as my witness, I shall not be sold into marriage. No matter my father's wish or another man's will; this choice shall be my own." Her voice rose in power, and the sunlight glinting off the curved blade somehow made her look more like a warrior princess in exile than a runaway daughter of a merchant attempting to escape her upcoming marriage.
The only witness of this transformation was blind to its effect. Jak only shook his head and rode with her to the tree cache, insisting that he should be the one to climb up and get the dress, and then made her change behind a clump of bushes. She rode home sidesaddle; slightly afraid she would fall off the hypersensitive beast of burden that reminded her vaguely of Jakinson Biles.
0-0-0
Although not usually given to strong drink, Frodo had made a tradition of going out with his friends every year upon this night, as a requiem for his missing father figure. At first it had been only him and Sam, taking a couple barstools at the local pub, swapping stories and drinking themselves into oblivion. Then Merry and Pippin had come of age, and those two were never ones to miss the opportunity to party. Frodo's younger cousins lent the tradition a happier air, and soon other friends and relations began to join in. Fatty Bolger had become a semi-regular, and young Tom Cotton could be counted on to stop by their table for at least a few minutes every celebration. The latter's sister Rosie, who helped run the pub, had offered Frodo and Sam free drinks for the evening, given how much income the party earned the Green Dragon Inn, but Sam had declined her offer with a reddened face. Despite his insistence that "drinkin' on the house just ain't right" and muttered comments on "fair's fair, my Gaffer always says," this nobility earned him several teasing comments from the younger members of the party.
"Sam, why don't you just go ahead and ask her to marry you?" a rather inebriated Pippin slapped his friend's shoulder and pointed in the general direction of a place where Rosie Cotton may have once passed. "Everyone knows you're sweet on her."
"I- I couldn't. I just can't." Sam stuttered and hid his round, beet-red face by slumping behind his mug of ale.
"At least ask her to a dance, Sam. The Yule festivals will be quickly upon us." Fatty said in a more serious tone of voice.
"The worst that can happen is that you'll have those two scamps who have the temerity to call themselves my cousins laughing at you, and Merriadoc and Peregrin will do that anyhow," Frodo added with a roll of his eyes at the two in question, who had started signing a rather bawdy song about hedgehogs while dancing on a tabletop. Sam did not grace his friends' suggestions with a verbal reply, but shook his head wildly before hunching further into his drink. Nevertheless, Frodo's closest friend continued to stare wistfully after the rosy-cheeked barmaid until past closing time.
Gandalf was waiting for Frodo when the younger man returned home, appearing wild-eyed from the shadowed corners of the dimly lit house. "Is it secret?" he asked desperately. "Is it safe?" For a moment, Frodo stared at him, unsure of what he spoke. The haze of alcohol and good company had slowed his thoughts. "Your heirloom, Frodo, where is it?" The wizard grabbed his shoulders, barely restraining himself from shaking some sense into his smaller associate.
"Oh, that? Of course, Gandalf," Frodo assured him, removing the envelope from a trunk that contained Frodo's main keepsake from the missing Bilbo, who had not returned to the Shire since his uncanny disappearance at the party nearly a decade ago. He handed it to the old wizard, whom to Frodo's complete surprise threw it in the fireplace. Frodo was even more at a loss when he saw the burning letters appear on the plain gold band as the old man dropped it back into his small, rounded palm. It was cooler to the touch than it should be.
"As I thought," the gray bearded wizard whispered. "You're in grave danger, Frodo. The Shire is no longer safe as long as we have this. Nothing is safe anymore. You must leave." He started at a noise from outside the window. "You'd best pack all you need. We must head to Rivendell. The Elves may yet be able to protect this. I will ride ahead and meet you at the inn in Bree. If you cannot find me, don't dither there; your pursuers will track down you down all too quickly otherwise. Just get this to Rivendell," Gandalf pressed the cool metal deeper into the hobbit's hand before he could protest. A reminiscent smile flickered briefly across the old wizard's hawk-like features. "As I recall, you always wanted an adventure as a boy. Your adventure starts on the morrow, Frodo Baggins."
A funny thing about adventures: as a child listening to Uncle Bilbo's stories, Frodo had always wanted to go on one with his uncle and closest friends at his side, with Gandalf leading the way. But now that it was actually happening, Frodo wasn't so sure he was ready to leave home and go on an adventure anymore.