"Where are they?" Frodo asked, frightened.

Strider strode over to the window and peered outside. He could see four ring wraiths riding black horses in the street below, turning in many different directions.

"'Et down!" Strider hissed to the hobbits, muffled by his apple. Merry and Pippin dropped to the ground as if a bomb had gone off and Frodo pulled the still unconscious Sam off his bed and to the floor with him. Strider looked back out the window. He watched as the four black riders turned and galloped the other way, screeching angrily. Then, the one in front of the others tripped and fell. The ones behind it tripped over it and all four of them were disentangled with each other on the ground. Then they all managed to get back on their mounts and ride away.

Strider drew the curtains over the window and sat on the floor with the hobbits. Frodo was eying Pippin rather strangely.

"You look hot, Pippin!" Frodo exclaimed.

"Er…you do remember we're cousins, right?" Pippin said nervously, looking embarrassed.

"No, I mean temperature-wise."

Pippin looked utterly relieved and mopped his sweaty face. Strider looked relieved as well. He gave a sigh, then took another bite of apple. Immediately following this, there was a twist of the doorknob: Someone was trying to come in!

Strider stood up quietly and motioned for the hobbits to remain silent. They each scurried under a bed (Sam had just regained consciousness). Then they heard voices.

"Damn! It's locked!" a voice spat.

"Try knocking, you fool!" hissed a second voice.

There were three knocks on the door. Strider did not know what to do. He needed to make sure he kept the hobbits alive, but a sword wasn't going to drive the Nazgul away; he could easily tell it was them. As he began to think frantically, the butterfly on his nose opened its mouth and spoke in a high-pitched, womanly voice.

"Who is it?"

"Uh…" the first ring wraith said, "I-um-work at the inn here. Yeah. I just needed to go over something in your bill…"

"Oh! Okay! Well, I'm naked right now, but go ahead, please come in!" the butterfly answered, still in that squeaky female voice. Strider tiptoed to the door and pressed his ear against it.

"Maybe we should leave," the second voice mumbled. "We can find them another time. Number seven probably got the wrong place again anyway; this was supposed to be the room they're staying in if they were indeed staying in this pub, but it doesn't look as if they are."

"Yeah, let's go," the first voice agreed. "I'm gonna KILL number seven!"

"You can't," the second voice sighed sadly. "He's already dead, just like the rest of us."

Strider heard the sound of beings walking down the stairs. He then walked over to his bed, and sat on it, covering his face in his hands.

There was another knock on their door.

"Housekeeping!" called a cheery, deep woman's voice. "Can I get you some fresh towels?"

Strider took his apple and whipped it at the door; it hit dead center with a loud thump and there were hurried footsteps down the stairs. The hobbits crawled out from under their beds.

"What the hell?" Merry said, frowning at the butterfly. It fluttered into the air and looked at them all. "It talked…"

"What?" the butterfly asked cooly, now speaking in a male voice. "Trolls can even talk and they're stupid, but butterflies can't talk? What's so strange about that?"

"You saved our lives, little guy," Strider said kindly.

"Little!" the butterfly snapped. "You think I'm little!"

"Um-well, yeah…" Frodo said. The butterfly snorted.

"Well, thanks, anyway," Strider said quickly. "What's your name?"

"Bill," the butterfly answered matter-of-factly.

So Bill remained with Strider and the hobbits over night. The hobbits quickly fell asleep and Strider leaned against a wall, bored. To keep himself amused, he decided to juggle three bowling pins he just happened to have with him. This kept him amused for some time, until he threw one of them too high and it fell on the top of his head.

He also couldn't help noticing that, in the dark, Merry seemed to try to sneak over to where Sam was sleeping, but Strider would notice and chuck one of his bowling pins at him.

At dawn, Strider woke the hobbits and they left their room to eat at the bar. Butterbur was now sober to their delight. He cooked them breakfast on no charge.

"Hey, Butterbur," Strider said curiously, "Did you happen to see any strange figure dressed in quantities of black last night?"

"Oh, yeah!" Butterbur said cheerfully. "Yeah, there were four of them. They bought a lot of drinks and left a little tipsy. Two more came just after they left. They said they wanted to take a look upstairs so I let them! Then they came back down looking a little pissed. I don't know why…"

"I see," Strider frowned. "Thanks, Butterbur." He turned to the hobbits and muttered, "That's probably why the four I saw in the street tripped over each other: they were too drunk."

After a large breakfast, Strider led the others from the inn and out of Bree. They received many strange looks from people that were doing work outside. It might have been because Strider had a butterfly on his nose and he kept stopping to straighten Frodo's bow tie.

Once out of Bree, Strider hurried ahead a little as they traveled through woods. He seemed to be checking to see if anyone was ahead of them.

While out of earshot, Merry said quietly and mistrustfully, "How do we know that this Strider is a friend of Gandalf's?"

"We have no choice but to trust him," Frodo said.

"But where's he leading us?" Sam asked desperately.

"Into the wild," Strider called over his shoulder.

"He's got good ears," Pippin mumbled admittedly. Merry shrugged grudgingly.

They walked on more of the way and through a bug infested area. Strider merely walked through the clouds of insects as though he did this every day, but the hobbits slapped annoyingly at various parts of their bodies where bugs kept biting and landing on them.

"Ignore them!" Strider snapped as Pippin stopped to choke on a fly that had zoomed into his mouth. "They're just bugs!"

"Oh, I HATE buggies!" Frodo whined, stomping his foot. Strider rolled his eyes, turned around, and continued walking.

A few hours later, once they were out of the buggy areas, Strider realized that all of the hobbits had stopped walking and were crouched by the ground.

"Gentlemen! We do not stop till nightfall!" he said reprovingly.

"What about breakfast?" Pippin asked, standing up.

"We've already had it."

"We've had one, yes. What about second breakfast?"

Strider rolled his eyes again and heaved a sigh of exasperation, walking away.

"I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip," Merry said gently as he and the other hobbits stood up.

"What about elevensies? Luncheons? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper! He knows about them, doesn't he?"

"I doubt it," Merry said, clapping Pippin on the shoulder. "The guy looks strong, but I get the feeling he doesn't get his strength from food. He doesn't seem to need to eat much…"

Merry took a step forward when an apple flew at him from somewhere up ahead. He caught it, handed it to Pippin, patted him on the shoulder, and continued walking. Another apple flew directly at Pippin. It bounced off his head and he caught it, surprised, when Merry called his name reprovingly from ahead. Frodo and Sam had already passed Pippin, who jogged a little to catch up with everyone.

Pippin took a bite of one of his apples, hungry, and as he chewed, something pointy started jabbing him in the back of his head.

"Ouch!" he said, turning around. A strange, black bird was hovering by him. It had plainly just been pecking at him. "Get away!" Pippin said, aggravated, flapping a hand at the bird. It squawked and was suddenly joined by a whole flock of the same odd birds. They were all flying swiftly at him like arrows and Pippin ran away, passed Strider even.

"Pippin?" Frodo said questioningly. Strider looked behind them and scooped up Frodo and Sam, one in each arm, and began sprinting after Pippin.

"Crebain! We must hide!" he yelled.

They ran and ran until they arrived at Weathertop, where they found a cave. Pippin ran in first, then Strider put Frodo and Sam down and they scurried in, then Strider pulled Merry inside and ran after him.

They had put a good amount of distance between themselves and the Crebain. A few moments later, as they sat quietly in the cave, catching their breath and clutching stitches in their sides, they could hear the Crebain fly passed Weathertop, and out of range. They were all completely silent for a while, until Strider spoke.

"Pippin, did you eat one of those apples by any chance…?"