Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings.

A/N: All right, so no reviewer response things. Oh, well. Solution: longer Author's Notes. By the way, half of this is totally random because I wrote it on a car trip to see my grandparents. Two days, about fourteen to sixteen hours, with a four-year-old brother. You start to go a little crazy . . .

Chapter Twenty-One
Oops and Blackie

Merry, Pippin, Boromir, and Faramir followed Gollum all the way to the stairs leading to Cirith Ungol. "Come, Hobbitsesss," Gollum beckoned. "Come quickly. Candy hoard right up thiss way, yessss, Precioussss. All sortssss of chocolate and ssssugar and huge ssspiders, yesss, my Precioussss."

"What?" Boromir exclaimed. "Giant spiders! No way we're going in there!"

"Oopsssss," Gollum hissed, and scampered up the stairs, hissing and cursing all the way.

"'Oops'?" Boromir asked. "What kind of a word is 'oops'? Is that Elvish?"

"I don't think so," Faramir said, shaking his head. "Elvish sounds more . . . beautiful, more flowing, than that."

"Well, that creature makes the Common Tongue sound terrible," Boromir shrugged.

But Faramir wasn't done. "It certainly wasn't Dwarvish, either. They never use vowels quite like that."

"Faramir."

"It's not Entish; it's not long enough. And it's not Mordorian, either. And it's not--"

"Faramir!"

Faramir looked startled. "What?"

"'What'? That creature tells us there's a giant spider up there, and all you can say is 'what'?"

Faramir thought for a moment. "So let's go anyway."

"What?" Merry asked.

"You heard me. The four of us can certainly take on one spider. Let's go."

Pippin looked up at him nervously. "I don't know. I'm afraid of huge spiders."

"Oh, come on!" Boromir exclaimed. "We've come this far, and you're going to let one spider stop you? Why, didn't you ever listen to Bilbo? He took on a whole army of spiders, and he was just one Hobbit. We're two Hobbits and two men! What is one spider? Why, 'tis but a drop in the ocean of dangers, one leaf in the forest of adversity, one step along the path of trials, one stripe on the banner of terror, one tooth in the mouth of fear, one bar on the cage of peril, one--"

"Boromir, you're scaring them!" Faramir pointed to the two Hobbits clinging to his legs. "Try something a little more . . . uplifting. Go back to Bilbo or something."

"Sorry," Boromir apologized, then resumed his earlier tone. "A spider is but one leg of the journey towards a much larger goal, a goal that we have sworn to accomplish, by any means. And if those means be up a path with a huge spider in it, I say 'Bring it on!' Let that spider just try to stop us! For we are determined! We are strong in our courage and our will to accomplish the task before us! We are a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts! We are . . . we are . . ."

"Hungry," Pippin interjected.

"What?"

"We are hungry. Gollum said there was a candy hoard up there. Maybe if we get past the spider . . ."

"Exactly!" Boromir grinned. "That's the spirit, Peregrin Took! Well done! We shall go forth! We shall brave the danger! We shall face the evil spider! And we shall triumph! For freedom! For Middle-Earth! And for candy!"

"Yay!" they all shouted. "Hurray! For candy!"

Just then, a Nazgul flew out of Minas Morgul and stopped right in front of them. "Who are you?" it hissed.

Pippin opened his mouth to speak, but Boromir clamped a hand over it. "Quiet! Its vision is based on movement."

"Then why does it matter if I talk?" Pippin mumbled as Boromir released him.

Faramir looked over at his brother without moving his head. "Are you sure?"

"Oh, yes," Boromir responded, not moving his lips. "Very sure. Completely positive."

"All right," Faramir agreed, and he ran.

Faramir ran straight away from the stairs, and the Nazgul followed him. "Go!" Faramir shouted to the others.

"Faramir!" Pippin called.

"Get back here!" Merry shouted.

Boromir didn't say anything. He grabbed the two Hobbits and shoved them towards the stairs. "Go! Go!"

The Hobbits didn't argue. They ran as fast as they could toward the passage at the top of the stairs.

Faramir ran. And ran. And ran. The Nazgul and its beast were right behind him. Suddenly, he jumped. When he landed, it was right on the creature's neck. The animal reared up and flew high into the sky, but did not throw him.

Faramir at first simply held on for dear life. But then he had an idea. He began to tickle the creature along its scaly neck. The beast flung itself back and forth, but Faramir held on.

The Nazgul, however, was not so lucky. After century after century of being neither living nor dead, its sense of balance wasn't what it used to be. It fell quickly to the ground below.

Faramir thought quickly. He knew he didn't have a lot of time. The fall would not kill the Nazgul. The other Black Riders would soon know what had happened, and come after him. He had to get back to the others . . .

Slowly, he inched his way backwards along the creature's neck. Grabbing the reins at last, he steered back to the passage of Cirith Ungol.

"Look!" Pippin shouted, pointing to the black shape that was approaching. They had stopped to rest at the mouth of the passage.

"It's Faramir!" Boromir shouted. "Faramir! Over here! Faramir!"

Grinning, Faramir steered the creature over to his brother. "How do you like my new horse?" He jumped off onto the ledge. "I call him Blackie."

"Blackie," Boromir repeated. "Faramir, you have got to be kidding."

Faramir shook his head. "Not at all. He's really quite smart. Watch this." He turned to the creature. "Blackie, I want you to go and tell Gandalf the Vanilla-Cream that we are all right. Tell him that we are taking the pass of Cirith Ungol, and that he doesn't have to worry; we know about the spider. Now go, quickly!"

Blackie flew off. "Wow," Boromir admitted. "Neat."

Pippin grinned. "You know, if he'd stayed, we could have ridden him into Mordor and not needed to bother with the spider at all."

Faramir processed what the Hobbit had said, then started kicking the stone wall. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

"Hey, it's al right," Merry coaxed. "You said it yourself. we can take on a spider."

"Yes, but I -- ow -- forgot we -- ow -- don't have -- ow -- our -- weapons!"

Boromir looked at the Hobbits. "Ummm . . . oops."

Just then, there was a rumbling noise. Stones were falling from above the passages, upset by Faramir's kicking. "Hurry! Inside!" Boromir shouted.

The four of them rushed into the pass of Cirith Ungol. The boulders collapsed in front of the entrance, making a terrible noise.

"Well," Boromir sighed. "That's that. Now we have no other choice. We cannot go back. We must face the spider."

"With what?" Pippin asked. "We don't have any weapons."

Boromir stared long and hard at the Hobbit. "Oh, I think we do."

Muahahaha. Now Boromir has an idea. Okay, so it wasn't totally random. Some of it came from Jurassic Park. But either you already figured that out, or my telling you probably won't do any good. :) Oh, well. Happy New Year, y'all.