Chapter 7: Truly Insane

Aragorn's point of view*

Aragorn rocked himself back and forth on the ground, muttering to his left hand. In his right he clutched the coin pouch that housed the top half of Legolas's ear.

He frowned slightly, "What to do with the empty room, good sir?" He stared inquiringly at his Left hand and cocked his head to the side.

"Fill it with more pointy-ears? A just thing to do with the empty room, sir." Aragorn hummed happily to his hand. Then stuffed the coin pouch into his pocket and got up from rocking himself on the floor. He gazed around his room, looking at the hole where his sword had been stuck in the wall. He giggled as he remembered what he'd done. He'd smashed his sword for being so useless! He'd proved to it that he did not need it.

"No, no." Aragorn's giggles turned into a haunted laugh. "All we need is IT!" Aragorn looked at his hand and smiled. His eyes suddenly brightened.

"We have an idea! Yes we do, good sir, would you like to hear? Yes? Yes?" Aragorn looked at his left hand intently.

"Wise choice, Master It." He nodded in approval at his left hand. "We propose! Yes, yes, we propose! We propose that you, o wise Master It, would be better off freed from our wretched body. Much better off, we think. What say you good sir, what say you?" Aragorn paused and looked at his Left hand, then, looking quite exasperated, spun around dramatically.

"WHAT SAY YOU, GOOD SIR, O WISE MASTER IT, FAIREST OF ALL MASTERS!" Aragorn stopped spinning dramatically and flopped on his bed. He waited. And waited. And waited.

Then, after five more minutes of staring at his left hand, a slow smile spread across his face. Everything about his smile screamed danger and insanity.

"Free you we shall, Master It, yes, yes! It seems that the sword of uselessness has but one more use before it becomes fully useless." Aragorn jumped off his bed and pounced onto his broken sword like a spider and grabbed in with his right hand.

He held it up to the light of the room, causing the broken dagger-like blade to shine in the light.

"See here, see here, Master It! We will free you, we will! We are faithful in you and your majestic-ness!" He held his left hand aloft with his sword and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for a second, then opened his eyes again and lowered his arms. He set his left hand upon the ground and raised his broken sword.

Then Aragorn, in one swift motion, chopped off his left hand. For a second, he froze. Then he let out a blood curdling scream of pain that was mingled with joy.

"FREEEEEEEEEE!" He screeched, clutching his arm close to his chest and staring gleefully at his now-chopped-off left hand that was lying on the ground before him. "Free, free, free!" He smiled, not paying any mind to his left arm which was now hand-less and bleeding all over the place.

"We told you it would be better! Now you are free, Master It, and your true majesty has been revealed!" Aragorn reaches forward with his right hand and grabbed his chopped off hand and held it in the light. To him it looked as if the hand was glowing like the phial of Galadriel, but to anyone but him it would have just looked like a cleanly chopped off hand.

Aragorn stood up and stumbled over to his closet. He opened the door and threw the clothes across the floor, emptying the closet completely. He then set his hand in the middle of the floor on the closet, then rushed over to the vase on his bedside table. He grabbed the flowers from the vase, managing to knock the vase over onto the ground with the violence of his movements. The vase shattered and water spilled everywhere, but he didn't seem to care.

Aragorn went back over to the closet and arranged the flowers neatly around the hand, only leaving a tiny space in front of the hand. He then ran and grabbed the cup on his nightstand and set it in the clearing in front of the hand.

"An offering of loyalty, good sir." Aragorn said to the hand and held his hand-less arm over the cup until it was halfway filled with his blood. He then stood up and shut the closet door before passing out on the floor.

Pippin's point of view*

Pippin froze as he heard a scream.

"FREEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Pippin cocked his head to the side at the noise. He looked at Merry, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Free mushrooms?" He asked hopefully, although he doubted that was what the person was screaming was free. But, it could have been. The pain-filled, but also joy-filled, scream could have been pain-filled because it must be painful to part with your mushrooms and get nothing from it, and it could have been joy-filled because the person knew how much the people who got the mushrooms for free would love them. Pippin nodded to himself.

"Of course it's free mushrooms!" He exclaimed before Merry could say anything. "Come on let's find the free mushrooms before someone else takes them!" Pippin jumped up out of his seat and grabbed Merry by the arm, dragging him along.

Pippin went the direction that he had heard the scream come from, ignoring all the shocked looks from the elves. They just probably astonished as to why the person was giving away their mushrooms, of course. Pippin paused. Or there were shocked that someone would feel so much pain over giving away mushrooms. Pippin nodded to himself again and kept on walking. Of course, elves didn't know how painful it is to give mushrooms away for free and not eat them, that must be why they were shocked. They'd never understand the value of mushrooms.

A triumphant smile slowly spread across Pippin's face as he finishes his -to him at least- very obvious reason to explain why the astonished and shocked elves were, well, astonished and shocked.

With joy, that Merry was confused at, but soon absorbed, Pippin skipped up to the door where the noise had come from where there were mushrooms. Well, or so Pippin thought.

He knocked lightly on the door, putting on his sweetest smile and trying to remember the perfect way to do puppy-dog eyes to ensure he got the mushrooms.

"Excuse me, may we have some free mushrooms?" Pippin asked when no one answered, ignoring the strange looks he got from passing elves. Merry stood by his side, glaring at the elves with a look that all hobbits - Not elves - knew meant 'lay off of our mushrooms or we will kill you'. Of course, since only hobbits would ever understand this look, the elves were quite confused and slightly concerned when they saw Merry's odd glare that had a deadly flame of anger that to them looked as if it meant 'mind your own business' but with a extremely hard edge to it.

Pippin stomped his foot impatiently after waiting for a few minutes.

He made a huffing noise, "I guess whoever was giving mushrooms for free decided against it..." Pippin frowned, feeling deeply saddened by the fact he couldn't get free mushrooms, but at the same time, he had another thought.

Pippin looked at Merry, looking quite angry, "Or..."

"Someone got them before us!" Merry screamed, absolutely livid. Pippin nodded in agreement! Of course! One of the elves must have taken the mushrooms!

Pippin barely noticed the elves in the hallway near him and Merry backing away slowly and casting concerned glances in their direction.

"We shall not stop until we find and claim these free mushrooms that have been so horribly stolen from us! We will search through all of Rivendell and if we don't find them here we will keep searching!" Pippin bounced up and down, red rimming his vision, a new crazy idea popping into his head.

Pippin grabbed Merry and pulled him closer so he could whisper in his ear and started whispering furiously.

Frodo's point of view*

Frodo sat on his bed staring at the ceiling. Sam's bed was across the room from him, but it was unoccupied at the moment. Sam was currently organizing his cooking supplies on the floor and making sure he hadn't misplaced anything. Frodo tapped his fingers on the bed. It was so boring sitting inside and doing nothing while the birds sang and the sun was still shining brightly in the sky.

But he couldn't risk infecting anyone. Frodo would feel terrible if he did. Plus, the way Legolas was acting had really concerned him, as well as confused him. He had decided that the elf was probably just worried about getting sick, but the more he thought about it, the more he questioned it. Frodo sighed and rubbed his temples. All his thinking was making his headache worse.

He glanced at the sun again. A sudden longing for adventure awoke in him. He wished he could feel the thrill of adventure again, although he might regret wishing for it, like he did when he was starting his quest to destroy the One Ring.

Frodo sighed, "If only Legolas was here to tell us a story." Only after he'd said it did he realize he'd said it out loud. He didn't really care, Legolas's tales were usually very good and worth listening too.

"I could go for a tale too, Mr. Frodo, but I'm pretty sure we shouldn't go around, being all... well, sick." Sam said, looking up for a moment from fiddling with a pot that's handle had fallen off. Frodo remembered how Sam's old pots had never seemed to break, but the new ones just weren't as sturdy or unbreakable. He still felt bad that Sam had had to cast aside his pots after carrying them so far into Mordor.

"I sure hope Merry and Pippin have not forgotten to shut themselves in their room." Frodo suddenly stated out loud, remembering that Merry and Pippin had been looking for - or eating - mushrooms for a long time. Longer than he'd expected.

"I'm sure they'll remember, Mr. Frodo. We'll know when they do." Sam was still fiddling with the broken pot handle, trying to get it back on the pot. "Sorta like when we were goin' to destroy the ring and we parted ways with the others. They forgot about us for awhile, I'm sure, but they did remember us eventually and sent the eagles to get us out of Mordor." Sam then paused and muttered to himself; "Or it could end up like my stew that I cooked. Completely and utterly forgotten." Frodo knew he wasn't really meant to have heard that, but he couldn't help smiling. Only Sam would be comparing remembrance to stew.

Then he sighed, thinking about the ring. He was happy it was destroyed, yes, he was very happy. It meant that Sauron couldn't take over Middle-Earth. But deep down, he still felt a longing for the ring, and sadness and anger at the destroying of it.

Out of nowhere, Frodo felt a burst of anger to all who destroyed the ring. A cold, quiet, and crazed voice in the back of his mind spoke to him.

'If you'd had the ring, Hobbits would be looked down upon no longer!' It whispered, it's crazed whisper echoing through Frodo's head.

'That's not true! Sauron would have over thrown me!' Frodo pushed back against the voice.

'Oh, but Frodo, it is. You could be immortal, as of elf-kind, and your friends too! You'd be able to prove to all of Middle-Earth that Hobbits are not weak, but kind, caring, resourceful, and when they wish to be dangerous and brave.' Now, Frodo paused at that. All the other times he'd encountered the voice it hadn't sounded so loud, or enticing. He nearly gave in.

'But what about Sam and Gandalf?' He had no idea why he didn't mention any other member of the fellowship, but his thoughts had turned atomically to Sam and Gandalf.

'Ah yes, Sam shall be your most faithful servant and friend and Gandalf shall be your messenger and the one whom you seek for counsel.' Frodo paused before accepting the offer of the voice in his mind. He had one more question.

'And what of the ring?'

The voice gave a haunted laugh, 'All who destroyed it shall die... and Gandalf and Sam shall assist you.' Frodo gave in to the voice, allowing something inside him to snap. He felt the anger overwhelm him. The voice spoke clear and cold in his mind, stronger than ever before, but still it sounded crazed.

'Shall you kill those who have wronged the ring and complete your task?' Asked the voice.

Frodo smiled. 'I shall.'