Middle-Earth, Mordor: T.A. 3019, March 14th

The ring was not, as many believed, a being in of itself. It was now and would remain until the day of its destruction, just a small part of its creator's soul. It would never have thoughts or fears of its own, at least not as a mortal would understand them. It felt what its master felt, it craved what he craved, and it only understood what he understood. Right now, the one ring was caught somewhere between those two emotions.

It partly understood what it had witnessed, in as it would be thoroughly difficult not to know when a beast such as Shelob was dead. Yet it still didn't quite know how the Halfling that now carried it, had accomplished the feat. It would be one thing if the fat little creature, with the jagged lines down its face had carried that nasty elven vial, like the bearer had, but no, that thing had been smashed by the great spider herself.

So, then there was no logical source for the light that the ring could see – well as far as rings could see anything. It had simply poured forth from the hobbit like he himself was some kind of elven-phial. It did not make sense to the ring and that was as close to fear as it could ever come. Yet as much as it feared this strange light the ring longed somehow to see it again, no not see it, the ring longed to possess it, as its creator had once longed to possess it.

Yet now, the ring thought with an emotion some might have called glee, it was far closer to that glorious light than its maker had ever been. Always held back, always kept away, Sauron was never allowed to touch them…those wonderful gems… yet the ring certainly did now. If it had limbs it would have caressed the jewel it clung to.

Sam shivered, praying that that horrible feeling of watchful evil around him had come from his surroundings, and not from the ring on his index finger.

Middle-Earth, Mordor, Tower of Cirith Ungol: T.A. 3019, March 15th

Sam crouched behind a rock wrapped under the invisible weight of his elven cloak, as he stared up at the looming height of the Orc's Tower. Perhaps it had once been fair and well-made but no more, crooked and twisted its turrets stretched high into the blackened red sky of Mordor. In his hand the Ring seemed to hum against his skin, and Sam closed his eyes and tried to shut out the jagged voice that hissed sweet sounds into his ear. The ring had been oddly silent since its one and only attempt to sway him to its will; a fact that he had been grateful for as he scrambled along the dusty roads of this land.

Yet when he'd reached the thing's base and beheld the many armoured Orcs that stood between him and the door, the Ring had begun its assault again. Not a surprise there from what he had observed of Mister Frodo and, Blarney, even that slinker Gollum. What was strange was that the Ring had not hissed at him to put it on. No quite the contrary, it had practically screamed at him to stuff it in his pocket and run, run far away from here. Far away from this doomed land, far away from the mountain of fire, far away from any who would try and grab and lay claim to him as if he were some precious jewel to be locked away in an old oak chest. Old fears from childhood, fears of darkness and enclosed spaces, began to creep back into the forefront of Sam's mind and he found it hard to breath. His terror was so great, and so keenly egged on, that he very nearly did turn tail and run right there. A scream from near the top of the tower stopped him, a scream he didn't need no help in recognising. There was no time for fear here, no room for the cowardice of childhood, Mister Frodo needed him…Mister Frodo was going to die and die in pain if he didn't buck up and do something. So, Sam, with a quick flick of the eyes to make sure there was still no other way past the guards, ignored the pain in his head and put the Ring on.

No!

The Ring seemed to wail at him, and a wave of pain ten times what he had ever experienced flooded his body, and Sam found it difficult to even get up from the ground let alone walk towards the guards.

I won't let them have you. I won't let them have you.

Sam ignored the voice and continued to march towards the door, even though every step he took was more agonizing than the last. He should have been silent, he should have been as stealthy as any hobbit might have been but as it was, he was lucky just to have made it halfway past the second guard before he fell to his knees, practically heaving with the pain. His front teeth bit down hard on his lower lip until blood began to trickle down his chin. Even then he couldn't quite keep the squeal of pain from escaping past his lips.

'What was that?'

One of the smaller guards growled and his larger companion turned to face where Sam should have been huddled. Another wave of pain, and the ring pointedly did not laugh, but instead cooed into his ear. The hobbit felt a gentle pressure, amongst the rapidly rising racks of pain, it moved from his finger and up through the rest of his body. It was as if he was some small frightened animal, and the ring was stroking him to try and calm him down. That comparison took on a frightening new light when the large Orc's heavy claw lowered over Sam's bent head, and a sharp stab of pain began in the hobbit's chest. Samwise lost the fight with himself and screamed, his heart going into spasms; and as the large Orc reeled back from the sound, Sam Gamgee's heart shuddered to a stop.

But only for a second.

For less than a second Sam Gamgee died, for less than a second his heart stopped, but in the end, that was all it took to awaken that thing in his chest. That pulsing, searing light that had always been there in him. With a thump and a shudder, the hobbit's heart rammed back into action, and the Orc was thrown against the wall of the tower. His neck snapped and the small orc beside him howled in a fit of terror.

Sam didn't know whether it had been the Ring's intention to kill him or not, but he knew it had done it all the same. And he knew something was wrong with him, something had changed when his heart had missed that beat…something was different. A new feeling of power coursed through him, it was bright, and it was blinding, and it was all too familiar. He could hear the orcs screams all around him, but all he could see was that light. That same light that had consumed the spider, that same light that had overwhelmed him in her tunnel, that same light that had haunted his nightmares for as long as he could remember. Yes, all he could see was that light and all he could hear was a small, angry little voice at the back of his head.

Yes, yes, what was I thinking this is even better.

Shagrat was not a stupid Orc, if anything he would say that for an Orc, he was rather bright. It's just that well, all that brightness didn't really get you far in the Mordor army. Just shut up and do what you're told Shag, that was what his mother had always told him, yet as the years went on, he found that particular command harder and harder to follow. Take now for instance, he had been told to stand here and not move – technically speaking he was told to stand here and guard the stairway, but that had not actually been the words that Shagrat's commander had bellowed in his face. Yet when he heard the screams from down below him, and the sound of the creature's footsteps echoing up the stairwell, his first instinct was to run and run far. Shagrat was bright, but at the end of the day he would always be a coward, he just so happened to fear his commander more than he feared the creature coming towards him. That was why he didn't run like the others did, that was why he remained at his post, that was why he saw the creature first.

Many a person, had they seen what Shagrat saw now, would have focused on the light that emitted from the creature. But Shagrat was an Orc, and Orcs even at the best of times tried not to focus on the light. No instead Shagrat looked past it, or tried to anyway, to the creature that now stood before him. It was a small thing really, almost as small as the new prisoner being held at the top of the tower. Its skin glowed with a golden sheen that seemed to go further than the light it emitted, long jagged scars lined the thing's face from jaw to hair-line, and the eyes were a haunting green. Those eyes should never belong to something mortal; they should barely belong to an elf and this was no elf.

The creature walked slowly, sedately even, towards Shagrat. Shagrat looked down at the creature, the curly golden hair on its crown bouncing pleasingly with each step it took towards him. Shagrat was not entranced, no he just chose to remain standing exactly where he was as the creature finally stopped in front of him.

'Are you afraid?' Said the creature, its north-country accent rolling pleasantly over each word.

'Yes, every day.' Said Shagrat forgetting that he was supposed to be terrifying as he knelt down until he was at almost eye level with the small thing.

'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' Said the creature as it reached its small hand up to Shagrat's face and cupped his equally scared cheek. The light was so great then, so bright before Shagrat's eyes that he couldn't ignore it anymore and Shagrat screamed.

It would be many years after that light, many strange and perplexing years, until Shagrat could see probably again.

Few of Shagrat's company died that day, only the orcs who were foolish enough to challenge the creature. That creature of light and flesh and smooth tilled soil, that creature that had clawed through Shagrat's commander's flesh like it was so much warm pudding. The creature who had sent the tower practically ablaze with its gentle crooning of an ugly elfish tune. Aye Shagrat may not be ever able to call himself a Mordor Orc anymore, but he would never look on Elvish Music as anything but a din.