The poor hobbit could see nothing in the pitch blackness of the Misty Mountains, as had been the case since he'd escaped the Goblin King. He grappled his way through the dust and stone; he resisted crying out for his dwarfish companions, for the goblins would find him. As his fingers shakily raked over the ground to give him his footing and his way, his fingers collided with something cold and hard that slipped into his grasp.
"What is this?" he muttered, picking it up. The Ring scrambled against his touch, frightened. She quickly searched him, probing his mind even as he felt her curve—a ring, he deduced. One Bilbo Baggins, she learned . . . a hobbit of the Shire. She could not search him now, for Gollum began wailing again. She listened intently for the hobbit's character as he communicated with Gollum. She caught that they played a game of riddles, but Bilbo stuffed her into his pocket, and she could hear very little after he really began communicating with Gollum.
Bilbo himself felt frozen with fear. Gollum threatened to eat him, but seemed entertained for a moment by the game of riddles they played. But soon Bilbo was backed into a corner, with no riddle to ask.
The Ring pulled at him; she was getting tired of waiting in this one spot. She could move now, and she didn't understand why he didn't get himself out. Perhaps he didn't know where to go. She tugged at his hand; she had to kiss it, had to seal herself to him in some way so he wouldn't let her go until she'd returned to Sauron.
Her day neared; she could sense it.
Bilbo paused, letting his fingers fall into his pocket around the mysterious trinket he'd found.
"What's in my pocket?" he asked.
That threw Gollum into a fit, but he showed Bilbo the way out as he'd promised to if he lost the riddle match. As Bilbo roamed the halls of the mountains searching for the door, the Ring grew excited: Bilbo would carry her to Sauron. She tried to transform, but suddenly she heard Gollum again.
He muttered about the pocketses . . . what could Bilbo have in his pocketses?
"The Precious," he asserted. The Ring hissed to herself, then yanked hard on Bilbo as she felt the hatred rising from Gollum. He was not far away. Put me on, now!
Bilbo startled, then slipped her out of his pocket. He felt some pull to slip the ring over his finger . . . and then the pull came again. He thought he heard a voice.
Put me—the Ring. Put the Ring on, Bilbo Baggins.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
Never mind that, she said quickly. You have no time. Put the Ring on; just do it.
Bilbo shrugged, then slipped her over his finger. She snapped him into invisibility, but he couldn't have known; it was too dark for him to tell. He moved to ask why he had put the ring on, but then he heard Gollum hissing and wailing, screaming for his Precious as rage enveloped him. Bilbo at last scrambled for the exit, for which the Ring was glad.
It took the hobbit some time to discover that Gollum could not see him . . . and after he escaped, neither could the goblins. He stared down in wonder at the sweet little ring around his finger; it was such a pristine, beautiful thing, and helpful besides. He wondered how Gollum had gotten it—as a birthday present, the creature had said, but Bilbo wondered if that was really true.
The Ring probed his mind, learning that he was on a quest to slay a mighty dragon, Smaug or some such. He snuck up on some dwarves while he wore her, and when he took her off she realized he was traveling with them. She considered taking one of them, but then asserted that Bilbo would be all right for the present. She noted his crafty way of moving around, how he would sneak places. He was rather clever: he used her to bait spiders away from his friends once, and on other occasions to free the dwarves as well as himself.
He fascinated her. This was no greedy, powerful creature: he was, in fact, smaller than Smeagol had been so many years ago. She couldn't wait to see what she looked like when she kissed his hand; he would have an intriguing taste in a woman's perfection.
Bilbo's aura that she picked up from studying him seemed quaint, home-like . . . selfless, adventurous in a way she'd never understood. He was nothing like Sauron, or Isildur, or Gollum.
His conversation with Smaug the dragon interested her as well; he indeed knew more than she would have suspected from a humble little hobbit. He wasn't too unpleasant, she decided. But she did not appear to him, not yet.
The Ring paid no attention to the huge, uninteresting battles he fought. Leastwise, they were uninteresting from her place in his pocket. She was on his finger when he moved to deliver the Arkenstone—whatever significance that had, it was very beautiful—and when he escaped the horrors of war, but only by a smidge. She could have called the stones of the mountain and armies of goblins to him, could have abandoned him, but she didn't. It almost didn't even cross her mind. She wanted him to take her to Mordor; he cared enough about other people to do for her what neither Gollum nor Isildur could do.
As he lay, unconscious, on the mountain face where the war had chased him, the Ring pondered this Bilbo Baggins. He didn't feel as permeable as Smeagol, but he would not be difficult to overcome. She considered if any creature she ever came across would be hard to overcome. So far no one had resisted her very effectively, save Elrond, but she didn't even reach out to him.
She smirked to herself. She needed no challenge, and had none.
Bilbo removed her when he awakened, having forgotten he was invisible. She hesitantly reached out and called for a search party, yanking very lightly on them. She'd watched people searching for Bilbo as they passed by, but she wanted to wait for him to awaken. Now, though, he needed to be rescued.
And so he was. They sent him home with a pair of treasure chests filled with dragon's hoard, and she waited while he solved some issues at home. He kept her in his pocket constantly, and she heard—muffled—about everything in his life. She nestled inside and waited for him to pick her up so she could introduce herself.
It took him a few months, but for her that was not long to wait. She considered telling him to touch her, but after everything got sorted out—after all his possessions were back from the auction the Shire had started during his year-long absence—Bilbo found himself pondering his ring. He plucked it from his pocket, flipping it over in his fingers. Invisibility; a magic ring. It had saved his life so many times, and he wondered at it, how he had managed to stumble across it.
Bilbo, she whispered.
Bilbo startled. She almost addressed him as "love," but he was not like her last three acquaintances, which she began to refer to in her mind as slaves. No, that might not work for him.
His gaze left the Ring, and he searched the room. "Who's there?" He stood abruptly, the Ring still in his hand. He moved to bury her in his pocket, but she began the transformation hastily. Bilbo jolted, flattening his palm to look.
She melted over his hand, her fingers entwined with his. She suddenly grew a little thinner, her hair brown instead of blond, but still slightly curled. Her skin grew a little lighter, somehow still dark relative to a hobbit's. Bilbo gawked, taking her in. She stood an inch or two shorter than he, with a smooth jaw and a soft neck, a petite nose and full lips.
The Ring bowed carefully to him. "Greetings, Bilbo Baggins." She reached forward and kissed his hand; she let it stay for a moment, for she meant this one to some extent. He interested her, so she actually thought something more for him. She absorbed the rest of his character before she pulled away, taking in everything of him.
Perhaps he wouldn't take her to Sauron. The hobbit wasn't obstinate on purpose, but had little to move him in life.
This could take some time.
The Ring frowned thoughtfully, then smiled at Bilbo. He wordlessly surveyed her.
"Are you my ring?" he asked carefully, blinking at the certainty that this couldn't be real. But with all he'd seen over the past year and a half or so, it could be. Besides, this was no ordinary ring. He gasped when she nodded, then sputtered, unsure what to say.
The Ring laid her hand over his, stroking gently. Bilbo froze, staring down at their joined fingers.
"You need say no more," she said carefully. "I have preserved your life thus far; I know how you must feel. Come, sit down."
She kept her hand on Bilbo's arm as he directed her to a large chair by the fire. She skillfully maintained contact with him to channel affection, if not complete control. She realized she would have to order him about if she wanted to get back to Sauron; perhaps he wouldn't mind another adventure.
Bilbo studied her, taken aback by the very beauty of her. The cuffs on her wrists and neck looked like his ring, as did the lovely circles of her eyes. They spoke for some time while he made tea; she accepted some, but drank little—she needed naught but to feed on the soul of a living creature.
And as her life with Bilbo moved forward, she did just that, feeding on his essence and prolonging his life with her power. She gained very slow influence over him; she did not take it in an aggressive direction, for hobbits did not accept leadership that way. She learned that by trial and error once: she attempted to physically drag him out the door, and he scrambled into bed, refusing to take her to Mordor. Evidently he knew of Mordor, and he swore never to go.
The Ring fell into a kerfuffle as she slowly dragged him into her influence. But some twenty or thirty years after arriving in Hobbiton—in the Shire, at Bagshot Row in the burrow referred to as Bag End, or so Bilbo told her—her progress delayed with the arrival of a little hobbit in the house. She hissed at the first sight of him. This boy was ten years old, just a little, wiry thing. He was not unattractive; in fact, he looked quite like an adorable little elf. He had silky curls of black, a gentle face, soft hands, and strikingly blue eyes. He smiled almost constantly, and was a rather pleasant sort of fellow. He had a happy, sweet light about him; the lad was the exact foil of the Ring herself.
She loathed the sight of him.
She'd grown so attached to the concept of Bilbo taking her to Mordor that she wanted no intruders while she worked on his mind. When Bilbo showed her Ring form to the boy some days after he arrived, she refused to emerge from her shell. She was, however, forced to turn Bilbo invisible when he slipped her over his finger. The little hobbit before them grew excited, smiling broadly. He thought the ring an amazing thing, having heard all of his uncle's stories before. He had never seen something so in all his life, and for a moment it distracted him from the pain of losing his parents as he had only a week before.
"Could I try, Uncle Bilbo?" he asked.
The Ring scrambled in Bilbo's grip, so hard that she slipped from his fingers. That thing, that creature of light, could not touch her—she would not have it. Bilbo raced after her as she rolled along the floor, and he snatched her up. He admonished his nephew, Frodo, to remain where he was as he took the Ring into an adjacent room. Frodo waited patiently for only a moment before spotting a novel on the floor in front of him; he scooped it up and sat down hungrily to read.
Once Bilbo was alone with the Ring, she immediately transformed and stepped away from him, obstinately folding her arms.
"Come now," Bilbo hissed, "be reasonable. He is but my nephew, a Baggins as I am! And he is a rather careful young hobbit; he won't hurt you. You've seen for yourself how polite he is."
The Ring frowned, gripping her elbows. She didn't look at him.
Bilbo stepped towards her, wrapping her in his arms to try a different approach. He sighed at her maintained youth; he considered that perhaps she was more his daughter now than a lover as he had once thought. "You shall have to get along, the two of you. Frodo will look after you when I am gone."
"You have time," she grumbled. "Perhaps I shall be buried with you."
Bilbo shook his head. "No, Frodo shall have you." He lifted her chin, brought her gaze to meet his. "Please, do this for your Bilbo," he said gently. "He's adventurous enough; if you're kind to him like you have been to me, perhaps he shall take you to Mordor."
That boy wouldn't walk within a mile of Mordor, the Ring snapped to herself, thinking of the way Frodo's eyes seemed to illuminate everything around him like a bonfire. She shuddered; if she ever ended up in his hands he could be the end of her. She didn't know what about him made him that way, but some horrid combination of naivety, obstinacy, and courage had to be somewhere deep down: any of those two things alone would not be dangerous enough for her. She could sense something that matched her own will deep within him.
No. She refused to let anything challenge her.
"I will greet the boy when I am ready," she said, letting her eyes sink shut. She stared back up at Bilbo, her golden eyes glinting with a harsh light. "For now I only see him as a ring." Bilbo moved to thank her, but she held up a hand. "And you do not put me on his finger, or you never see him again."
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