The story of Lord of the Rings was created by the genius J.R.R. Tolkien.
Chapter 14: A Ranger's Interest
The night we arrived at Brandywine bridge it was raining down hard on us. We didn't want to accidentally bump into any dangers before Bree so we ended up running through slippery thick mud and I had never wanted not to have to carry Sparkle so badly up until this point. Both my thighs and my lungs were burning but I wouldn't stop until we met Bree.
Although we all were cold and soaked I suspected that it was the adrenaline and the need to be safe is what has kept us going. As we ran to Bree our clothes stuck to our bodies so heavily to the point of being uncomfortable. I couldn't wait to slide them off my cold aching body and slide into a warm soothing bath. Uh! Look how low I have fallen! I'm fantasizing about bath water that I can't even have!
At least my happy thought helped me to keep my feet moving along with the others. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the two months of walking on my own doesn't make much of a difference with hobbits who have walked or ran everywhere they went for most of their lives. So naturally they were a little faster then I was. This reminded me of all the times that I was late to school and had to run most of the way, I was fast but not fast enough.
It was hard to see through the pouring rain but from a short distance away I saw a big wall.
"There it is!" Merry said. It was only about a minute later that we stood in front of it but then they looked at each other uncertain of themselves for what to do.
"I think that we should knock." I said to Frodo and he nodded to me.
"Alright then." He said hesitantly before knocking on the gates. I heard some fiddling before a small peep hole opened up and reviled a old dirty men's face. He looked at me with surprise before squinting his eyes.
"A women? Traveling alone? That's very dangerous miss especially if one would want to come to this town!" He said and I nearly rolled my eyes.
"You might want to look down." I said. The gate keeper was taken back a little but then he gave me a short nod before he shut that peep hole and opened another one about two feet below it.
"Hobbits..? Four hobbits?" He said. "Why is a maiden traveling with hobbits?" He asked no one in particular but I would've answered him if Frodo hadn't beat me to it.
"We're headed to the Prancing Pony, our business is our own." Frodo said in a final tone and I looked at him a little surprised as I was not used to hearing him speak like that. When I turned back to the gate-keeper I saw that his eyebrows were lifted high before he closed the peep-hole. Was that supposed to happen? I thought but then I heard metal clanking behind the door and the wooden door opened.
"I meant no offense young sirs and my lady. Tis' my job to ask questions after night fall. There's been talk of strange folk as of late and one can never be to careful." He said walking through the door with a lantern. After the gate keeper ushered us inside he went on with his business and closed the gate.
More than anyone else Sam looked uncertain about Bree. As we walked through its heavily muddied streets in a hurried fashion I tried to avoid any eye contact with strangers as they looked as dirty and old as the town. Most of the men looked in desperate need of a shave and some that we had pasted walked drunkenly into the streets.
After a couple of minutes I grew really uncomfortable with the unpleasant sight of Bree and so i just kept my head down. Maybe the straw that broke the camel's back was when I caught a men looking a me in a transfixed manner or maybe it was a women pouring a liquid out a window that for some reason I knew that it was not water. Ew.
I tried to move through the mud as fast as I could but then I nearly ran over Pippin when his foot had gotten stuck in the mud. Luckily Merry was able to help him out of it fast. After a short time of walking more into the town Frodo stopped and looked up and I followed his gaze and saw a sign. I couldn't see it clearly because the rain kept hitting my eyes so I squinted them. The sign hung above a place that looked like a bar and it read The Prancing Pony in white renaissance letters and had an image of a pony prancing below it.
We had found it and somehow I started to feel anxious because this next step made me feel more intertwined with what I was trying to avoid: getting to involved with this world. I do know that after we step foot into this bar things will just fall into place. But I wanted to stay out of it, yet here I was standing right in front of the Prancing Pony. I looked away from the bar and my eyes warily observed the rest of Bree through the rain. It was dirty, soggy, gloomy and muddy, somewhere that I really didn't want to be.
When Frodo turned around and looked at us my eyes flashed to him. As I looked at him getting rain on like the rest of us I realized something, either one us could have detoured from our paths. He didn't have to take on the responsibilities he had, he could have tossed the ring in the river and moved away. Sam didn't have to follow him to make sure that he was alright, neither did Merry or Pippin have to stay with us. But they did...
I didn't have to follow Frodo, I could have asked Gandalf to take me with him or help me get back to Radagast. We didn't have to feel the responsibility, we didn't have to care... But we do, and so here we are being brave without even even noticing. I looked down at Sparkle's head sticking out of my coat and rubbed her apple shaped head as she stared at me with those big eyes of hers. I said that I wouldn't get involved and now i'm right outside of the Prancing Pony with four very important hobbits. So why did I follow my friend... My friend... Frodo was my friend. So my reason was because of him? I never have had a lot of friends but when I do make a true friend, I just can't let them go. A friend is worth following, and not just him Sam as well. I glanced over at Merry and Pippin and wondered how long did it take them to become so close. They may be related but so are most of the hobbits in the Shire, no matter... It's nice to be with someone, even if it's just for a short two months, hardly a life long friendship. I snapped out of my thoughts when Sam spoke up.
"Is this it Mr. Frodo?" Sam asked and Frodo gave him a nod.
"Gandalf said to wait for him inside, lets go." Frodo responded and then he turned around and opened the door to go inside.
"Finally, I can't stand this rain or the cold." Merry said holding himself while shaking the water off of his hood and then he followed after Sam and Frodo along with Pippin. The light from the open bar door shined down on me from the chest down, I looked inside for a couple of seconds before I entered. I may not necessarily have to stay with them but I chose to stick with them, either that or I along with Frodo and Sam had gotten tricked from the very start by a wizard with a love for fireworks.
I followed my four friends to the bar and we all took off our hoods and sighed in relief. It felt nice to be back in a warm room and out of the cold pouring rain. Frodo took a step closer to the bar to address the man behind it.
"Excuse me?" Frodo said and caught the attention of the man behind the bar conversing and serving his other costumers. The man then turned around and looked behind the bar at Frodo and Frodo looked over the bar and up at him. I heard the man say that his name was Butterber then Frodo and him had began to talk about the rooms. At one point I saw that Butterbur look over at me and he made an 'o' shape with his mouth.
"Oh, so this is your human friend?" He asked.
"Yes she is." Frodo answered.
"Are you sure that you will not like a separate room for the lady...and her little dog?" He asked looking back to Frodo. However the look that Frodo gave me with his eyes hinted that it was up to me. Although it would be nice to have some time to myself it wouldn't be safe to be alone during this time. And i'm already uneasy with my friends around so I would be even more anxious and nervous without them. What if those black riders come to my room? It would just be me and them, alone...
I gave Frodo a short nod with my head before I turned away from him to speak to Butterbur.
"Sir that would not be necessary, i'll stay with my friends. I think that it would be a lot safer." I said with a small smile and he nodded his head to me in understanding.
"Yes ma'am." He said to me and then his gaze went back to Frodo.
"Alright Mr. Underhill I will have a human sized bed moved into the room with four hobbit sized beds. If you're staying down here for awhile it should be in your room before you reach it." He said writing something down before he turned around and bent behind the counter to get a key and then he came back up and turned back to Frodo."Here's your key Mr. Underhill." He said handing it to Frodo but before he turned around to his other costumers Frodo stopped him when he spoke once again.
"We are friends of Gandalf the Grey. Could you tell him that we have arrived?" He asked but Butterbur looked confused.
"Gandalf..?" He said to himself then realization shown itself on his face. "Oh yes! I remember, older chap, he wears a grey robe and pointy hat!" He said and Frodo nodded in relief. "Not seen him in six mouths." He finished and then he went to tend to his other costumers. What? Where was Gandalf if not here? Was this supposed to happen?
We all turned towards Frodo and huddled together, but I had to slouch to listen closely.
"What do we do now?" Sam asked.
"He must be a little late, we'll wait for him here." Frodo said and then he gestured with his head to an empty table next to a wall.
Frodo and I went to sit down at the empty table but Merry, Pippin, and Sam stayed at the bar to get a drink. When they came back I saw that Sam had gotten a half pint for Frodo and Merry had gotten a plate of food for me.
"Here you are Jessica." He said handing me the plate that has melon, bread and peas on it.
"Thank you Merry." I said surprised. Who would have thought that Merry would give up the chance of eating food that was right in front of him. After that he began to drink his ale along with everyone else. I eventually started to eat my food, I was uncertain about it in a place like this. I scowled and stared down at my plate when I saw several men observing us.
We all felt uneasy about our surroundings, well Frodo, Sam and I did. Merry and Pippin were making the most of it. As the others spoke to each other I took my time and observed the bar and the more observed the dirtier the men looked. I doubt they take baths regularly, most likely their used to being filthy.
A group of men roared with laughter around the bar when one of them won a drinking contest and then belched loudly. How disgustingly impressive, I thought with a small smile as I squinted my eyes. Of course it was something that shouldn't be considered anything else other than disgusting but when I lived in south Florida the few friends that I had used to be into that kind of stuff and it that kind of rubbed off on me.
I looked away from them and looked at the round table some yards away. The ones who sat there were holding loud conversations as they stuffed their mouths with food. The results being visible chewed food, spewing, and a messy table. One of them caught me looking and shoved his friend next to him then nodded my way. They both had tried to hold eye contact with me but I just looked away after a couple of seconds.
With my eyes now on the floor I made the decision to not observe these strangers anymore, and it was a decision made to soon because not long after that that's just what I did. In the corner of my eye I could see a dark figure sitting still, unlike everyone else at the bar who were rowdy. Out of curiosity I turned my head and looked straight at him.
And there he was sitting there alone with his hood hiding most of his face and a pipe in his mouth that contributed to the smoky atmosphere. My expression became one of contemplation because I knew him from the story as well, I may have forgotten a lot of it but he was someone that...I don't know, belonged. But who was he? I turned back to my table when Merry had apparently just came back from getting a bigger mug. My eyebrows lifted up in the as I wondered could he handle that much ale.
"What is that?" Pippin asked him awed by the sized.
"This my dear friend is a pint." Merry said wisely and then Pippin got this excited look in his eyes. Uh oh, I thought mischievously.
"It comes in pints!? I'm getting one." He said with determination in his voice then rushed to the bar.
"You have a half already!" Sam said then he turned to me and sighed."Tooks."
I shook my head at him in amusement but then out of compulsion I quickly glanced at the stranger again, and he was still looking our way. I wanted to really think about who he was, it was on the tip of my nose. However I wasn't going have to any thoughts of high concentration because our table could practically feel his eyes on us. And we really became uncomfortable when everyone else noticed him staring. He must have a lot of confidence to do that out in the open. Maybe if he blew smoke in this direction some of that nerve would rub of on me.
"Jessica do you know that man?" Sam asked me and I turned towards him and answered.
"No, but he seems to be quite interested in our table." I said feeling just as bothered by him just as everybody else was. And I was still being bugged by the annoyance of not remembering who he was, I know that he had to be an important character, well 'person' since he's actually real. Merry looked away from our stalker and back to me.
"He could be just interested in you." He said honestly and I lowered my eyes to the table, hopefully I wasn't blushing.
"Or he might not be staring at all, and could be staring into space thinking." I said casually to get off of that subject. But then a waitress came by and served him a drink, after he turned excepted it he turned back to us.
"Well that assumption is off the table." Sam said.
Frodo who looked even more nervous from watching us talking about our mysterious stranger finally turned towards him. He gained a curious expression on his face and luckily Butterbur came by to serve drinks to another table near to us but before he passed our table Frodo had took him aside.
"Excuse me, that man in the corner, who is he?" Frodo asked him and Butterbur followed his line of vision to see who he was referring to. His face had adopted a nervous expression and then he swallowed hard as he bent down lower to Frodo.
"He's one of them rangers. They wander the wilds for most of their lives. It ain't natural. No one around here knows his name but we call him Strider." He said and then he looked at me."I hope for your sake you haven't caught his eye. Rangers are some dangerous folk. You should be keeping your distance." He said giving me a concerned look before heading off. Strider I definitely remember that name, and it did belong to an important character: Aragron... He was the king of...someplace in Middle Earth...(Sigh) I was never good at remembering the names of the places here but I did remember my favorite characters or the ones who were reoccurring characters in the movies. He's the one that's going to help us! It is not helping me one bit that I don't remember the details of the movies and it would have been a big help to know when the riders were coming or I don't know, that Gandalf wasn't even going to be here!
"I hope that he doesn't come over he-" Sam was saying but then he was interrupted by Pippin's distinct voice being heard across the bar. We all turned towards the bar to observe what was going on and there was Pippin surrounded by apparently his new friends at the bar and had a whole pint in his hands.
"Baggins? Well sure I know a Baggins! He's over there, Frodo Baggins!" He said loudly with his eyes pointed at Frodo. It was great that he did that because every delightful harmless man around him looked right at our table. My lips had parted slightly because I was amazed at his stupidity and his carelessness, I mean he heard Frodo give Butterbur a fake name! From the side of my eye I saw that even Aragron had sat up in surprise. Why would Pippin do that when he knows that we are in a situation and our very lives are in danger!? It's cool that he is a happy go lucky hobbit but have some sense!
Frodo shook his head in shock and rushed towards Pippin as he kept talking with the strange men and going into impeccable detail of how Frodo and him was related. Something him being a third cousin twice removed? How the hobbits kept up with that stuff was beyond me. I put Sparkle on to the floor and stood up quickly as I watched Frodo grab Pippin by the arm and surprise while he took a drink from his mug so Pippin he snitched away from him. Then Frodo fell back and slipped on someone's shoe and the golden ring that was in his hands flew into the air. I went over to and help him even when I was obviously to late to keep him from hitting the floor because this time I did remember what was going to happen and we didn't want that kind of attention.
Hello to all of my amazing readers! Hope that you have enjoyed this chapter! I tried to update as soon as I could and hopefully i'll do it again in the future! And please, please, oh pretty please leave a review! I love to know what readers think of my story and what's going through their heads. I also like to hear what they think might happen in the the story, i'm still writing you never know whether or not I will include it! So don't not not forget to not never give a review! ;)