Anastasia and the plot are the only part of this which belongs to me. Everything else belongs to their respective owners; namely J.R.R. Tolkien.

Italics – Thoughts/Thinking

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Chapter 2:

Anastasia's POV

I swiftly walked down the stairs and to the screened front door where I can see Mrs. Thomas impatiently, yet excitedly, waiting; and a dirty, beaten up, blue car approach.

"Good you're here. There's someone I want you to meet," Mrs. Thomas declares as I step out of the house, taking extra care to close the door firmly behind me. As I turn around the car squeals to stop, making me cringe in pain and sympathy for the car. The drive waves exuberantly and to my horror I realize it Ms. Black, my child services care worker representative, and she has brought another girl with her. This girl must be what Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were arguing about considering he in nowhere in sight.

"Anastasia, Ms. Black and I decided that it would be good for you to have another girl with you, since you've always been at a foster home where you were the only child," Mrs. Thomas said her earrings glittering in the sun. "So Jeff and I agreed to take in another girl and provide her with a home and loving family."

I stared blankly back at her, silently cursing my attraction to shiny objects. No, you just want a child who isn't broken and actually likes to shop. I quickly turned back to Ms. Black and the new girl. The girl has blonde hair which reaches a few inches past her shoulders and icy blue eyes which could freeze over Hell. Her top was pink with lace and frills, complementing her pink; strappy, wedge sandals partly hidden below her jeans.

"Hello Mrs. Thomas. Hello Anastasia, how are you?" M. Blacks voice barely registering in the back of my mind as I studied this bubble gum chewing, pink wearing excuse for a noun before me. I suppose it is not fair of me to judge her before I get to know her, I think with a frown as Ms. Black turns to Mrs. Thomas to talk. But it is hard to like her and not judge her when she is giving me this look of distain. It could also be that she is female and on my territory. Stupid instincts, sometimes you make it hard to control my actions and feelings.

"Mrs. Thomas, Anastasia," my attention snap to Ms. Black at the call of my name, "This is Lindsay and she will be living here for now."

"Hello! It's lovely to meet both of you," Lindsay pipes up with a smile and finger wave.

At that moment, Mr. Thomas decides to show himself, moving from his location around the corner of the house. "Well at least this one can talk!" He exclaims startling the two women and Lindsay. He was breathing so loud I could have found him in the dark.

All eyes turn to me. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas look at me with pity eye their eyes, making me want to curl my lip and snarl at them. Lindsay was throwing me a look of triumph, like she just out smarted me or something, and Ms. Black was frowning at me.

"So you're still not talking, dear?"

Frodo

Frodo was silent. He too was gazing eastward along the road, as if he had never seen it before. Suddenly he spoke, aloud but as if to himself, saying slowly:

The Road goes ever on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with weary feet,

Until it joins some larger way,

Where many path and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

'That sounds like a bit of old Bilbo's rhyming,' said Pippin. 'Or is it one of your imitations? It does not sound altogether encouraging.'

'I don't know,' said Frodo. 'It came to me then, as if I was making it up; but I may have heard it long ago. Certainly it reminds me of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this in the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?" He used to say that on the path outside the front door at Bag End, especially after he had been out for a long walk.'1

Anastasia's POV

"Go to your room! NOW!"

Again I'm in trouble because of that no good brat named Lindsay. It's been a couple of weeks since she got here, but I now know why she threw me that look of triumph. Since I refuse to talk, it makes it hard to defend myself, so she blames everything that goes wrong on me. You would think the Thomas's would be smart enough to know that I don't cause trouble, from the months that I've been here before Lindsay. But no, Mrs. Thomas favourite foster child cannot do wrong as I've been sent to bed without supper again because Lindsay stole the money for groceries.

Although I'm hungry, it doesn't matter. I'll just hunt some poor unsuspecting animal tonight when they are all sleeping. I'd swipe something out of the fridge, but knowing my luck I'll just end up in trouble again with no meal.

Moving to the large mirror Lindsay insisted was necessary for her stay, I examined my appearance. My hair was dull, my skin pale and pasty, and my bones were easily seen by the outside world. Most would call me anorexic, but I'm not. I've just spent too much of my life being starved by one who wished to see me dead.

Frodo

The sun was beginning to get low and the light of afternoon was on the land as they went down the hill. So far they had not met a soul on the road. This way was not much used, being hardly fit for carts, and there was little traffic to the Woody End. They had been jogging along again for an hour or more when Sam stopped a moment as if listening. They were now on level ground, and the road after much winding lay straight ahead through grass-land sprinkled with tall trees, outliers of the approaching woods.

'I can hear a pony or a horse coming along the road behind,' said Sam.

They looked back, but the turn of the road prevented them from seeing far. 'I wonder if that is Gandalf coming after us,' said Frodo; but even a he said it, he had a feeling that it was not so, and a sudden desire to hide from the view of the rider came over him.

'It may not matter much,' he said apologetically, 'but I would rather not be seen on the road – by anyone. I am sick of my doings being noticed and discussed. And if it is Gandalf,' he added as an afterthought, 'we can give him a little surprise, to pay him out for being late. Let's get out of sight!'

The other two ran quickly to the left and down into a little hollow not far from the road. There they lay flat. Frodo hesitated for a second: curiosity or some other feeling was struggling with his desire to hide. The sound of hoofs drew nearer. Just in time he threw himself down in a patch of long grass behind a tree that overshadowed the road. Then he lifted his head and peered cautiously above one of the great roots.

Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse; and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the high stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible.

When it reached the tree and was level with Frodo the horse stopped. The riding figure sat quite still with its head bowed, as if listening. From inside the hood came a noise as of someone sniffing to catch an elusive sent; the head turned from side to side of the road.

A sudden unreasoning fear of discovery laid hold Frodo, and he through of his Ring. He hardly dared to breathe, and yet the desire to get it out of his pocket became so strong that he began slowly to move his hand. He felt that he had only to slip it on, and then he would be safe. The advice of Gandalf seemed absurd. Bilbo had used the Ring. 'And I am still in the Shire,' he thought, as his hand touched the chain on which it hung. At that moment the rider sat up, and shook the reins. The horse stepped forward, walking slowly at first, and then breaking into a quick trot.

Frodo crawled to the edge of the road and watched the rider, until he dwindled into the distance. He could not be quite sure, but it seemed to him that suddenly, before it passed out of sight, the horse turned aside and went into the trees on the right.1

1 Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. London: Allen & Unwin, 1954. Print.

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