Chapter Three

The icy water pierced every uncovered inch of Ello's skin, like a thousand knives stabbing her at every chance. She tried to swim but she couldn't breathe. Ello tried to surface, but the weight of the bag weighed her down. She screamed, but her voice cut off in a strangled sound. She had no air. She was going to drown. To die.

She took a deep breath and prepared to drown, when she realised that she had just taken a breath - underwater! Then she noticed for the first time a strange tickling sensation around her nose and mouth. She smiled unbelievingly; it was a bubble softly caressing her cheeks, giving her oxygen. She suddenly knew what to do, how to take advantage to her size. She could still smell. She swam swifter and more gracefully than an otter, and Frodo and Aragorn's scent's became fresher with every stroke, though they were muffled slightly by the wooden smell off the boats and oars. In the water.

Eventually, Frodo's scent was stronger than ever, but veering away from Aragorn's, instead of following Aragorn's to the west bank, Frodo had made for the east bank. Soon Ello was able to scramble up the bank and continue running, though slower, still the pace of a horse on a week's journey She ran for a day through endless trees, the stopped in the night for a small rest, and a snack. She ate a few bites of lembas, elfish wheat bread from Lady Galadriel, and sank down against a big oak tree. She woke with a start only two hours later.

"Aw, damn" She groaned "So it wasn't a dream. What am I doing here?"

However, after only five minutes the trees thinned to reveal bleak mountains, not too tall, but horrifyingly steep and jagged. She followed Frodo's trail, back tracking a few times. She sat down again at nightfall, and had a few more bites of lembas bread. She had barely laid down her head to sleep when she heard a loud clanging noise, and yells, and a strange sound she distinguished as an orc's excited bark. She scrambled over the rocks, not knowing whether or not to be delighted that she was still following Frodo's trail.

Soon she reached a ledge and she peered down. What she saw nearly caused her to fall off of the ledge; five orcs were swarming around, surrounding two hobbits she recognised as Frodo and Sam. Sam was lying on his back, still trying to shield himself from an orc towering above him. Frodo was losing a fight with three at once. Screaming silently, Ello rummaged desperately in the bag Lady Galadriel gave her, and to her relief Ello drew out a short sword, in fact, it was very similar to Frodo's sword, Sting, in layout, though the patterns were very different.

She screamed in horror as the orc brought its sword down in one fluid motion towards Sam's throat.

Frodo looked up in shock at the strange girl, and was lucky that the orcs did too. To his surprise, the orcs attacking Sam stopped and stood up, and one of the orcs attacking Frodo left to join its friend attacking the girl. Out of the corner of his eyes Frodo watched as they advanced, one slinked away, the girl was shivering violently and her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head. Frodo was so exhausted he could hardly hold his sword, but he fought and managed to stab an orc through the gut. It brought relief to his heart, but none to the pain; his muscles ached and there was no way he could go on any longer.

And then it was over.

The orc's head lay on the floor, and as Frodo fell backwards Ello reached out and grabbed his arm, slowing his fall.

"Thank you. Now, who are and what do you want?"

Ello laughed shakily but her hands trembled. Two days ago she would never have even thought about killing another creature. Now she had killed two. But orcs don't count, you know that! Pull yourself together and answer his question, idiot! She told herself.

"My name is Ello, Lady Galadriel sent me to help you." She completely ignored Frodo when he opened his mouth. "She told you to leave; but a few things have happened since you left that you really need to know. For one; the Uruk-hai. They are basically like orcs, but bigger, stronger, they can travel in daylight, they know no fear and they know no pain. And, well, the rest of the fellowship…..Something happened."

Frodo and Sam glanced at each other, and Frodo shook his head slightly.

"You don't care, do you? You couldn't care less what happened to your friends!"

Frodo flinched and Sam sat up with a start, but he copied Frodo and said nothing. Tears pricked at Ello's eyes and she blinked.

Then she started muttering angrily under her breath. "I get shoved into this world with-gah! He doesn't even care what happened to poor Merry and Pippin so I may as well go ba-"

Frodo's hand shot out and grabbed Ello's arm hard as Sam gasped sharply.

"What happened to them?" he demanded. If they got hurt because they wouldn't leave me….

Frodo's grip and glare wavered as tears sprang into Ello's eyes before she could turn her head away.

She let her hair become a veil to mask her face from the frozen hobbits.

"I'm probably not the right person to tell you this, and I do not know how…" Ello angrily wiped at the incessant tears, but gave up quickly and took a deep breath. "Bo-Boromir is dead. After you left, Frodo, and he realised what he had done. Something had come over him; it was the ring. He called after you, and felt awful. On the other hand, when Merry and Pippin distracted the Uruk-hai for you Frodo, they were chased to a bridge. They were surrounded, trapped, but Boromir came, and fought the orcs away, he gave them a chance to run, but they lingered, not wanting to abandon Boromir. He- he was struck by three arrows." Ello thumped her hand against her chest three times, demonstrating where the arrows had hit. "The orcs took Merry and Pippin and left Boromir for dead. Aragorn arrived in time to save Boromir the Uruk-hai's arrow through the head, but he died of his wounds minutes after."

"And the younger ones? Merry, Pippin?" Sam whispered.

"They have one bit of luck. Aragorn is leading the others in a hunt after the Orcs, and if they can reach the Uruk-hai before they reach Isenguard. Saruman's orders were to bring the hobbits to him alive and unspoiled, and to kill the others. Until Isenguard, Merry and Pippin will be kept alive and hopefully unhurt…" With no warning Ello burst into tears. She curled up into a ball and sobbed, her whole body shook. Hesitantly, Sam stood and put his hand on her shoulder. Frodo and Sam realised at the same moment how attached they felt to this stranger already.

"I'm sorry." She whimpered. "It's just, I came from another world, I just fell through the path, and I saw the movie, and I watched everything happen, and I thought it was all make believe…. And it's too real to be a dream…" she sniffed and Sam interrupted.

"Another world! As in, not Middle Earth! That's impossible!"

"Well Sam, if you asked me five days ago I would have said there was no way Middle Earth could exist, let alone elves and dwarves and hobbits and wizards and orcs and God knows what else! And apparently I am a leiveia, whatever that is, and magic isn't myth. And they say that I am practically living in a movie!"

Frodo frowned. "What is a movie?"

For the second time Ello pulled out her camera and explained about movies.

"You watch them on a bigger screen, and someone put a camera here for some reason, and it transmitted video clips back to earth. I watched everything since Bilbo's 111th birthday, believing it to be make-believe. Acting, I suppose they must have found celebrity look-alikes and paid them to keep their mouths shut!"

Sam looked nervously around at the bleak surroundings. The dust coloured mountains were sharp, and looked very hard to climb even for a sure footed hobbit.

"I'm sorry Mr. Frodo, but these mountains give me the creeps. I wonder if that slimy creature Gollum is still about…"

"Sam, can I talk to you for a moment?"

Guessing what his master wanted to talk about, Sam scurried over to Frodo, and Ello stepped back and listened in silence to the hobbits' conversation.

"….We should trust her, I think Mr. Frodo. I have a feeling about her, I do, like the feeling I get when I think of the Shire, or Lórien and Galadriel, a kind of warmth, again I suppose the same as Lady Galadriel."

"That's all very well, Sam, and I do agree with you, but…she wears odd clothes, especially for a girl, but if she is from another world as she claims to be then I can understand that, but still…." Frodo trailed off thoughtfully.

"We should take her with us Mr. Frodo, just for a few days, watch her, and see if we could trust her." Sam replied eagerly; keen to find out more about the strange Ello. But a shadow passed over Frodo's face.

"No, Sam. Not to Mordor. For that is where we are headed, and I would never condemn another to have to travel with me to such a horrible place, unless they practically throw themselves after me like you did."

"But say, just say sir, say she wanted to?"

"To go to Mordor! And why would she want to go there! If she did then she would be up to no good and not worth us taking to anyway. Few other than evil folk and fools go closer to Mordor than Osgiliath! No Sam, whoever she is, I doubt she is willing to go to Mordor with two foolish hobbits!" But the last words reminded them both of their own foolish hobbit, Pippin and they both fell into silence.

The moon was high in the sky when Ello spoke again.

"Are you two hungry?" She said, her hand reaching to a small plastic box at the bottom of her bag.

"We have the lembas bread from Lady Galadriel." Ello laughed at the barely concealed boredom at this particular meal on Sam's tired face.

Soon Ello found what she was looking for- a Cadburys dairy milk bar- and split it in three. She threw a third to each Sam and Frodo who caught it in shock. As she closed her eyes and bit into the chocolate and let the aroma fill her mouth, Ello felt a pang for home, the first since she arrived. She missed her brothers; Jam (James) who at eighteen led the family since their mother fell deeper into the endless pits of alcohol and heroin, Gel (short for Nigel), who at sixteen was trying to get over the recent split with his girlfriend, and she missed the little seven year olds twins she looked after, Harvey and Isaac and their identical faces, innocent even when she caught them in the act of mischief. She even missed her mother, or at least; her mother before her father left, not the shadow she had become now.

"Hey, what is this?" Frodo's voice jarred her back to now, and she made her frozen lips reply.

"Chocolate. Almost every person on Earth loves it. Hey, look, I'm eating it too, I haven't poisoned it. Enjoy what you can." She looked deep into Frodo's eyes, and he was lost in the deep, deep blue. "Do not fight the ring head on Frodo. You will tire, it will become heavier, and you will lose. Instead, angle its power another way. Ignore it, and pretend it does not exist. Instead of lingering on each danger in every step of your way, acknowledge them, but concentrate more on the good things you see. When there are none, make them." She nodded at Sam. "You both like poetry, singing. Enjoy yourself, or what you can. I don't know much, but I do know that you only get one chance of life. So grab it, and make the most of what you have. You are lucky. There are so many who love you two, so many who would die for you a million times. Be wary, but happy. It is hard, but I think that the ring will not understand that, and if I am right it would slow the effects." Then she blushed and looked down at the floor. "Sorry. I have no idea what I am talking about, do I?"

"No, it's fine." Nervously, Frodo took a small bit of chocolate, and then gasped. Sam tumbled forward, but a huge smile spread across Frodo's face. "This is the best thing I have tasted in my life! What is it! Sam, try some! It's ten times better than anything from the Shire, oh Sam it's better than pipe-weed!" Sam's reaction was somewhat the same, and due mainly to that one bar of chocolate the hobbits allowed Ello to travel with them for two days, and in that short time, Ello was as precious to the hobbits as they were to each other, and in return she felt the same about them. Ello taught the hobbits about things from her world, and they taught her a little sword work and more about Middle Earth. To Ello's delight, she found that her iPod worked and had full battery. She decided to save it, and only gave the hobbits a headphone each for a couple of songsto show them music from her life.