Yeah, sorry for the shortness of this chapter and the amount of time it took me to put it up. Typing is not my strong suit. Anyway, I may make the next update another chapter, or just an add-on to this one. Depends on how it goes.
*insert usual disclaimer about owning nothing here*
I would to thank The Queen Of Confusion for adding this story to favorites & alerts, Emberryred for doing the same, and The Queen Of Confusion for reviewing. Thanks y'all! I appreciate it very much!
It had only been a week since we'd hurriedly left Amon Sul, but it felt much longer. Worry for Frodo combined with an exhausting pace did not make for a good measuring of the passage of time. Still, I was grateful for one thing, at least; all the exercise had left us all too exhausted at night to do anything but eat and sleep. It kept Pippin from asking questions, questions to which I had no answers It did not, however, prevent him from shooting me questioning looks which I studiously ignored. He gave it up after a few days, though, as Frodo grew progressively worse. I could smell infection setting in even without my enhanced senses, and if I could then Strider most likely could.
We moved faster and faster, but it wasn't fast enough. I could hear the Riders behind us too, but they stayed far enough back that I figured that Strider had enough on his plate without me adding them to his plate. Besides, if he had half the smarts I gave him credit for he knew they were following us anyway. We had been traveling for a week before delirium set in with a vengeance. I heard him mumbling beforehand, but now the mumblings were audible. And they made no sense, where before they were at least slightly coherent. We finally stopped when Frodo started shivering along with his babbling.
"He needs athelas, if he is to survive to reach Rivendell," Strider declared as he stood up from where he had been examining Frodo. I looked over at him from behind some extremely weird boulders. "Athelas?" I asked, frowning as the name failed to ring any bells. "Kingsfoil," he elaborated, and I just shook my head. Sam seemed to understand what he was asking for because he chimed in with his own ideas on the subject. "Kingsfoil? Aye, I know it. It's a weed! You don't mean to say it'll help Master Frodo?" Strider looked at him squarely. "That is exactly what I mean to say, Master Sam. Perhaps you can assist in searching for it?" Sam gulped and nodded. "We'll help too," Pippin piped up, gesturing to Merry and himself. "I'll go with them, make they stay out of any more trouble than we're already in," I said, and Pippin nodded enthusiastically. "Go, then, and hurry," Strider ordered as he and Sam started off in two different directions.
"Come on," Pippin said as he tugged my hand and started off in a third. Merry and I exchanged looks before following him. It seemed Merry wasn't just along to help because as soon as we were out of earshot of the fire of the fire he turned to me and started in with the third degree. I was surprised – I had honestly expected Pippin to be the one to jump into questioning me first. "What is going on with you two?" Merry asked vehemently. "Pip's been sticking to you like a burr and talking your ear off and you don't seem to care! Then you you go and start acting like he's your child or something back on Weathertop, and then you go and scare him and you haven't said one word to him since! What by all that's green in the Shire is going on?" he finished plaintively. I exchanged looks with Pippin, then shrugged. "You tell him, Pippin. You can explain it to him better than I can," I said, then tuned out the resulting verbal tidal wave that spilled out of Pippin like water through a flood gate. It took him several minutes, during which I idly sniffed the air and cataloged the various scents I detected. There were several I didn't recognize that I filed away in case one of them was the "athelas" or whatever the hell it was we were supposed to be looking for.
I had several possibilities by the time Pippin finally ran out of steam. Merry looked at me seriously. "Is it true? Can you really do what Pip says you can do?" he asked with an odd note in his voice. I nodded cautiously, not entirely sure I'd like where this was going. "I can hear, smell, touch, and taste much better than a normal person," I said. "And you sometimes get lost in your senses?" he asked carefully. I nodded again, still not certain where he was going with this. "But all Pip has to do is talk to you and you won't?" I shook my head this time. "No, but it helps me stay grounded. He can't get through to me all the time – only my Guide can do that." It was Pippin and Merry's turn to exchange a look. "Guide? What do you mean by Guide?" Pippin asked, looking somewhere between confused and frightened. "Where I'm from, people call my kind Sentinels. My Guide is my partner and my better half. He keeps me sane and grounded, and in return I keep him safe by any means necessary. Other people can do it, and I'll protect them too, but my Guide is mine and no other's – and I'm his. It's a genetic imperative; we were designed for each other."
Both hobbits looked at me wide-eyed, and I scowled at them. They both hastily looked away. "Where is he, then?" Merry asked as he looked around as if he half-expected my Guide to pop out from behind a bush and yell "Surprise!" or something. I frowned, wishing that my Guide would do just that. "My best guess is that we got separated somehow on the way here. I don't know much – don't remember how I got here or much about what I was doing beforehand. In fact, I don't remember much besides my name, what I am, and who I'm looking for. I get flashes of other things, but they're gone before I can get a good grip on them," I growled in frustration. Merry took an almost instinctive step backward as Pippin stared at me with huge eyes. My own eyes widened as I realized that I actually growled. What. The. Hell? Pippin opened his mouth – probably to ask what the hell - but I held up a hand as a subliminal noise made its way to my conscious. Hoofbeats – lighter, and coming from the opposite direction as those Riders. "We have company," I said, cutting across Pippin's repeated questions. "Lets get back to camp. Fast." Neither hobbit argued with me as we jogged back to where we left Frodo. Just because the horseman didn't sound like a Black Rider did not necessarily mean that he was friendly – or on our side, even.