A/N: Here is the 5th chapter of Bargaining with Death. I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated and I don't feel this chapter flows how I wanted it too. However here it is.

Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings or Okami. I am simply using the characters/names for my own amusement.

Revision 30/03/12: Parts of this chapter have been edited but shouldn't effect the overall story!

Chapter 5

Running

The Fellowship had left Rivendell several hours ago and the group was so silent you could cut the air with a knife. Gandalf was leading the way, looking very serious and everyone else had fallen in behind him.
Amaterasu had chosen to walk with Frodo and Pippin, just behind Boromir. She had intended to walk at the back of the group; however Bill the pony was not taking kindly to her presence. The two hobbits had been chatting quietly; every now and again one of them would reach over to rub her head, as if reassuring themselves that she wasn't leaving.

'If Boromir jumps once more and reaches for his sword one more time, I'm going to lose my patience. I haven't even done anything to him.' Ammy thought. Every time the tigress got slightly close to the man or passed by him to look at some plant the man reached for his sword, to say it was getting repetitive would be an understatement.

"Hey Ammy, I want to talk to Gandalf. Are you going to come with me? Pippin's going to get some food off Sam." Frodo asked but without waiting for an answer he darted past Boromir and trotted to catch up with the wizard. The tigress slipped past the human and saw his hand slip to the hilt of his sword.

"OH that is it!" Amaterasu whirled around. "Stop grabbing the hilt of your sword! I'm not going to hurt you, kill you, or eat you! It's your own fault. You wanted to kill me! And then you didn't even offer an apology, so for crying out loud, grow up!"

The entire group had stopped still at the sound of a female voice. Pippin and Merry began looking around for a woman, Aragorn peered round Boromir and watched the irate female berating the human man, Legolas smiled at Ammy and enjoyed everyone else's confusion.

"It talks?" Boromir gasped his eyes wide in shock.

"It? It? It is female and It has a name, Amaterasu. Unless you learn to respect me I will be knocking you over again Boromir of Gondor." With that the tigress turned her back on the man and walked past the shell-shocked Fellowship and carried on until she was at the lead of the group.

After a few minutes of stunned silence small giggles sounded in the air. The hobbits had been valiantly trying to contain their mirth at the sight of the pompous man being brought down a peg or two however their efforts were in vain. All four hobbits were soon laughing with tears of mirth streaming down their faces. Gandalf, Legolas and Aragorn had smiles which they were trying to hide from Boromir but the man of Gondor was standing, staring after Ammy in disbelief.

"I believe Boromir has discovered the kitten has claws!" Gimli guffawed his face turning a similar shade of red to his beard.

"We must continue. We cannot waste time." Gandalf said, attempting to sound serious but this was failing as everyone could hear the laughter in his voice. "We shall continue west past the Misty Mountains, the gap of Rohan will hopefully still be open to us."
The wizard turned back to face the Misty Mountains and saw that Ammy was crouching in the grass, still as a statue. Not even the tip of her tail was moving. Behind him Boromir had begun spluttering and was trying to create an argument for his defence but was being shot down by Gimli and the hobbits.

"Silence! Something is wrong." Gandalf said loudly. The group fell silent and turned their attention to Amaterasu.

"Ammy? What's wrong?" Frodo whispered his voice fearful.

"Don't move till I come back. I can smell something." The tigress ran away from the group, a white blur on the grey/brown landscape. Soon she had vanished from their view.

"It's been two hours already. She has obviously gone to talk to an accomplice. She could be betraying us to Saruman right now! We should continue." Boromir shouted at Gandalf.

"We wait." Gandalf said whilst puffing on his pipe. The man of Gondor let out a frustrated shout and walked away angrily. Several minutes passed and there was still no sign of the tigress. Merry and Pippin continued practicing their sword movements and Legolas stared into the distance.

"I see her!" The elf said as his eyes saw what mere mortals could not. "She's not running towards us though. She's running away from us, and she's moving fast."

The party had all scrambled to their feet and stood next to the elf. The hobbits, Aragorn and Gandalf looked particularly worried whilst Gimli had on a poker face making it difficult to work out what he was feeling. Boromir on the other hand just looked frustrated and was quick to voice those frustrations.

"See, she's abandoned us and is betraying us. And she knows our route and so we will have to find a new one."

"Fool! She has never been to Middle Earth. She knows nothing of this land. She is from another world." Gandalf barked at the naive man.
"Amaterasu is part of an ancient race that resided in Middle Earth but they were killed or disappeared when the War of the Ring began. Sauron destroyed them. Amaterasu, whilst I don't know how she came to our world, is one of these people, part of a race that originally came from another world. Their people were persecuted and the Gods of that world sent them to ours. She would not betray us. It is neither in her personality nor in her ancestry to betray us, so silence your foolish thinking."

The group regarded Gandalf in awed silence, all of them shocked; save for Legolas who had known this and more since Amaterasu had arrived in Middle Earth. He kept his attention on the white and silver creature running over the landscape.

"She is pursued, by the Black Riders. I believe the direction she is running in will lead her to the ravine. She will not know of it Gandalf. We should go and aid her." The blonde elf continued to follow the chase and left the decisions to the wizard.

"Amaterasu knows what she is doing. We must trust her judgement and wait here." Gandalf said and he once again sat down and began to smoke his pipe. This time the puffs were much shorter and closer together which demonstrated to the group that, despite his manner and tone of voice, he too was concerned about Ammy.

More minutes passed but soon the group could hear angry shrieks and the sound of horses in pain. A cloud of dust rose up in the distance and the Fellowship turned their attention to the direction of the disturbance.
Being preoccupied by the sight in front of them they failed to notice the sleek white animal sneaking up behind them.

"Bad show fellas! If I'd been an enemy you'd all be dead." Amaterasu said with a grin on her face. Her fur was slightly tinged with a yellow colour and she had couple of cuts on her shoulder blades.
"Enjoy the show?" She slipped off the rock she had been standing on and made her way back into the group.
Frodo was quick to throw his arms around the animal and was quickly reassured by soft rumbling purrs.

"That was foolish lass. But well done." Gimli offered his compliments with a grin and then stepped aside as Gandalf came into view.
Ammy cringed as she waited for the reprimand she was sure to get from the wizard.

"I suppose I cannot expect anything less from you. Although next time, if you could explain before you run off and leave us for hours we would greatly appreciate it. Now we move on." Gandalf ran one hand through the fur on Ammy's head and gave her ears a little rub. Then he began to walk towards the Misty Mountains.

"You just keep surprising us Lady Ama." Legolas smiled down at the tigress and then moved to follow Gandalf. Sam walked past leading Bill, gave a cheery wave whilst keeping Bill calm, the pony had yet to get used to the predator who wasn't actually any danger.
Pippin and Merry gathered up their belongings and ran to catch up with Sam giving Boromir a wide berth as even Pippin could sense that Boromir wasn't exactly happy with Ammy's reappearance.

"Sorry for worrying you Frodo. They just smelt very wrong and then when I got nearer I knew they would be trouble so I thought I could lead them away. That ravine was very convenient. By the way what where those creatures?" Ammy had by this time shaken some of the dust off her and had persuaded Frodo to climb onto her back. Aragorn walked beside the odd pair and watched as Frodo wove his hand into the soft fur and was given reassurance by purrs from Ammy.

"They were the Ringwraiths. The nine humans given rings by Sauron. Known as the Black Riders their only mission is to carry out Sauron's will. They seek the Ring constantly. You're leading them away has probably bought us more time. How did you escape the ravine though?" Aragorn said.

"Oh, well I wasn't expecting it so when I ran into it I fell about ten feet into it, quite close to the sides and hit a ledge. Then I simply clamped down onto the wall and watched as the Black Riders fell into the bottom. None of them were that badly injured, but I know that the ravine is several miles long and if they try to follow us they will reach a dead end. Then I climbed up and ran parallel to the ravine until I reached the Fellowship again."

"Well, Lady Ama, remind me never to get on your bad side." Aragorn grinned and winked at the tigress and then strode on to walk beside Legolas.

"Lady Ama? What's with that? I thought I was Amaterasu or Ammy?" The tigress said whilst considering the man and the elf who were engaged in a conversation in elvish.

"I believe Ammy, it is a sign of respect?" Frodo suggested. "It's that or Aragorn and Legolas are flirting with you."
"In case you haven't noticed Frodo, I'm not human. I can talk and think like a human but until sunset I'm definitely not human. Why would anyone sane want to flirt with an animal?" Ammy asked confusedly.

"Indeed. I'm not convinced by your act Lady Amaterasu." Boromir interrupted their conversation, his voice was a sneer and Ammy found it difficult to refrain from growling at the man.
"You're sudden appearance coincides too closely to the reappearance of the Ring, Gandalf says you do not know this world yet you feel comfortable enough to stick your nose into the business of others." The man then walked off briskly, back tense and head high in the air.

"Well excuse me for breathing." Ammy muttered under her breath. Frodo was silent and still for a second and then burst out laughing.

"Oh Ammy! He really doesn't like you." Frodo managed to push the words out in between laughs.
"Can't think why. I haven't done anything to him." Ammy said innocently. "I didn't nearly crush him, growl at him, chase him up a tree or deliberately walk really close to him to see how long it would take for him to notice."
Frodo's laughter increased and soon the others turned to see what was so amusing. The sight they were met with was Frodo on Ammy's back, tears of laughter streaming down his face whilst Ammy was grinning.

The Fellowship had covered several miles since leaving Rivendell and after the events of the afternoon the group were quite happy to make camp. Sam, Merry and Pippin had made food for all of the Fellowship, save for Ammy, and the group were sat round the campfire enjoying their meal. Ammy had vanished once they began setting camp up to find something to catch. Whilst she could have taken raw meat off Sam the provisions wouldn't last them, and if she could fend for herself then everyone would be happier.

"Gandalf?" Ammy slinked out of the undergrowth near where the wizard was sat, once again smoking his pipe. "We're going to have a tiny problem in a few minutes, to be precise, when the sun goes down."

"Why is that Amaterasu?" The wizard asked as he carefully looked over the tigress, which had her head down and was scuffing the dirt with her paw, avoiding all eye contact.

"I transform into my original form at sunset and back into a tigress at sunrise. And I can't not transform. Legolas said I would learn how but obviously that's going to be difficult as there's no one else like me around. So, for the time being, I shall be human at night and animal by day." The tigress explained clearly and concisely.

"I still fail to see what the problem is Amaterasu my dear. Sometimes you should just say the difficult things very quickly? Makes it less difficult, at least, I find it does. That or taking forever like the trees do." Gandalf smiled kindly at the obviously embarrassed female and tapped his pipe on the ground, emptying it of its used up contents.

"I will be...I won't...When I'm human I'm naked!" She blurted out quickly and then hid her face from Gandalf's eyes once more.

"Oh...That is a tiny problem isn't it..." The wizard said however there was a twinkle in his eyes. "You may borrow my cloak for the duration of the night and I'm sure once you return in your...original form one of the younger men will surely leap to aid you."

The tigress's head whipped up at the last sentence and she narrowed her eyes at the wizard.
"You are enjoying this far too much Gandalf. Far too much." He chuckled and removed his cloak from the ground, holding it out to the tigress. She took it in her mouth, nodded her head at him in thanks and then slipped away back into the bushes just as the sun hit the edge of the landscape.

Gandalf stared into the space where she had vanished and when the sun finally slipped over the edge he could see red and gold light from a way into the trees and bushes. Several minutes later he and the other males sat round the fir could hear rustling and twigs snapping. Ammy obviously wasn't as silent in this form. A figure finally entered the borders of the campsite cloaked in the grey fabric, their face hidden by the hood drawn up over their head. The other members of the Fellowship started as this mysterious figure appeared and rushed to draw their swords.

"Peace my friends. She is our companion." Gandalf said and then turned his attention to the woman who was standing timidly at the edge of the campsite. "Now my dear, I believe it is time we were all introduced to the true you."

A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! It was really nice to carry on receiving them even though I hadn't updated (Christmas and Birthday got in the way of writing time!) Please carry on reading and making suggestions as to who Ammy should fall in love with. At the moment it seems to be Aragorn (I'm leaning towards Aragorn romance too, Legolas/OC is over done I find) although I could be persuaded to make it Ammy/Eomer…Keep Suggesting!

Read and Review Please.

Love Ryua