We've only been traveling a few hours, but we've had to stop; Frodo's gone from bad to worse, and I don't think that he's going to make it to help.
Whilst we were quickly evacuating the Weathertop area, Sam explained to me what happened to Frodo; he was the thing that I saw being stabbed by the not-Dementor, just before I performed that forward roll. Maybe he's got an invisibility cloak like Harry's, I might as well as assume that he does.
We rested in a clearing where two stone trolls were positioned, kneeling over slightly, as if they were observing us.
Aragorn gently lay Frodo down on the softest part of the concealed clearing, which is just happened to be under one of the trolls. A blanket was thrown over him, covering him from the neck down. But, nothing seemed to be working.
The other three Hobbits were slightly afraid to approach their friend, but after the Ranger had moved away, and began to look out into the wild; weary of how vulnerable we were right now- with Ron- I knelt down beside Frodo on his right side. I then began moving his hair out of his face with my burnt hand. The pain made it throb but I kept going, eventually moving just to stroke his curly hair.
After about 5 minutes, I was aware that Sam had knelt down on Frodo's left side, and Pip was staring weirdly at my hand. He nudged Merry in the waist, and indicated in the direction of my injury. All of which I caught out of the corner of my eye.
Merry's reaction was quite predictable. His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and, after a slightly-silent shocked gasp, he asked, whisper-yelling so that they all could hear "Celeste, what happened to your hand?" Aragorn turns around and walks over, as I stop what I was doing and place both of my hands on my lap.
He stands two feet behind Sam and locks eyes with me, glances quickly at the burns and then back at my face.
"Why didn't you tell me you were injured?" He asks lightly, concern seeking its way into his face.
I feel stupidity grow in the pit of my stomach, and I drop my gaze to my hands, which I begin to mess with, not daring to look up.
"It doesn't matter." I say quietly, stupidity still rising in me like sickness. "We've got more important things to deal with." I then risk a look up. The worry has left the Ranger's face, and has plastered itself onto Sam's; who is fussing over Frodo.
"Mr Frodo?" He asks his friend, concerned. All the Hobbit does in reply is whine in pain, and flinch as his friend feels his forehead with the back of his hand, taking a mental not of Baggins' temperature. He pulls his hand away after several moments, looking more concerned than he did before. "He's going cold!" He exclaims and I check. Sure enough, Frodo's body temperature was rapidly lowering.
Pippin made a noise that sounded like a choked scream. "Is he going to die?" He asked, looking at me.
I scoff. "How should I know?" I say, laughing slightly, despite of the situation. "I don't even know what the date is!" He smiles and turns to the oldest; Aragorn who answers.
"He's passing into the shadow relm, and pretty soon he'll become a Wraith like them." I see the smile instantly drop from the guy's face. Thanks for lightening the mood(!)
The inhuman screech of the Wraiths rings through the air, as he finishes. It chills me to the bone, and I notice just how close they sound.
"They're close." Merry breathes, and stares into the wilderness behind him.
The sensible of us begins thinking quickly- and it's not me, so don't start thinking that I'm responsible! Aragorn looks straight at the wound on Frodo's shoulder. He seemed to be pondering ideas on what to do, before coming to a conclusion, on what action he wants to take.
"Does anybody know the Athelas plant?" He asks at once, with no warning that he was going to be saying anything. Merry and Pippin shake their heads, while Ron calls 'No.' over his shoulder. I remain silent, thinking. Where have I heard that before?
"The what?" Sam says, and surprised too. For a gardener he really should know this.
"Kingsfoil!" Aragorn replies, renaming the plant. I know what it is! We have some growing outside of Hagrid's hut, which he sometimes feeds to his Hippogriffs.
"Oh yeah!"
"But that's a weed!" I say, discovering my voice at last.
The three of us rise to our feet, and a torch is shoved into my hands, before we all set off in different directions; The Ranger calling back "It may help to slow the poisoning, so HURRY!"
I set off, muttering 'Kingsfoil' to myself over and over again, but sometimes I would end up saying 'Blue flowers; red thorns' even though that's out of Shrek, and I'm looking for a flower that resembles Snowdrops.
And that's when I see it. A 15cm2 patch of the flowers was residing near the roots of a tree; standing tall and proud in the dark. I sigh in relief as I kneel down beside the plant and stuck the end of the torch in the ground, so that my hands were free. I then proceed to cut a small handful of the flowers and, with my knife (Which was used to cut the plant) safely back in my shoe, the Kingsfoil in my right hand, and the torch back in my left, I ran back, taking care to retrace my steps, while not tripping over any tree roots.
"I've found some!" I shout, as I turned and began to run faster, but I received no reply. This inspired me to run yet even faster back to the group, in fear that something dreadful has happened.
But, back at the clearing, I find that isn't the case. Five of them are all waiting for me, with the exception of the one who had the idea to find the Kingsfoil in the first place. Of course he'd go further out than the rest of us.
Breathing heavily, I hunch over, handing the torch to Sam, and with the plants still in my light grasp, my hands on my knees, I try to regain composure. My hearing begins to intensify; a perk of being a Phoenix animagus. I can hear thing that normal human hearing wouldn't pick up, and I can hear roughly half a mile away- and the sound'll still be crystal clear. This time I hear the soft breathing of a fully-grown horse; the breathing of which is different to Bill's. Soft feet hitting the earth is heard next, and the small metallic noise- from when a long knife is drawn.
My breathing to normal, and so does my hearing. God, I wish that I could control it! I stand upright, but I wince once more, in pain. Remember how I got stabbed in the abdomen that day by the Black Lake? (A/N- read chapter one!) Well, I've been trying to ignore the savage pain that's been radiating from it, but now its becoming so bad, I can't honestly ignore it much longer. But now, I need to ignore it, until I can get to help at least. To keep my mind occupied, I go and stand by Ronald, who was now closer to the group than he was before, looking down at the tiny Hobbit.
Minutes fly by, and Aragorn still hasn't returned, sparking Pippin to start pacing the clearing in fear of the worst case scenario. But, soon I hear his steps, running over to us. He burst into the clearing, entering in the same place he exited, but was followed by a woman on horseback.
She had black hair, that was down to her waist, and blue eyes. She wore this type of dress, that wouldn't seem out of place in medieval times, that was a silvery-grey colour that suited her perfectly. She wasn't wearing much jewellery; only a crystal necklace that looked like this:
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She basically glides off her horse, and as she talks to Frodo in a language that I cannot understand, Ranger-boy turns to me.
"Did you find any?" He asks, referring to the Kingsfoil, looking desperate. I don't say a word, or move my head; I just hold up my hand and open it, so that the white flowers are resting on my palm. He relaxes, sighing out in relief. He grabs the Kingsfoil out of my hands and then quickly, turns and kneels beside Frodo, with the woman now also kneeling.
The two of them have a quick discussion, and the only words I catch are:
"He's fading."
Then, and quite suddenly, the two stood to their feet. Aragorn picking Frodo up into his arms. They begin to walk towards the horse that she arrived on. The three Hobbits looked scandalised.
"Where are you taking him?" Sam asks, speaking up at last; his voice showing hurt, panic and anger.
But they don't reply. The two just keep walking over, and Frodo is placed on the horse's back. I turn to look at Ron. His curious expression makes me think that this woman is part Veela.
Again, the two adults have a discussion in the unfamiliar foreign language. But it has to be about Frodo, he's going to be worse than dead in a short amount of time; so what else could they be talking about, that is more important right now?
Eventually, the woman jumps onto the horse, behind Frodo and takes the reigns in her hands, while keeping the Hobbit upright on the animal. He looked as if he was getting weaker with each passing second.
"Ride hard; don't look back." Strider said as she began riding away at top speed. As she disappeared into the woods, his face turned into a look of worry. He clearly cared about both of them, though I don't know who he cares for most.
Sam, however looks furious. He turns to the Ranger and roars at him, "What d'you think you're doing?"
The guy does nothing to respond. All he does is pickup some of the possession on the floor, throw the items to their owners and begin walking away at quite a speed with Bill the pony, following the woman's route away.
Okay?! Is that what we're doing now?
Pippin takes off straight away after him, with Merry and Ron looking unsure for a few moments, before running after him, side by side.
Sam and me share a look. His face looks mutinous, and I'm guessing that he doesn't want his friend to come to any more harm.
"Sam. I'm not sure who that was, but I AM sure that she'll be able to get Frodo to help a lot quicker that we could've" I say to him, in an effort to try and persuade him to start walking. No luck, though the expression on his face isn't as severe now. I give up, and walk over to the route out of the clearing. But I stop and turn around at the edge. I look at him. "If you don't follow us now, who knows if you'll be able to see Frodo again."
With that, I leave, following the foot patterns in the mud. Without warning, Sam begins walking beside me. We catch up with the others quickly, and they still traveling at the same, fast pace.
Sam goes to walk beside Pippin in silence, while I quickly walk around them to end up traveling next to Bill, with Aragorn standing the other side of the pony's head. I glance at him. His face was determined and he just looked ahead.
The whole company travelled for two days and nights in little silence, and almost always in silence. My feet killed, by my abdomen was worse. I was now barely containing the pain it was radiating.
"You never said." I commented to Aragorn as we kept walking. He turned his head to look at me. "Before, I mean. That woman, who was she?"
"Her name is Arwen." He replies, and just before he looks away, I see something new- a different emotion- creep into his eyes. I don't realise what it is until later: It was love.
Just before sunset of that same day, we exited the woods, and after we crossed over a shallow river, we approached a huge building.
It looked breath-takingly beautiful: .uk/search?gs_rn=18&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=l3S51J...
"Welcome, Hobbits, Ronald and Celeste." Aragorn said, "To Rivendell; home of Elrond."