"You know, I had almost hoped that this would stop." I glanced up at Boromir.

"That's a fond greeting." He smirked down at me.

"Constant dreaming isn't good for ones sleep." I replied. "It's no wonder I wake up tired, I spent my nights talking with people, and walking and climbing mountains." I smiled softly. "Not that your company isn't good, but it reminds me of you too much…the real you, you know…"

Boromir nodded, and no more was spoken of that reality. This was a dream, and no matter how it affected my sleep, it remained a more welcome sight than what lay beyond my eyes in the waking world, presently a drop down a wickedly steep set of stairs. "You look like you're enjoying a nice rest now." Boromir nodded down, where I lay sprawled out on a grassy hillside. "Where are we?"

"The Shire." I said, breathing in deeply and closing my eyes. "Just off the path that runs behind Bag End, before the start of the grove." I let the breath leave me, slowly. "If only you could have really seen it, Boromir. When I was very young, and I wondered what it would be like to live where you could always see the sky, and I imagined something just like this. Erebor had plateaus, and brooks that were fed from high pools in the mountain, and trees, but it wasn't nearly as lush as this."

I opened my eyes, happy to see the image of my friend was still there, standing over me, dressed in white.

"I used to come here in the summers, we'd visit 'Uncle' Bilbo, and Frodo." I said. "I'd look after him."

"How long have you known Mister Frodo?"

"Since he was a child, and I could carry him about with me." I sighed. "Boromir, he used to be different. I wish you could have known him before he changed. He was a sweet boy, and curious, and he could never hurt anyone. He was happy, and he wasn't nearly so standoffish. He loved this place, and his family…he loved in general. He had…feelings. Now everything is gone…just like this place."

"How so? It looks real enough to me." Boromir said.

"To you maybe, but you're not even real. I can't feel the grass, I can't smell the earth, I can't feel the sun. All that's left to my memory is this…just the fact that I laid in the grass like this."

"No, you remember…" Boromir said, his tone a little scolding but not in any serious way. "You're only tired, and perhaps a little scared, not for yourself but Sam and Frodo."

I felt the grass beneath me, soft as a feather bed after nothing but a bedroll.

"You remember it all. You just don't want to recall it because Frodo cannot. And the more he slips away, the more you feel you should hold back, if only to make sure you can still reach him." He went. "An admirable thing to do, princess, but it's taking it's toll on you. You've always had a temper, but that creature just sends your nerves off. And Frodo's diminishing spirits, diminish your own…hadn't you once been the optimistic one?"

I felt the sun over me like a warm blanket and I could smell something fresh in the wind.

"It's unfair for him." I muttered. "Something is going to happen, and soon." I said. "I know it Boromir, that is why I feel I must sort things out in my head, and conjure you up to help me be as clear minded as I can be…something is going to happen sooner or later and I will need to be strong again, strong and rational." I turned my head to the side, and saw a dead wildflower by my face, withering in the sun, it's white petals drying to gold and brown.

"That creature…I hate him, I pity him, and I hate him more." I said. "He plots…I know he does, he must."

"You could have always pushed him off the stairs." Boromir shrugged.

"You're supposed to stand in for my better judgement." I rolled my eyes. "I wanted to, but I couldn't. Frodo stopped me, he is so attached to the pathetic thing."

"It must be the Ring, they've both held onto it before." Boromir answered. "You recall the effect it had on me?"

"You said you were lost…it changed you, twisted your thoughts. And now it does the same to Frodo, only worse, for he has had it's burden on him since the beginning." I looked up at my friend and asked a final question, when I knew he could not possibly answer, but I felt the need to speak aloud. "Do you think he is even the same underneath anymore?"

Before the image of Boromir could even give one word of reply, I was snapped away by loud voices, a disorientating process, where rapid blinking blurred my vision and my weak balance had me leaning a little farther to the edge of the stairs than I would have liked. I gripped at the stone beside my bedroll, which I had slept on in the manner of sitting, rather than laying down, the small space we had found not permitting much else. "What happened?" I asked.

"Sneaking? Sneaking!" Gollum exclaimed. "Fat hobbit is always so polite." The last part of the sentence was uttered sarcastically. "Smeagol shows them the way, the secret way no one else would find…and they say sneak? Very nice friend, nice…"

"Sam." I called to my friend, who was standing over the creature, as I saw when my balance corrected itself and my vision cleared.

"Just trying to figure out what the creature was up while we were asleep, Miss Fali." He reported.

"Asleep? But you were on watch the last few hours, as we planned." I replied.

Sam flushed. "My apologies, my eyes were drifting closed, couldn't help it…" He muttered the apology. He turned then to Gollum. "All right, all right…you just startled me is all. But what are you doing?"

"Sneaking." Gollum answered, to which a felt a sense of worry rise.

"Fine, have it your way then." Sam sighed. He turned to me. "He's always sneaking it seems, can't be helped I suppose. It's become part of his nature."

"Right." I nodded slowly. "Part of his nature."

I looked over a Frodo, who had managed to fall asleep, and get some needed hours of rest.

"Frodo." I touched his shoulder. He didn't stir. "Frodo." I repeated, shaking his shoulder now. He stirred lightly. "Frodo, c'mon." I punched him in the shoulder, lightly of course, and this caused him to awake, looking disoriented as I had probably been.

"Welcome back to the woken world." I smirked, patting his should again.

"Sorry to wake you Mister Frodo, but we have to be moving on now." Sam said.

"It's dark still." Frodo muttered as he raised himself up.

Sam and I replied simultaneously that our current surrounding were always dark.

"Not a very welcoming climate to wake up to, but it could be-"

"It's gone! The elven bread is gone!" Sam, rummaging for a spot of breakfast, filled our stomachs with chills.

My eyes shot to Sam's, and for a second there was nothing but panic expressed between the two of us. "It's probably just under something else." I said, swallowing the tremor in my voice. "Look again Sam, you'll find it."

"There isn't any, Miss Fali. It's all gone!"

"What?" Frodo seemed more alert suddenly than before. "That's all we have left!"

We all looked at each other, hoping one of us would suddenly be able to produce the bread from another bag, but it very quickly became clear that such a thing was impossible.

Sam's eyes narrowed in an uncharacteristically angry look, and he glared at Gollum. "He took it! He must have!"

I didn't need much more convincing, but Frodo looked to be in disbelief. Gollum was rather calm, seeming just insulted. "Smeagol! No, no, no, not poor Smeagol. Smeagol hates the nasty elf bread."

"You lying rat! What have you done with it?!" Sam shouted.

"Sam, calm yourself!" I interjected. "He's not going to give any answers to you!"

"He doesn't eat it, he can't have taken it!" Frodo defended the creature.

"Oh, yes he doesn't want to ever eat it." I said, with venom in my tone. "But I imagine he could manage to swallow it down if he decided to." I turned a fiery glare up Gollum, who stuck out his tongue, and gagged, as though the thought of tasting the bread at all made him sick.

The creature looked up, and his eyes widened in surprise. "Look…what's this?"

Gollum reached out his hand and wiped it against Sam's jacket, littering the ground with crumbs. I stared at them. Lembas bread, they could be nothing else. "Crumbs on his jacketses! He took it! He took it!"

It was like someone had seen my most secret nightmares and was currently building one around me. "Sam?" I asked.

"I didn't Miss Fali!" Sam said quickly. "I couldn't!"

"I've seen him…always stuffing his face when Master is not looking." Gollum added.

"That's a filthy lie!" Sam shot back. Sam suddenly sprang forward and began to strike Gollum relentlessly. It was the most violent display I had ever seen from him, or any hobbit in fact. I wished that such an unusual thing was part of an actual nightmare, but I was entirely sure I was awake.

"Sam, stop it! Stop it now!" Frodo protested, and began to intervene, throwing himself between the two of them to separate them. I blinked, coming out of my worries, and realising that I had been standing there and doing nothing to stop the fight myself.

"I'll kill him!" Sam was furious.

"Sam, no!"

At this point I finally acted, Sam's fury and words startling me. "Calm down." I said, grabbing Sam by his shoulder and pulling him back. I looked at the both of them and it frightened me how little I recognized them now. Frodo taking the side of the creature, and Sam being so furious…these were not the hobbits I had befriended, who I had minded as children, who I had enjoyed such beautiful summers with.

Frodo, in his weakening state, collapsed into the wall of rock behind us from the strain. "Frodo…" I left Sam's side to go to his and check him over. He was a bit pale and short of breath, but only required a respite. "Serves you right, storming into a fight like that…should have let me handle it." I reprimanded him. "Just rest a moment."

"I'm sorry." Sam said. "I didn't mean for it to go so far. I was just so, so angry. I meant to stop and couldn't."

"We understand Sam." I spoke for both Frodo and myself.

"You just rest a bit now." Sam said.

"I'm fine, Sam."

"No, you're not." Sam replied, shaking his head. "You're not alright, you're exhausted."

That I could agree with, though I kept quiet, my mind still reeling from the loss of our rations that we now had to deal with and with Sam's attack on Gollum.

"It's that Gollum…it's this place…it's that thing around your neck."

All three of which I would wipe away if only I could...

"I could help a bit. I could carry it for a while. We could share the load." Sam suggested.

It was like he had held Frodo at sword point. Frodo jerked back violently, shoving at Sam. "Get away!"

I stared at Frodo in shock. "I don't want to keep it! I only want to help you." Sam protested.

"See? Do you see? He only wants it for himself." Gollum hissed, drawing closer to Frodo.

"Shut up!" Sam yelled. "He's lying again! Get away from here! Go!"

"No Sam." Frodo was serious, and I continued to stare at him, in shock, unable to speak for what was happening was too horrible to imagine. "It's you. You have to go."

"Frodo, you don't really mean that do you?" I asked. "It's Sam, he wouldn't harm you."

He looked at the two of us. "I am sorry." But it was clear from his tone, still too serious, that he was not apologizing for an outburst, but that he meant Sam had to leave.

I am dreaming, I thought, I must be. Any moment now Boromir will appear, like some guardian spirit, and confirm it.

But there was nothing but a great emptiness now, and I was between Frodo and Sam, keenly feeling a rift between of them. Sam, trying to maintain an indifferent look the best he could, couldn't stop himself from shedding tears. A practically lifelong friendship had been severed by a golden trinket, a creature, and a missing piece of bread.

What had happened to us?

"Fali." Frodo caught my attention. He motioned further up the path. "We have to keep going."

Gollum was still looking out from behind Frodo, like a small child behind a mother's skirt.

"Come along, Fali." Frodo said when I remained standing where I was, not reacting to the turn of events.

I looked up at my friend, with such pity, and stared at him.

"No." I said, quietly.

"What?" Frodo asked.

"No." I repeated, louder than before.

"I don't understand." Frodo said.

"I am not coming with you Frodo." I said, apologetic but firm. "I cannot. I don't recognize you any more."

"You promised to be by my side. You jumped into the river as Sam did." Frodo's tone was bitter.

"I did." I nodded. "I'm sorry Frodo, but you have changed-"

"You're the one who has changed! You've gone back on your word!" Frodo snapped.

"And it pains me that I have!" I snapped back. I drew in a steadying breath. "I wish I could help you, but you are not the same. If you were at all like yourself right now, if you were like the Frodo whom I had left the Shire and Rivendell with, I might find I could stay."

"So you have given up then."

"Frodo, please…"

"No, you've made your thoughts clear. Someone says something that you disagree with and then you get rid of them. You've always had such a temper, you've always been spiteful-"

"Frodo!" I snapped again.

"Mister Frodo!" Sam echoed from behind me.

"No, you've made you're decision. It's obvious you've chosen who's side you're on."

"I never picked a side, or chose who I would be protecting." I defended myself. "I was here for both of you."

"And now when we are almost there, you decide to leave." Frodo retorted.

"I…I…" I stuttered but found I had nothing I could say that would make this any easier. "I cannot go with you." I finished. "I can't seem to convince you of anything anymore, or defend my reasons. Perhaps you would understand if you were more willing to listen…but if you won't listen then I won't say anything more." I sighed, biting the inside of my cheek to keep my face firm. "And I won't go another step further."

Frodo glared at us for a long moment, then turned, and in the eerie calm he left us.

"Goodbye Frodo." I said to his back. He said nothing, and then a moment later the mist engulfed him and he was gone.

I turned to Sam, who had gotten back to his feet. "Miss Fali?" He asked. "Are you alright?"

I looked at him, apologetic almost. "Let's go Sam." I said. "We can't stay here."

It surprised us both how I could say the words without shedding a tear.