(no subject)

[rabidsamfan]

I've got a story that I'm trying to kickstart myself into continuing called "Unlucky".  The first several chapters are here, and this is what I've got so far of the next one...

 

            It was strange to see the trees all lit from below, but beautiful, and it was not only caution and wounds which slowed their steps as they made their way back to the Silverlode and turned south along the old road that followed the western bank.  For all Haldir’s impatience he seemed loth to press them harder, and Frodo saw the care in his eyes for Orophin, whose face was flushed with growing pain.  Boromir’s encouragements to Pippin and Merry were thick on his tongue, and Pippin kept stopping to adjust the straps of his pack, while Merry trudged along the road without raising his eyes from his toes.  Sam, who wasn’t so drunk as to forget that Aragorn had been wounded, insisted on walking as far as he was able, so as to free hands for swords and bows in case the orcs came back.  It was a measure of Aragorn’s exhaustion that he consented, although he wouldn’t allow Sam to carry his pack, and kept one hand on the injured hobbit’s shoulder steadying him at need.  Frodo walked on Sam’s other side, trying not to think too much about the returning ache of his bruises.  Gimli, Rumil and Legolas alone seemed untouched by weariness, and they took places before and behind the others as guards. 

             And yet, for all their danger and weariness, Frodo felt as if he were at the edge of some vast peaceful dream, and he need only turn aside to find a bit of rest.  He felt the light reflecting from the river against his face like a warm wind.

            Beside him Sam was singing softly.

Oak and ash are proud and high, .

Give them space to reach the sky.

Chestnut spreads her arms out wide,

Makes a place for squirrels to hide.

Willow soon with thirst will sigh,

Plant him where there’s water nigh.

Apple, cherry, plum and pear,

Flower when they’ve kinsmen near.

            His song faltered and he stopped to rest his hands on his knees, as if to catch his breath, and nearly toppled over when dizziness betrayed him.  Between them, Frodo and Aragorn kept him from falling. “Haldir,” the Ranger called softly.  “How much farther?”

            “Half a mile until we can cross the river,” Haldir said.  He scanned the others, his gaze coming at last to his brother, and he frowned at the blood which darkened the bandages.  “A few minutes rest will do no harm,” he decided.

            At Aragorn’s insistence, Sam lay down near the base of one of the trees, and Frodo sat with him to keep him from trying to get up while the Ranger went to check on the others who had been wounded.  “What was that you were singing, Sam?” he asked.  He’d recognized the tune, but not the words, and it was better to think about the song than the returning weariness.

            “’Tis old Holman’s Tree Song,” Sam said.  “Him as the Gaffer was apprentice to at Bag End when Mr. Bilbo went on his adventures.  I was just thinking it needed another verse.”

            “For the mallorn trees do you mean?” Frodo asked, following Sam’s gaze.

            “Aye,” Sam said.  "Just look at them, Mr. Frodo," he went on.  "Look how straight they are, and the leaves so bright in the moonlight.  You'd never think there was even one tree like that in all of Middle-Earth, would you?  And yet here they are, all around.  What keeps them here, do you think, and never a seed straying?"

            "They belong here, Sam," Frodo said.  He sighed.  "Just as hobbits belong in the Shire."

            "We do that," Sam said, patting Frodo's hand.  "But there's been hobbits gone off to have adventures before us, and there'll be more someday.  And a hobbit's not a seed, what has to grow where the wind leaves it.  We'll find our way home someday.  Once the job's done."

            Frodo brushed a bit of crusted blood from Sam's hair, "Is the job so important to you, then, Sam?"

            "Of course it is," Sam said, simply.  "Now that I know it needs doing, I couldn't no more sit by than you can yourself.  It'd be like slappin' at wasps all summer, and never once going to smoke out the nest."

            “I never knew you minded wasps, Sam,” Frodo said, trying to think if he’d ever known Sam to complain of them.

            “I don’t, not for myself that is,” Sam said.  “And I wouldn’t say as they do no good at all in a garden, for there are some flowers as won’t bloom without them.  But they’re pure misery to most folks, and there’d be no bees in Daddy Twofoot’s hives if I was to leave them be year round.”

            “Oh, don’t talk about food, Sam,” Pippin groaned, flopping down beside Frodo. 

            “Food?”  Frodo looked at him curiously. 

            “Bees mean honey, and honey means breakfast,” Pippin explained.  “And breakfast means morning and wondering if there’s any chance that Strider will let us take a nap once the sun is up.  I haven’t been this tired since we were on the way to Rivendell.”

            “I’m not as frightened as I was then,” Merry said, joining them.  “At least not since the moon rose.”

            “Do you suppose that this Lothlorien place will be like Elrond’s house?” Pippin asked.  “I mean, with real beds and bathtubs and all?  Except I don’t know how you could get a bathtub into a tree.  Or a fireplace.”  He sighed. “That’s what I want.  A nice bath beside the fire.   And breakfast.”

            “What?  At the same time?”

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