A Mistake

The others woke early the next day, and they were off once more. And once more, the Uruks followed too close behind.

About halfway through the day, the Fellowship came upon something worth seeing.

“The Argonath! Long have I desired to look upon the kings of old. My kin." Aragorn whispered to Frodo in their boat.

Raina craned her neck to see the tops of the statues of the old kings. They were as large as mountains, or so it seemed. Her eyes trailed down to the feet, which the Fellowship was floating by at the moment. Her eyes widened as she marveled at the fact that she could have used the big toe nail as a bed with plenty of room.

It wasn’t until the later that day did the Fellowship cease floating downstream and stopped on shore. A couple hundred yards away the river dropped, and Raina could hear the water hitting the river again at least two hundred yards below.

She jumped out of the boat and helped Legolas bring it to shore to cover it in leaves, just happy to be on land again -- this time for good.

While they worked on covering the boats and making camp, the Hobbits rested and the Men and the Dwarf argued once more over where to go next. Eventually Boromir dropped out of the conversation, and it was just Aragorn and Gimli discussing all the options of how to get to Mordor.

Legolas finally sat against a tree stump, and Raina took this as time to rest. She leaned next to him and rested her head on his shoulder, but didn’t stay there that long. The breaths of the Fellowship were too few; two of them were missing.

Her eyes shot open and she glanced around.

“Where’s Frodo?” she asked everyone, but no one could answer. “And Boromir?” Still, there was no answer.

Aragorn jumped up and strode into the woods to go look for them, with Sam close behind him. Going the other way were Merry and Pippin. Raina jumped up, grabbing her bow and collecting her arrows, took her own path, and didn’t wait for Legolas and Gimli.

She wandered through the forest quietly. She tried to imagine that she was a doe, and could move without making a noise. She didn’t want to disrupt anything in case she could hear Frodo and Boromir. No one had said this out loud, but everyone thought that this was going to end badly. They had all seen the way the Man looked at the Ring, and he was very open in thinking that it should go to Gondor so they could use it against Mordor.

Every so often the part-Elf heard something, but she was too far away to figure out what it was. Eventually she made it out to be rustling leaves, as well as a Man shouting. She followed the leaves, knowing that it had to be Frodo.

She came upon an old ruin, and heard Frodo and Aragorn whispering. Not wanting to interrupt, she stayed to the other side of the once massive fort.

“Can you protect me from yourself?” Frodo was asking urgently, trying to catch his breath at the same time.

“Would you destroy it?” he asked the Man quietly.

There was a long pause, and Raina inched closer, trying to see what was happening.

“I would have gone with you to the end,” Aragorn said quietly. Raina stopped breathing. Would have? Would have? What was that supposed to mean? “To the very fires of Mordor.”

With this, Raina scaled the grassy side of the ruin silently, and in an instant she was peeping over the side of the stone at Frodo and Aragorn. The Man was kneeling by Frodo, covering the Hobbits smaller hands with his own. They looked at each other in sorrowful understanding.

“I know. Look after the others, especially Raina and Sam. They will not understand,” he said, and Raina’s breath caught in her throat. So he really was leaving. This must have been what the Lady had spoken of. She shook her head. She thought that she would have had more time to figure this all out, to be able to say goodbye at least!

Raina didn’t catch what happened next, because she saw an alien movement to her side. Behind Aragorn stood an awful looking orc, its bow raised and pointed at Aragorn.

Her lip curled as she swung her bow around and notched an arrow quickly and silently. After less than a seconds worth of aiming, she let the arrow fly. It hit the orc straight in the chest, and she smiled triumphantly.

She swung her legs down and hit the floor next to where Frodo and Aragorn stood in shock. She looked into Frodo’s eyes for a long moment before the thundering steps of the orcs could be heard. Her eyes widened.

“Run!” she shouted to him, before loading another arrow and swinging around to face the oncoming orcs. Beside her, Aragorn unsheathed his sword and walked calmly out to face the group with her. Behind them, she could hear the quick and heavy footsteps of the Hobbit as he scurried back down to the boats.