Write Your Own LOTR - TTT - Book IV

[Primula]

Frodo pried his face up again, intending to try tying the rope around him for additional security. Instead, the bubbayum quite unaccountably lost its magical adhesion to the cliff and he quite abruptly found himself forced by dint of gravity into following Sam's advice. He plummeted downward, the silken rope protesting with a zzzzzzzt! as it slid through his hands.

WHAM!

He stared up at the top of the cliff from the flat of his back. The rapid descent had floated the now un-sticky bubbayum from his face and he watched, dazed, as its filmy pink circle floated down after him like a tiny parachute.

"I....(gasp).....I'm down, Sam.....(gasp)...."

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

"About time, too," muttered Sam.

Cheerfully he called down the cliff, "So! How's the view, sir? Anything of interest?"

To himself he muttered some more, "Next you know he'll be wantin' me to join him, though I don't see how."

Sam popped his gum and blew a bubble that grew bigger and bigger.

[Primula]

Frodo gazed up at the vague silhouette of Sam's head at the top of the cliff. He rubbed his eyes. It had to be his imagination... it looked like Sam's head was bulging and shrinking, growing to a most unhobbitlike proportions then suddenly snapping back to a tiny size with a pop! Frodo squinted but it was still happening... Sam's head grew again, this time to an enormous size and wobbled in the wind.

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

And poor Sam, much to his horror, took flight...

[Primula]

Frodo could only look on helplessly as his trusty servant's head became so large he was lifted bodily into the wind. "Sam, you airhead! Breathe out! Breathe out!" he cried, and waved his arms about in a useless fashion.

When that failed to improve matters, he tried scraping together a pile of dead grass to make a cushion for Sam to land on...unfortunately, this being the Emyn Muil, he ended up with a total of about six (and a half) stunted brown stalks. He lined them up in a pathetic little row and just hoped for the best.

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

I am breathing out, Sam wanted to shout, but fortunately did not because that would have meant releasing the bubble clenched between his teeth. Not a good thing.

Maybe if he breathed in... the bubble dimished, and Sam began to drop, mayhap a bit too quickly, so he breathed out again and bobbed.

Hmmm... Sam experimented with breathing out and breathing in, noting how he dipped and lifted.

He dared not look down, for he hated heights.

[Primula]

Frodo watched in despair as Sam began to dip and bob about in the sky erratically as a one-winged bumblebee but less gracefully. He shot first to the left, then the right, up then down. And down. Left... down...right... He grabbed up his handful of grass and ran from one spot to another trying desperately to keep it under wherever Sam was about to land.

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

And just as it looked like Sam might possibly maybe hit that little tuft of grass, he sneezed, and landed atop of poor Frodo, with the wind knocked clean out of him.

[Primula]

Frodo, flattened and mildly stunned, watched as the silvery Elven rope fell from the cliff and neatly coiled itself around Sam's feet...which happened to be by his Master's face at the moment.

He rolled Sam off and staggered to his feet. It was getting dark. "What the heck," he muttered. "You're already laying down anyway - I suppose we might as well camp here. Safe enough. After all, how could anything ever get to us down that cliff?"

[agape4rivendell]

After spending at least 110 days laughing at the antics of the two Hobbits, Gollum slapped Smeagol on the side of the head....

"What's wrong with you, you stupid Stoor? Can't you see we can make some money with these idiots' antics?"

With that, he grabbed a megaphone, lying conveniently on the side of the rock he stood upon, and bellowed...

"Come one, come all, see the silly Hobbits fly through the air, bump into each other, fall down cliffs, and generally look like fools!!!"

The Emyn Muil came alive with various and sundry creatures. First, worms crawled out of their holes, knowing that Gollum was too busy being a showman to pay them any mind; then, nice crunchy birdses flew over and sat on a row of rocks directly in front of the cliff that held the two hapless Hobbits; after that, Orcs and Urak-hai, trolls and wargs, wraiths and their winged mounts, all climbed up on whatever available seat there was and watched, spellbound, as the two twittering Hobbits did their 'act.'

Gollum was beside himself with joy and ran around the assembled audience with a makeshift hat (made of that gummy stuff that had fallen off the first Hobbit and some of the weeds - the same kind Frodo had used as a safety net for the fat Hobbit) and demanded coin or whatever valuables the audience might have on hand.

The action, suspense and drama created by the two tumbling Hobbits was such that the audience was willing to pay any price to see it continued. The groan of despair that followed the two thudding Hobbits land upon the ground was so sad to hear that Gollum 'ALMOST' cried.

No - dear reader - he wasn't crying due to the sadness, though Smeagol would have you believe that was the reason. In truth, Gollum cried because the tableau was over and the audience was already on their feet and leaving. He tried to cajole a few more coin from the wraiths but they reminded him they could very easily take him back to Barad-dur and make 'HIM' the spectacle.

He immediately ran behind the rock, leaving Smeagol to appease the wrathless wraiths....

Phew!

[Primula]

Frodo lifted his head from an almost-nap with a snort. The storm must be getting worse, the echoes among the rocks at the bottom of this cliff made the thunder and wind sound like a large crowd somewhere just out of sight, clapping and jeering. Or maybe it was Sam's whistling snores doing it...

[agape4rivendell]

Once he ate every worm he could find and a few crunchy birdses that were not fast enough to get away, Gollum snorted as the Uraks returned to their post by Sarn Gebir, bows strung and waiting for any other hapless soul to get stuck in the rapids, and the Orcs returned to terrorizing the Rohirrim on the other side of Emyn Muil...

He watched the wraiths fly off, surprised that they had stopped their ear-splitting screams long enough to laugh at the ones their Master was looking for - Again, he shook his head. Middle-earth as he knew it was going to the dogs... er... wargs... er... flying beasts. He popped another worm and gave up any thought of reason.

'What's that, precious?' Smeagol heard him say. 'We feels something near, something we loves above crunchy birdses and wriggly fishes... Ah, yesssssssssssssssssss. The preciousssss - '

He raised his head and sniffed the air. 'Close, so very close, precious!' and he began to dance with glee. Smeagol tried to hold him down, after all, they were on the top of the Emyn Muil itself, nasty rocky craigs and such about, but nothing he could do could hold Gollum down. Dancing and dancing, backwards and forwards, the little creature went until, as if to answer Smeagol's most desperate fear - he fell............

If the casual observer noticed, it would look more like a stealthy climb downwards. Smeagol knew different....

[Primula]

Frodo's eyes popped open again as there was a rattling of pebbles and then a rain of small chunks of cliff off to the side. This was followed by the rapid descent of a lump of....something... that squeaked like a dogtoy every time it richoceted off a ledge or crack. It finally stopped there in the gloom with something like arms and legs sticking out of it.

Frodo gripped the sleeping Sam by his arm. "What's that?" he whispered. "Over there on the cliff!"

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

Sam snorted, and grumbled under his breath. "What's it, Mr. Frodo? What are you goin' on about now?" His voice turned into a whine.

He struggled to follow the direction of Frodo's pointing, quivering finger. Then he rubbed his eyes, and rubbed them again. A heavy sigh escaped him.

"Really, Mr. Frodo, you do go on so," Sam groused. "It ain't nothin' but..." Sam looked harder. "Eeeeewww..."

[agape4rivendell]

'We hates cliffses, we does,' Smeagol whimpered whinily, wearing raw Gollum's ragged nerves

'Shut yer gob!' He clasped his hand over his mouth. 'Been spending way too much time with Orcs lately!'

'If it weren't for me, we'd be a puddle on the ground next to those two stupid Hobbits. These gangly arms are good for something. Now be quiet so's we can sneak up upon them. I smells something and it ain't just the Ring. Smells like food.'

'It's my fish, probably,' Smeagol snorted soundly. 'Here!' and he pulled a decaying fish from his.... 'Hmmm.... where did my pockets go?'

Gollum hit himself on the head, muttering darkly.