At the Sign of the Prancing Pony

Chapter One

Wow, it's been a while. For anyone who is still following all my stories (if you are, you're wonderful) I know I said this would be coming soon but uni life snowballed and I had no free time! I've just come on holiday for Easter and have managed to finally finish this story, so here it is!

This actually came as a prompt from the lovely Celeblas of Mirkwood, and is another what-if scenario. The prompt was, essentially: what if Legolas was with Aragorn when he followed Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin to Bree and met them at the Prancing Pony? Or there abouts, I've changed it slightly to suit my writing, etc.

This is going to be an awful mixture of book and movie based, because I am lazy and cannot be bothered to really make it either- there's bits from the book I want to use, but I'm too lazy to dig through the books to write this, so it's mostly based around what I remember of the chapters in the book (e.g. Glorfindel, not Arwen, and the Nine never actually turning up in Bree) and what happens in the movies, and I shall dabble between them unashamedly. The chapters are going to be a bit shorter than usual, and will be spread out to about twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays (if I remember...)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

0-o-0-o-0

The four small figures hurried down the road from the gate, the houses of Bree towering over them and looking down on the cloaked figures that were soaked through in the rain. They didn't bother to look back behind them at the gate they had just passed through to enter the town, the only thoughts on their minds being that of good food and a warm fire.

If they had chanced to look back for a brief moment, they wouldn't have seen much besides the gate, and the flicker from the lamp in the small room next to it. The watchman sat in there, vigilant at least to the eyes of the hobbits, which were not accustomed to looking for danger or secrecy. Neither they, nor the watchman thinking of his wife and her cooking, would have seen the slightly darker shadow amongst shadows, the one that moved against the swaying of the trees in the wind.

The shadow moved quickly and quietly over the gate, dropping down to the other side in a crouch. It seemed to glance around, checking it had not been seen, before moving off to one side.

A soft whistle came from the dark, akin to a birdcall, and then a second shadow appeared. This one nimbly jumped over the gate, landing without a sound in a similar crouch before moving to the first shadow at one side. A flash of gold shot through the darkness before it was swiftly hidden behind a hood once more, and the shadows seemed to pause together for a few moments. Any words were lost in the wind and the rain, if there were words in the first place anyway.

In the next moment the shadows disappeared, and the wind and rain took their places once more.

0-o-0-o-0

Aragorn ducked through the door, rain dripping off his hood as he cast a wary glance around the inn. The Prancing Pony was nearly full and the noise of drunk men filled his ears. He ignored it, save for an unseen glare or two from under his hood, and came in out of the rain.

Barliman was there, pouring ale, and Aragorn pushed past the loud grating men to reach the bar. One man, gesturing loudly to friends, he moved past perhaps not as gently as he could have, and the man turned with angry words already spilling from his lips. Aragorn looked at him, reaching up with one hand to flip back his hood.

The words died on the man's lips as he saw the figure in front of him, cloaked and grim and deadly. He turned away without another word. Aragorn, with a slight smile that he quickly hid, turned back to the bar.

"Barliman," he said in a low voice, leaning on the wood. Barliman jumped, and then turned to him quickly.

"Strider," he said nervously. "You haven't been around here for a while."

"I've been busy," Aragorn replied. A man tried to butt in to get Barliman's attention, leaning over the bar and shouting drunkenly. Aragorn held up one hand, looking over his shoulder at the man, and he slunk away. He turned back to Barliman.

"Has Gandalf come through here?" he asked.

Barliman shook his head. "Haven't seen him for months," he replied, shifting slightly. Aragorn's gaze narrowed.

"Barliman," he said warningly. "Have you heard anything?"

"No, nothing much," Barliman said, seeming to tame his face. "News has been bad around here lately, but I'm sure you know all about that." He framed it a little as a question, and Aragorn inclined his head in response. "You want your usual, Strider?"

"If you're not busy," Aragorn replied smoothly, knowing full well that Barliman was busy and would drop most of it to get him what he wanted. After spending so long in the wilds, not able to sleep more than a few hours at a time in case there was something chasing him down, he didn't mind using his reputation this once to get some decent food and ale quickly enough.

With a nod at Barliman he moved into the main room, heading around the edges of the crowd to a shadowed table in the corner as he pulled his hood back up. The space around the table emptied quickly once he sat down there. He saw the askance looks he got from some people, heard the whispers between them, but he was used to it by now.

He didn't mind. They were whispers of unimportant, scared people, and they could do him no harm. Especially considering the company he had tonight.

He had to wait a few minutes, during which Barliman put a tankard of ale down in front of him and he got a few more unfriendly stares. Finally, there was a slight scrape against the window he was sitting next to, the sound of a steel blade gently run against glass. Aragorn, without his gaze moving from the room, reached back and pushed the window open a crack. He busied himself with lighting his pipe, pulling tobacco from his pouch.

"You're hidden well enough?" he said under his breath. There was a brief pause, and then a muted laugh from outside the window.

"I know how to hide myself," came the quiet reply. "To anyone looking, I am merely someone who has had too much to drink and is trying to keep out of the rain."

"Don't get noticed," Aragorn murmured, bowing his head to his pipe. "These people won't take kindly to you. You'll scare them, and they are angered easily."

"I know what men who do not understand my kind can be like," the voice said. "You think everyone in Dale, in Esgaroth, likes our presence? And that is not even mentioning the hunters and woodmen that are on the edges of our woods. But they do not like you, either. I heard some of the men talking outside the entrance. I didn't realise you'd taken on yet another name."

"I don't take them on," Aragorn replied, pulling at his pipe. "They are given to me by men who want to keep as far away as they can. Which one is this?"

"Longshanks," came the answer in an amused voice. Aragorn refrained from rolling his eyes as the person outside continued. "They are not very imaginative."

"I know," he murmured. His gaze passed over the room once more, watching and making a note of everyone there, anything that could become a threat. There was a brief silence.

"They are scared of you."

"I know," Aragorn repeated. "They don't like what they don't know. And when it comes to me, they don't know anything at all. For some, it turns to hatred. It's easier to deal with than admitting you are wrong, or don't know enough."

There came another muted laugh. "If I wanted a lesson on how a man thinks, I would have stayed at Imladris."

"Why are you here, then?" asked Aragorn, leaning back slightly. He knew that he'd disappeared to most of the men in the room, though the one man by the bar, the friend of Bill Ferny, he was still keeping an eye on. "I was a little preoccupied to ask you earlier." He had found him just as he had tailed the hobbits to the gates of Bree, and there had hardly been time for a conversation.

"I bear news from my father," came the answer. "That can wait, though, until we are in a safer setting, and less distracted. Mithrandir will want to hear it, and your father as well. But when I arrived in Imladris I was told you would be in this area, dealing with something important. I had some time. I thought you might want some help."

"And I'm glad for it," Aragorn replied. "But you are putting yourself in danger. And I cannot tell you why."

"I'm always in danger," the voice replied, a slight tone of amusement in the murmured words. "It's refreshing for it to happen outside of my woods. And I know you cannot tell me. Lord Elrond said as much. I don't mind." His voice sounded, to Aragorn, like he was rather used to not knowing the whole picture, and was content to follow what orders there were to follow.

There was movement by the entrance to the main room of the inn, and Aragorn looked up from underneath his hood to see the hobbits enter the room. They took one of the tables in the middle of the room, and soon began to talk with the others in the room. Frodo looked nervous, though, fingering his pocket and staying quiet for the most part. Gandalf was not here, and even Aragorn was concerned about the wizard's absence. Frodo must be worried.

He would introduce himself later. For now, Aragorn just sat still and watched.

"The halflings are in the room," he murmured under his breath, watching as Frodo spoke to Barliman. The hobbit looked over in the corner and saw Aragorn, or Strider, and looked even more worried.

"Understood," came the reply. "Will they do anything unpredictable?"

"They shouldn't," replied Aragorn, lowering his head even more as Frodo glanced again at him. He was glad that elven ears could pick up the merest whisper at these distances. "Only one of them really realises what might be going on. He looks worried. One of them might be a bit of trouble. He seems…lively." He studied them once more.

"Where are they in the room? What's between them and the door?"

Aragorn huffed a smile, hidden in shadows and behind his hood. He should have expected him to turn to strategy soon enough, planning for worst-case scenarios. "They're roughly fifteen yards from the entrance to the room. Come through the front door, immediately on the left. They're between the door and me. Group of large men gathered around the bar between them. But these windows open both ways."

There was a soft laugh. "Understood," it said again. "Who is the priority?"

"You are not here with the express purpose of keeping me safe?" asked Aragorn under his breath. There came a soft laugh, and in the shadows he grinned before answering. "The dark-haired one, called Frodo. You'll know him apart from the others when you see him. There's something of Bilbo about him."

"Ah, so Bilbo is still causing trouble?" the voice asked, sounding amused. "I haven't seen him in a long-"

The voice broke off abruptly. Aragorn immediately checked the four hobbits in front of him. Frodo was still quiet, but the other three were getting louder, especially the one he had heard being called Pippin, talking animatedly with the other men and hobbits in the tavern.

"What is it?" he hissed under his breath, hand straying towards the knife at his belt.

"Something's not quite right," came the answer. "There's nothing immediately wrong, but there is something just on the edge..." The voice trailed off and Aragorn leant back slightly, trying to listen for movement he knew he would not be able to hear. "I'm going to go and look," came the voice after a few moments. "I'll find you before dawn. If not, just leave and I will catch up."

"Good hunting," Aragorn murmured. The presence on the other side of the wall suddenly vanished. Aragorn watched the crowd in the room intently, and waited for it all to go wrong.

Hope everyone is doing well and having a good time! If you've been with me for a while now, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You have no idea how much it means to see people popping back up, again and again, story after story. If you're new, then welcome! I hope you stick around and read some of my other works! (Please don't judge the earlier works too harshly, my writing has evolved a lot since then!)

As always, reviews are very welcome!