They were resting. The Fellowship had just set out from Rivendell, so they were feeling pretty safe still. Aragorn had lit a fire and Sam had taken out his pot and was putting together a nice smelling stew while talking to Frodo. Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli, and Gandalf were all smoking their pipes. Gimli was faced away from them all, obviously contemplating something, and Gandalf had his hat falling low on his face giving the impression that he was having a nap. Aragorn, as always, looked grim, but was keeping an eye on all of his companions—mostly the hobbits.

Merry and Pippin were the ones to be concerned about. They were, for some reason, attempting to climb a tree—or at least they were talking about climbing the tree, but they seemed to be quite hesitant in actually doing it.

"Go on Merry! Just grab hold of that branch and swing yourself up!"

"Take your own advice Pippin!" Merry retorted. "I'll not be going up that tree until you do. You are the one who climbed the most trees back home."

Pippin opened his mouth, but it just flapped uselessly. He blew out his cheeks, opened his mouth once more, closed it, opened it, and closed it.

"I've seen Dwarves climb trees faster than you, Peregrin Took." Gandalf said in a mild voice between puffs, before the young hobbit could once again try and fail to come up with an argument that could get him out of the situation.

Gimli, the Dwarf, turned on the Wizard furiously.

"That was to be taken as a compliment, Master Dwarf."

Gimli grunted, "Better be." He stayed turned around though, observing.

Pippin seemed to take offence. "Fine! I'll climb it!" He grabbed the branch the tree limb that he had pointed out to Merry, placed his feet on the trunk and attempted to walk up sideways. He stared intensely at his feet, taking care with his steps, but he always slipped and had to repeat the progress he had just made. This continued for a bit—Pippin didn't seem to want to give up now that he had started—but suddenly, the hobbit gave a cry, "Ahh!" Then he let go, falling to the ground and the breath got knocked out of him.

There had been a medium sized spider that had crawled near Pippin, and he had seen it just in time to stop himself from squishing it. Nevertheless, he was startled and his grip had loosened, thus he fell.

"What is it? Pip?" Merry asked urgently.

"Spider!" He gasped, pointing to the hairy arachnid. The others, who had startled and reached for their weapons, looked to where he was pointing and relaxed. Gimli laughed with Gandalf, Aragorn's lips were twitching, and even Frodo seemed to find humour. Sam smiled. Boromir chuckled.

Then a sharp silver knife flew out of nowhere and pinned the spider to the tree. The spider died.

Legolas dropped from a tree behind them into silence.

He walked up to his knife, pulled it from the tree, and turned to the others. They stared at him, stunned, until he said simply, "I don't like spiders."