Title: The Fellowship. (as of right now, that is)
Author: Hiro No Tsuki
Series/Movie: Lord of the Rings.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Most likely none that weren't in the original books. (That means 'maybe, maybe not,' and if there are any, like as not it'll be slash.)
Warnings: Beware prolific use of Artistic License.
Quick Note: This is the expanded version of the first (and only) chapter of Modern Lord of the Rings. It will eventually be expanded more. There is more on the way, but bear with me, in the meantime. Questions and comments should be directed to and I do need a beta writer. I have only my meager research skills and a few of Tolkien's books to go by for references. (I'm don't trust the internet there, because a lot of people just put whatever they think they can remember.) Any assistance in that area would be much appreciated.
Frodo- . Thanks.
Digi ender- I hate writing in first person, anyways. Here's the better version.
Chimbo Baggins- Nuuuu. :-P That's just the first part.
YamiKinoko- Sorry about that. My early stuff was never really clear on certain things… But here is a much, much cleaner, and expanded version.
It's a slow start, I know, but I work on it every day at school when I have time, and afterwards.
And here is the new version of chapter one.
The Foreword.
Long, long ago, in the Medieval Era on the Continent known as Europe, there was an ancient war, like none which Men had ever seen before. It all began with one evil creature learning the secrets of the Elven-smiths. He went, at least to them, by the name of Annatar, and learned the secrets of forging a Ring of Power. There were twenty Rings that were forged at the time that were connected to him. The ones able to resist his will were the Three of the Elves, since Sauron, for that was his true name, had no part in their forging. However, the other sixteen were not as lucky. The Seven created for the Dwarf-lords were not all useful to Sauron. He was able to recover only three of them, for the other four had been consumed by Dragons. Each of the Men given one of the Nine was proud, and great, yet they too, fell under the dominion of the One Ring, and so became Ringwraiths; the Nazgul. The last, and the greatest of all of the Rings of Power, was the One Ring, forged by Sauron himself, in the great Mountain Orodruin. Being forged by Sauron himself, and having a good bit of the Dark Lord's own power vested inside it, had the power to command the other Rings, and magnify the power of its bearer.
Some time later, there was a great resistance, and the last alliance of Elves and Men came to be in a last desperate attempt to end Sauron's reign of terror. They succeeded, but more of how that came about shall be told later on in the story.
For now, however, the Ring vanished for hundreds and hundreds of years, and was thought to be lost, and eventually the Ring, its legend, and the War with its forger faded into obscurity, and only a select few remember any of it. Sauron was thought to be dead, and, despite contradictory eyewitness reports from those at the scene, many of those few thought that the Ring was destroyed. But that was to be proved wrong, after the two-thousandth year of the Sacrificed God had passed…
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'God it's hot,' thought Frodo Baggins, as he walked the makeshift streets of the Renaissance Festival. It felt like it was a hundred degrees, and even though he was wearing semi-light clothing, compared to what others chose, he was still broiling.
He wiped the sweat off of his forehead with the now very damp sleeve of his formerly white shirt, and wondered when it was going to end. A fan of these things he most definitely was not, but that was mostly because of the heat, and location. The damned Festival was located along the sides of a local lake, and the mosquitoes were not improving his mood. He needed the service hours, though, and consoled himself with the knowledge that he only needed to spend another two weekends until he had the required service hour amount to graduate.
'What idiot decided that we needed eighty friggin' hours?' he wondered dazedly as he settled back into his position at the soda vendor, trying to edge as far under the umbrella as he dared. They didn't even get a truck, and he had to share a rather small umbrella with his boss, an old, smelly fart who slept all the time and made Frodo do all of the work. Not that the high-schooler was complaining. Every minute that the man spent sleeping was one less minute that he was complaining about the heat and the teenagers who would come up and order half a dozen drinks, then come back five minutes later to return three of them.
A customer came up to the cooler-cart, and Frodo took her order- a Diet Pepsi- and her money, and gave her the drink. 'Just another day in the life of Frodo Baggins,' he thought. Then his mood brightened, for two of his friends, who loved the Festival, had spotted him through the crowd and were pushing toward him.
"Frodo Baggins!" one yelled over the noise of the crowd.
Quickly, Frodo pressed a finger to his lips in a mime for silence. If the old guy woke up and saw that Frodo was talking instead of serving non-existent customers, he'd be pissed.
The two nodded back, and came over more quietly.
"Frodo! What're you doing here?" asked Merriadoc 'call me Merry' Brandybuck.
"Working. I never got my service hours, so I'm here," he informed them.
"So you're working with Old Sourpuss, eh?" Pippin asked. His real name was Peregrin, and he liked it well enough, but the German English teacher had never been able to pronounce his name right, and one day, he had finally told her, "Call me Pippin," and the name had stuck. Now he was only called Pippin when he was in trouble, or at the Renaissance Festival, as he was now.
"Old Sourpuss?" asked Frodo, puzzled.
"Yeah. He used to sell lemonade, but then the man with the frozen stuff came along, and nobody wanted to buy his stuff anymore, so he moved on to soft drinks. I knew him back then, too, and he was as much of an old fartyhead then as he probably is now."
"Oh." The name completely suited the hag.
"How many hours do you need?" Merry asked.
"Uh… I've got twenty, and I still need sixty. So I'll be here for the next three weeks." He said sullenly, thinking of how much more of a bastard that the old man would become in the coming weeks.
Pippin tsked. "Now, Mister Frodo, I thought we'd taught you better than that. The service hour people never call to check up on the hours you actually did. All you need to do is write down double your hours, and voila! You have all of your hours in half the time."
"Is that what you did?" he asked. It sounded just like something that the two troublemakers would do to get out of real work.
"Of course," Pippin said, as Merry tried to look innocent. "You think we want to hang around, stacking books in a library for eighty hours?"
"Well, no-"
"There you go," Pippin cut him off. "Just double the hours, and Sourpuss there'll never know." He winked, and Frodo was starting to think longingly of all the hours he wouldn't have to spend in the godforsaken park with the mosquitoes and the old fart bellowing at him every five minutes.
He glared at the two boys, and said, "Fine, but if I get in trouble, I'll find you. You know I will. And then you shall pay. Oh how you shall pay."
Merry looked nervous. "Now calm down, Mister Frodo." He grinned. "After all, that's what we're for. Senior-pranksters extraordinaire, that's us."
"Right," Frodo said dryly. A sort of cough-snort came from the geezer in the chair, and Frodo glanced at his friends. "You should go before you get me in more trouble."
The two just grinned. "Us?" Then they were gone, vanished into the noisy crowd with naught a trace, leaving Frodo with a now semi-awake and fairly irate old man that was glaring at him accusingly, though Frodo was sure that he hadn't heard a word of the conversation. He sighed, and turned back to the crowd, trying to appear attentive.
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The 'stupid, young, irresponsible teenager' walked down the almost empty back road of the Festival, heading for the exit. It was now almost sunset, and Frodo wanted to get out before the damned bugs sucked him dry. There was a rustle in the bushes that was his only warning before a long, dry hand clamped itself around his upper arm, and dragged him through a small opening in the bushes on the side of the road. Frodo was flung to the far side of the small clearing that he found himself in, with a withered old man blocking his exit. Was this a new booth or something? A familiarity in the man's features caught Frodo's eye, and he found himself studying the man hard. The guy almost looked like- 'no, it can't be!'
"Uncle Bilbo?" he asked, which immediately set the old man off babbling about Mount Doom, and Sauron, and a Ring, how some Ring had to be destroyed, and Elves.
Elves? Elves don't exist; they were only a fairytale. Frodo hadn't even heard of Sauron? Was Sauron a place? No- the old man babbled something about Sauron being the forger of something that was lost in spittle, so Sauron was a person. A Ring? What Ring? The man obviously needed help, but Frodo didn't really want to be the guy's rescuer. He had a generous heart, but generosity usually stops when it comes to dealing with a crazy person. The man lunged at him, and grabbed a handful of the bundle of costume and Frodo's leather jacket that was in the teenager's arms. Frodo yanked it away, and stumbled back out of the clearing. The sun hit him full in the eyes, and it blinded him after the shadows of the glen. When he was finally able to see through the dazzle, the opening in the bushes was gone.
'Okay, what the hell?'
Cautiously, Frodo edged over to the bushes and poked them cautiously with a foot. Nothing.
'Whatever. I'm going home.' And Frodo left the Faire, putting his leather jacket on as he reached the parking lot, and he stuffed the costume in one of the saddlebags of his old motorcycle. He gunned the motor, and sped off down the dirt road leading out of the lot.
A half an hour later, he reached his home in Shire County, and rolled his bike into the garage. He yelled a greeting to his parents, their old friend, Gandalf, (old? The guy looked like he was a million years old!) and headed to his room, intending to wash the sweat and grime that tended to accumulate on everyone at the Festival, even if you were only there for five minutes. He dropped the costume on the bed and shrugged his jacket off, and felt for his keys in the pocket. Everything he was wearing needed… a… wash. His thoughts slowed as his questing ingers touched something cold, hard, and round, and it definitely wasn't a penny. What was that? He felt around, and was surprised to pull out a golden ring that reminded him of a simple wedding band.
He rolled it around in his fingers, and studied it. It didn't look like anything special, but the sixty-four thousand dollar question was,
'How the hell did I get this?'
Hiro: Er- opinions are appreciated.