"Come, come, Hobbit, good Smeagol shows you the way!"
"Wait up, I can't climb as fast as you can."
Samwise Gamgee gasped for air as he stumbled up the steep rocks, attempting to follow (more or less keep up) to his withered acquaintance in the dark of the cloudy night. Gollum had barely mentioned something about spotting something from the cliff edge, but before the Hobbit could catch another word, he was trudging up the hill after him.
"We shows nice fat Hobbit the way. Look, see!" the creature's breathy, scratchy voice quivered with his body.
"I can't believe you made me climb all the way up the darn stone," Sam shook his head.
Gollum, plainly excited, began to pick up his own pace, although an occasional limp would slow him down, but not for too long. Sam could easily tell something was on his mind. It wasn't mere minutes before the two had reached the edge of the small cliff. It was a short cliff, it's ledge only about ten meters from the rushing stream below.
"Something lurks in the shadows," Gollum muttered, pointing downward, where the cliff sloped at an inwards angle, creating a beach in the rocky shadows, "We are not alone."
"I don't see nothing," Sam said, his forehead wrinkled in frustration.
"Silly fat Hobbit, it must look to see," Gollum exclaimed, just before, "gollum, gollum," he made that familiar swallowing sound in his throat. I'm sure we all know that this sound is how he obtained his name, Gollum, after his former personality (Smeagol) was overthrown by the evil One Ring-induced alternate entity. But since his resurrection, Sam noted how he seemed to see more of Smeagol than of Gollum, which made him a bit relieved to see Smeagol was beginning to get over the ring.
Sam sighed, "I still don't see anything. You must be seeing things that really aren't there," as he turned to Gollum. Just then, Gollum was hunching over in a horrible hacking fit. "Anyway, if there was something down there, it surely had heard us and run off by now."
"No, no, precious, it must look! Look!" Gollum's eyes grew wide as he pointed at the shadows beneath the cliff. Sam immediately followed his gaze, and he, too, saw the movement of something near the stream.
"See?" croaked Gollum in a barely audible voice.
But there was only silence. No movement occurred from any being.
After a few moments of startled staring, Sam piped up, "That must have been a rabbit, or a squirrel of some kind. In fact, for all you know, that could have been a fish." Although Sam wasn't quite sure himself if this was completely true.
"No, precious, it doesn't know we smells it," Gollum hissed, "Not a rabbit, not a squirrel, no."
Sam looked searchingly at Gollum as the creature coughed.
"How do you know it's not an Orc or a Goblin? I reckon you don't even know if there's more than one," disagreed Sam.
"No! No, not goblinses, not orcses, no! We smells it, precious, it's fresh, but fat Hobbit cannot smell it as good as us, gollum, gollum!" Gollum coughed, and then sniffed.
Sam looked dumbfounded at Gollum. Then, he shook his head.
"You're daft! You are simply trying to get me to fall into your horrid little tricks, I can just tell. There is no way there is another person down there, you have no proof! This whole this is absurd!" he exclaimed.
As he did, Gollum got a familiar green gleam is his eyes as he shot a distasteful look at Sam. But then he sighed, and the green disappeared.
"No, no, it must trust Smeagol," Gollum begged, "We smells it, we do, truthfully do, very faint is the scent, but we do! gollum, gollum!"
Suddenly, Gollum perked his head up. Glancing at Sam, he peeked over the ledge of the cliff, followed by Sam himself. To both of their surprise, a faint orange glow emitted from the rocks below. A spark flew into the stream like a peaceful golden butterfly that sparkled in the night with no moon.
"There, look! Spark of flame! No rabbit would light a fire, precious, and we knows that Orcses don't like the orange tongues, but the Hobbit doesn't, precious, gollum, gollum, gollum!" said a rather eager Gollum, before he broke into another fit of coughs.
Sam stayed quiet as Gollum tried to silence his coughing. Finally, seeming to make up his mind, Sam edged closer to the dangerous end of ground.
"I think perhaps you are right," concurred Sam, and even though in the back of his head he knew it was a very foolish idea, he continued, "So I am climbing down the cliff."
