Sucked Into Middle Earth...Just My Luck!

chapter 4

Alice's POV.

The trek up the mountain could have been worse I suppose, but we had decided to pass the time by teaching Merri and Pippin some famously terrible songs from YouTube and they were fast learners. It gave me extra pleasure when even Sam began humming the songs and Gandalf was mouthing a few of the versus he'd picked up. Boromir remained unimpressed with our antics but whenever he'd send me disapproving glares I'd smile at him sweetly and he'd look away again.

After a few hours spent trudging through the snow barefoot I offered the hobbits some decent footwear but they seemed reluctant so Karma materialised some thick, waterproof and thermal socks. It was a pretty decent compromise and as soon as they put them on their violent shuddering dialled down considerably. Of course, being unused to functioning in socks, the inevitable happened sooner than we could have predicted. Frodo slipped and tumbled down the slope we were climbing until he came to rest by Aragorn's feet, who helped him up immediately. Before he had even realised the ring was missing from his possession I scanned the snow and spotted a glint half buried in freshly turned powder. I started towards it, hoping I could intercept before Boromir was tempted. I knew if he lay his hands on the golden piece of evil it would poison his mind even more than it possibly had already and as much as he was a pain in the ass, I kinda liked his company, even if it was mostly for amusement purposes.
He began toward it just as I did, apparently having spotted it too, so I materialised a sword into my hand and pointed it at his throat as he reached to pick the ring up, successfully stopping him in his tracks before his hand had made contact.

It felt almost as if the world itself held its breath as Boromir glanced up at me and then back at the ring as though weighing his options. The others had gone silent and Karma discreetly shot me a warning glance for interfering more than I probably should have but I just couldn't watch him spiral into madness for some reason, not if it was avoidable. When I realised Boromir still hadn't retracted his hand I pushed the blade against his neck slightly harder and watched him clench his jaw as he leaned his head back a bit to look at me.

"I swear to god, touch that ring and I'll castrate you" I warned him.

"Heh, always so crass. I was merely going to pick the ring up for the hobbit, no harm intended" he tried his best to convince me. He didn't.

"Leave it to me. I have literally nothing to gain from the ring unlike you so I think it's best I do the handling" I told him firmly and he actually backed off.

"As you wish young Alice" he said in mock respect.

As soon as he had retreated I bent down and grabbed the surprisingly ugly, gold ring. I kind of half expected some sort of creepy whispering or temptation but as I stared down at it all I got was a weak animalistic hiss that made me quirk an eyebrow, feeling unimpressed. I could see Aragorn eyeing me suspiciously with his hand on the hilt of his sword. I shot him a reassuring smile and turned towards him but first I glanced at Karma and said, "ya know, this ring weighs a lot more than I had anticipated, like seriously, I knew evil was 'heavy' but I never thought they meant it literally".

Karma shot me a quizzical look and came over while the rest of the group seemed equally perplexed by my sudden statement. As soon as she was beside me I handed her the ring and she nodded at me and went, "you're not wrong".

She passed it back as easily as I'd handed it to her and I made my way down to where Frodo stood, eying me suspiciously. To be fair the ring usually made it pretty hard to resist keeping it but I hadn't felt any sort of pull, not to mention gold wasn't really my thing anyway.

"There you go!" I said as I dropped it into his outstretched hand.

He caught it a little awkwardly and hurried to reattach it to the chain around his neck. I glanced back toward the front of the group, somewhat surprised to find them all still staring. Did I have something on my face?