In the darkness a ring lay waiting, fallen from the hand that had held it for hundreds of years, just in time to be found when a hapless hobbit happened by.
Before that chance event could occur a figure appeared in mid-air and fell, landing heavily upon the ring. The minds within the figure being disoriented, the binding magic that ruled the figure's existence acted unguided. Finding a large source of powerful magic nearby--well, closer than nearby, actually, being pressed into the flesh of a shapely buttock--it immediately absorbed it.
Ranko's disorientation fled in an instant as her danger sense flared wildly and a sickening sensation of pure evil filled her surroundings. Acting on desperate instinct, she cast a protection from evil even as her dragon mentor did the same. Huddled together within their shield, the pair were unable to exert influence upon their form, which at the ring's behest resumed the form of the ring, matching it in all particulars.
No sign of the figure's brief presence remained and where the ring had lain there lay still a ring, of size and weight and substance identical to the first.
Neither the maiden that was once a man, Ranko, nor the dragon spirit that was once a blade, Tofu, felt or knew it when a small chubby hand picked them up and slipped them into a pocket, for they were focused on their defense.
Their counterattack began almost immediately, as one would cast, shoring up their protection from evil, while the other would try a spell against the flowing darkness that surrounded them.
It was a strange fight, for neither mind had form within that mental void, nor could they see one another, and that against which they warred was but a vague darkness that swirled about them.
Still, they were powerful in their own right, and they were two working united against one divided, for the ring had to ply its influence on its new wielder as well as trying to subdue them.
In fact, there was no real attack against them. The ring was not sentient, per se, and while it had definite effects on its wielder, they were not consciously directed. The impact it was having on Ranko and Tofu was not a result of a deliberate attack, but rather a consequence of the intense concentration of evil within the ring.
With nothing working intelligently against them, Ranko and Tofu soon settled into a pattern. Tofu maintained the protection from evil spell while Ranko used her attacks to burn away the evil. It was a slow process, since she also had to supply Tofu with energy to keep up the shield and had to take regular rests herself to recoup the energy she had used, but they made steady progress.
Trapped within as they were, they had no sense of the passage of time, so once they finally regained control they had no real idea of how long it had taken.
They were, they discovered, on a fine chain in the pocket of a fellow who went by the name Bilbo and lived underground. Ranko wanted to immediately vacate the area. Magic would suffice to allow communications and she had severe problems with the idea of being wielded. She had had wielders before and with a weapon of her power, most such memories were dark ones.
Tofu counseled patience. The matching process of their traveling device could take an indeterminate length of time, so there was no particular reason to hurry. They were safe, for the moment, and had an opportunity to learn languages and history. Tofu reminded Ranko that the better she got at matching her observations of the degree of difference between the world and the one she sought and the state of the dimensional artifact, the easier it would be for her to guide them home.
She reluctantly agreed and together they watched Bilbo and learned of his people. Ranko was quite surprised at the tale Bilbo told to his young relation Frodo of his 'Adventure.' He seemed far too ordinary a person to be involved in such things, to her mind. He was not even cursed! Unlike her, however, his adventure seemed to have happened and then ceased, while her life had never really settled down. It all seemed to have happened when he was around fifty and when his next birthday rolled around, they learned that it was his hundredth. The realization that it had taken them nearly fifty years to finally cleanse the ring of evil was deeply disturbing to Ranko. Just what was this ring that she had accidentally become one with?
She wanted to know its powers, to know what it could do aside from merely turning its bearer invisible, which ability she learned from Bilbo's tale, but Tofu cautioned her against exploring its powers. He feared that any such attempt might awaken a link between the ring and its creator such as she had had with Distanfae's helm so long ago, and he feared also that use of its powers might make it detectable. They could feel reasonably certain at the moment that no-one who desired the ring knew of its whereabouts, or it would not have remained uncontested in Bilbo's possession for fifty years.
After nearly a decade, Ranko and Tofu had both become comfortable with the common speech of the hobbits, as Bilbo's folk called themselves, and had learned to read and speak, sort of, the Elvish speech, or at least, as much of it as Bilbo had taught to Frodo. Ranko was becoming restless.
Before she had wearied completely of Tofu's counsel of patience a change occurred. Bilbo began planning for a huge party to celebrate his 'eleventy-first,' or one hundred and eleventh, birthday, as well as his nephew Frodo's thirty-third birthday. Thirty-three was the year that hobbits 'came of age,' and were considered adults in the eyes of the community.
Bilbo spent many long hours by himself before that party, talking to himself and to his ring. Key among the revelations that came to them from these ramblings were that Bilbo intended to leave at the climax of the party, and travel to Rivendell to live with the elves. That would have pleased Ranko, except that he also planned to leave the ring with Frodo, whom he would name his heir and the owner of Bag End, the home they lived in together.
Still Tofu convinced her to wait. The conversation, after the party, between Bilbo and the wizard Gandalf, in Bilbo's study, disturbed them both. He had put them into an envelope, still resting on the chain he had put them on so many long years before. For a moment they had rested on a mantelpiece, then they had been stuffed back into his pocket.
That was when Gandalf had come in. Their discussion had made it clear to Ranko and Tofu that one of the ring's properties, that had not ended until near the end of their campaign against its evil, if ever it had, was that it extended the life of the wearer. Bilbo's comments made it clear that it was not a pleasant extension. "Stretched," he said, "like butter that has been scraped over too much bread."
It took a bit of convincing on Gandalf's part, but in the end, they were left on the mantelpiece to await Bilbo's heir, Frodo. The conversations that ensued between Gandalf and Frodo disturbed them further. Gandalf placed great emphasis on not using the ring without need, and on keeping it secret.
"He knows something, or suspects something, about the ring," concluded Tofu.
"It hardly matters," objected Ranko. "What do I care what he thinks about it? What reason have we to remain here with this fellow? He's going to settle down and do just what Bilbo was doing. I wish that Gandalf fellow had kept his mouth shut. I would'a liked to see that Rivendell place Bilbo spoke of."
"It is dangerous, Ranko, to act without knowledge. We know nothing of the ring, nor of what it might do, beyond that it extended Bilbo's life and turns him invisible when he puts it on. That cannot be its sole purpose, not with the extent of the evil we purged it of! We have a chance, if that wizard fellow is off to do what I suspect he is, to find out the truth of the ring."
"But what does it matter?" Ranko said, irritated. "We purged it of evil."
"That we did, child," Tofu sighed, "but what of its maker? What if it attracts evil when you are near it? What if the only reason we've seen nothing is because we are in the middle of this Shire land, where nothing ever happens?"
"What do you advise then?" Ranko sighed. She had hoped to convince him, but though he had never contested her right to control the body, to be the one to live their shared life, she was never willing to simply overrule him. Though she did not hold with respecting someone merely because they were old, he had never led her astray, and she had come to depend on his knowledge. Too often, he was her only companion, and she did not want to alienate him. True, they both held other souls, a consequence of the nature of the blade he had been before becoming one with Ranko. Both had wielded the power of the soul-drinker, and they held those souls still within them. But those souls were not conscious, not active, though their knowledge could be gathered if one was willing to spend the time. Ranko was not, generally, for the only ones she had used the soul-drinker's edge against had been black of heart.
"Patience, child, is my counsel. Wait for the wizard's return. 'I may be able to tell you something when I come back,' he said. Let us wait for his return, and then we may learn what the ring was, and why he seems so concerned about it." Tofu smiled inwardly. He had grown to know Ranko very well over the years, as he watched over her as if she were his own hatchling. He knew as soon as she had spoken that she had resigned herself to following his advice. He was still surprised, occasionally, remembering his first experience with her indomitable will as it had shattered him, sending him into a decades long slumber, that she seemed to trust him so much, to so willingly abide by his counsel.
"Alright, Tofu. We will wait."
---
To Ranko's delight, Frodo did not follow the expectations of the folk of Hobbiton and settle down in the absence of the influence of the crackpot Bilbo and that dratted wizard.
Time passed swiftly enough, and as Frodo made his way into his forties, he began to go on long walks through the Shire. Often he would come upon one or more of the strange wayfarers that began at that time to appear within the borders of the Shire, and with them he would have long talks, learning of events far beyond the borders of his land.
Elves were seen passing through the Shire on the way to the Gray Havens, though as they were leaving Middle-Earth, they had little time or interest in the events in the eastern lands.
On the other hand, dwarves traveled the roads in unusual numbers, and from them Frodo learned much. Rumours came from strange dwarves from far-off countries headed to the mines in the Blue Mountains, seeking refuge, of the Enemy and the Land of Mordor.
Others spoke of the orcs, who were growing ever more numerous, and of trolls that wandered the lands once more, showing a cunning and intelligence unlike those of Bilbo's experience.
Ranko listened to all of this eagerly, though she found it somewhat disappointing that she found herself cataloguing differences between this world and Distanfae's world, not her home world. Indeed, other than not recognizing the speech nor any of the place names, the biggest difference by far, in her mind, was the almost complete absence of calls to higher powers. Even the dwarves seemed to swear by their ancestors rather than calling on a deity. She wasn't entirely sure how to take this, whether it was an indication that she was traveling in the wrong direction or not.
Frodo was forty-nine when Gandalf returned as night was falling one day in early spring, and for the first time had news of the ring. It had been nine years since his last visit. He began to tell Frodo his news, but stopped, saying that such matters were best left until daylight.
The next morning, Frodo and Gandalf sat by the open window of the study. A cheery fire was burning brightly in the hearth, for though the sun was warm, the air was still chill early and late with the memory of winter. Frodo sat in silence while Gandalf puffed on his pipe, blowing smoke rings as his mind wandered back to a spring nearly eighty years before, a late morning when Bilbo had run from Bag End without a handkerchief, trying to catch up to the party of dwarves that had left in the early morn.
When Frodo finally broke the silence, after sitting long in deep thought under the shadow of the tidings that Gandalf had brought, that seemed to bring a darkness even in the bright light of morning, Gandalf's first response disturbed Ranko and Tofu nearly as much as Frodo.
"In many ways, it is far more powerful than I dared to think at first, so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him."
Gandalf told Frodo of the history of the elvensmiths of Eregion, of the Great Rings, made for the elves, and their perils for mortals. He told of Bilbo's finding of the ring and the shadow that fell over his heart then, of Bilbo's preposterous story of a gift, fitting all too well the pattern of Gollum's matching story.
He requested the ring of Frodo, finally, and on receiving it, he cast it into the flames of the fire laid in the hearth. Tofu held back Ranko's reaction, reminding her that no mere hearth-fire could harm a Great Ring such as Gandalf had described, much less a weapon such as they were, while Gandalf restrained Frodo from rescuing the ring.
Finally Gandalf removed the ring and gave it to Frodo. Inside and outside of the ring were now visible fine lines of fire that formed the letters of a flowing script.
Thus it was that Ranko and Tofu, along with Frodo, heard for the first time the words of the ring, the One Ring, the Master Ring...
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Ranko cringed within the ring as she listened to Gandalf's tale of Sauron the Great, the Dark Lord of Mordor.
"The Enemy still lacks one thing to give him strength and knowledge to beat down all resistance, break the last defences, and cover all the lands in a second darkness. He lacks the One Ring."
Gandalf told the tale of the history of the ring, how it was cut from the hand of Sauron by Isildur, Elendil's son, after Elendil fell in battle against the Dark Lord; how Isildur was betrayed by it and slain, and the ring fell into the great river, Anduin. He told what he had learned from Gollum, how the hobbit Deagol found the ring only to be slain by his friend Smeagol, who took the ring and ended deep beneath the Misty Mountains as the pitiful creature Gollum.
Much more was said, until finally Gandalf made it plain. "There is only one way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the Fire-mountain, and cast the Ring in there, if you really wish to destroy it, to put it beyond the grasp of the Enemy for ever."
Ranko was both impressed and dumbfounded when Frodo offered the ring to Gandalf and the old wizard reacted most vehemently. "But his fear is no longer well-founded, is it Tofu? Surely it would not warp him to evil to wield us?"
"Do not be so sure, youngling. There were those who took you up with good intentions only to give in to the lust for power. Great power is not a safe thing to possess, even if it is not inherently evil."
Ranko sighed and waited as the human and hobbit sat in silent thought, then watched in misery as Frodo declared his intention to leave the Shire.
"We cannot let this poor fellow set out on this journey! You know as well as I that casting us into a volcano is not going to destroy us. We cannot let them go to such risks for a false hope."
"Now, Ranko, were you not listening? The Enemy this wizard speaks of has already heard the name Baggins, and knows where to look for it now. He will have to leave."
Ranko was silent for a few moments, not paying attention as Gandalf captured the eavesdropping Samwise Gamgee and he was pressed into service on their trip. Finally she spoke again, more slowly. "There is little we can do about that. You are right, he must leave. But if he has the ring, he will be in peril! And eventually, someone will seek to take it to the volcano. At the least, I can leave him, and probe the ring's power while traveling through an unpopulated land, if we can find such. That will lead them away, will it not? If they can in fact feel the power of the ring?"
Frodo was holding the chain that held the ring up in the air, showing it Sam. It twisted gently in the air, catching the light and holding their gazes; such a small thing to be causing such upheaval. So all were watching when Tofu finally conceded to Ranko's point, and to Gandalf's dismay and Frodo's secret delight, the ring vanished in a flare of white light.