reality_crossroads | (no subject)

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The cold hard lands, they bites our hands, they gnaws our feet! The rocks and stones are like old bones, all bare of meat! *Here he pauses: the possible options he's come up with, over the years, for continuing require that he either rhyme 'feet' with itself or use the word 'fish' for two lines in a row. Despite his (admittedly small) ambitions Smeagol is not an especially good poet, nor does he have a wide range of topics to choose from.

*Thus he's going with his usual non-solution to problems he can't deal with, which is to splash at the water while hissing and muttering to himself. Happily he's discovered swim trunks; his old clothes were a nightmare and have been relegated to the rag pile.*

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[Marty nods, meeting his gaze] Yeah, you were.

Oh, I can bet. [He also removes his jeans, socks, and shoes, and sets everything on the first decent-sized rock he can find before wading into the water] Just anything not freezing must be great.

One good thing about Gollum, he got usss through five long centurieses in the dark.

Mmm, yesss. *He dives under the surface for a bit, then pops back up.* Cold water isss bessst for drinking, but not for bathses and ssswimming.

Yeah -- everybody's good for something!

Mmmm -- you couldn't get me to stick a foot in here if it was too cold. [but it isn't, so he'll continue on -- maybe not as enthusiastically as Smeagol, but he's there, he's splashing himself]

Not Sssauron. *He flexes his fingers in remembered pain.* Not nasssty Wraithses, either.

[Marty makes a face] Yeah, you got me there. Those weren't good for anything or anyone. Good thing they should all be gone now.

All gone, yesss. And now there isss bedses and nice clean water.

[Marty grins, sitting down in the water] Yeah, that's the ticket. And fish?

So much fish! *He grins his full six-fanged grin.*

Awesome! Glad to hear you're doing well!

Man isss kind to care. What reassson doesss nice Man have?

It just tends to stick with you when you come across a guy who just barely survived falling into a volcano. Besides, I've had my share of moments where I wished someone had cared about me.

*He winces.* The fireses, yesss. Hard to forget them. Water be much better, Smeagol isss thinking.

Praps we can help mice Man next time.

Water is loads better, yeah. Let's keep far away from the fires.

Maybe, yeah. If the asshole fae who kidnapped me once ever shows up, you can throw rocks at him for me or something.

No fire. Why Men ussse fire we can't imagine.

Smeagol can do more than rockses. Our hands are ssstrong, yesss, and nimble too. No goblinses came back unlesss Gollum let them, the dark pool wasss our domain.

Well, typically for staying warm and cooking food. . .but in my world, we've come a long way from having to use open flame to do that. Now you only have a fire if you're out camping in the woods or something.

[Marty shoots him a wicked smile] Sounds good to me. What that bastard deserves. Wasn't just my life he ruined.

We sssupposes warm is good. *His disgruntled expression shows what he thinks of cooking.*

Better than cold, anyway. [catching the look] Most of us aren't as good as you are at eating raw fish. We can sick from that.

Cold isss bad, yesss. But too hot isssn't better.

Poor Men, getting sick from good food. *He thinks for a moment.* We think Smeagol had the sssame problem at firssst. But we learned to like it and didn't get sssick anymore.

[wincing] Yeah, okay, that's fair. Need a happy medium here.

I guess if you eat it enough, your stomach gets used to it. But yeah, us Men started cooking things and just never looked back. Though some people still eat raw fish -- it's just prepared in a special way, with seaweed and rice and junk. Called "sushi."

Smeagol knowses cold. Usssed to it, yesss. Yellow Face was a nasssty sssurprissse for more reasonses than light.

*Since his knowledge of seaweed is that it's presumably a weed from the sea and he's never heard of rice this explanation is not as helpful as it might have been otherwise.* The River Folk were not ssso different from Men, but I am no longer of that number. And that's without even the matter of there being two of me, no.

Yeah. . .I guess you had to get used to a lot of stuff while you were down in the dark. At least now you shouldn't be getting too hot?

Right -- you and yourself are kind of your own thing, now.

Not hot, not cold. Comfortable, yesss.

Smeagol-Gollum isss all alone, my love. No otherses like usss, not one.

Yeah, comfortable is great.

That. . .must get lonely, sometimes. [he was gonna say "sucks," but -- the reason Smeagol is the way he is is because of the evil of the One Ring. He can't actually wish that had happened to anyone else]

*Not even Smeagol can truly wish it on another--part of him felt pain seeing what was happening to Frodo on their long journey. Gollum thought it was no more than he deserved, but then Gollum was the Ring to some degree.* Not too lonely now, not with Men around. Bad under the mountainses, but not ssso much here.

Well, that's good at least. Having someone else to talk to really makes all the difference, huh? Certainly did for me when I met Doc back in Arcadia. [he wasn't about to have any long conversations with his Keeper, after all]