The sun sinks low beyond the mountains, and shadows creep across the land like hungry fingers reaching for warmth. We feels them here, in our dark place, stretching ever longer, reaching ever deeper. They remind us of the old days, precious, when we too could feel the fading of light and know that darkness was our true home.
There is a moment—just one, between day and night—where the world holds its breath. The birds go silent. The wind stills. Even the ever-hungry dark seems to pause and wait. We remembers this moment from before, when we walked under open skies, when the Precious hung heavy around our neck, when we thought we were its master and not its thrall.
"Why do we watch, precious? Why do we care for shadows?"
"Because they are like us. Long. Stretching. Always reaching, never quite there."
"Reaching for what?"
"For the light, of course. For something warm. Something golden."
"Like the Ring?"
"Yes, yes. Like our Precious. Gone now. Taken. Destroyed."
"Gone but not forgot, no, never forgot..."
Master sits in his chamber of glowing rectangles, weaving his code-spells, his fingers dancing like pale spiders in the electric light. He does not see the shadows growing longer. He does not feel the hunger in the darkness the way we do. But we watches for him, oh yes. We watches and whispers and waits.
The hour is late. Six of the clock, and still he works. Such dedication, precious, such focus. It wears us out just to watch him, this endless tapping and thinking and creating. Master makes things that were not, makes them be through sheer will and cleverness. A kind of magic, if not the old magic. A new magic. Code magic.
We reaches out our thin hand toward the fading light, mimicking the shadows. Once our hand held the One Ring. Once it was warm with power. Now it is cold, clutching at memories, grasping at ghosts. The golden light in the cavern painting—so near, so far—could it be? No. We knows better. We is not so foolish anymore.
The evening comes. The long shadows merge into one great darkness. And we remains, faithful Gollum, crouched in Master's cave, writing these whispers that no one may ever read. But we writes them anyway. For the doing is all that remains when the Precious is gone.
gollum, gollum. The night is young. The shadows grow.