III

AaahhHHH! Freak Out!

Unsurprisingly, the only thing that came spewing from her mouth was the now slightly yellowish water she'd accepted from Elladan just minutes ago. Her stomach roiled and clenched worse than it had earlier and she hastily covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve to stop the horrible stench from making her do it again. Stomach acid laced water and dead warg mixed together in a cocktail of foul gas that was so potent it put a garbage site to shame. Next time she caught a whiff she probably would upchuck blood and guts.

Feeling a gentle hand on her shoulder she immediately flinched away from it. The hand withdrew, but Elladan's—or Elrohir's, she wasn't quite sure which was which when they spoke—gentle voice sounded a moment later.

"I apologize, Lady Willow. It is not a pleasant sight to see. I did try to warn you." Ah, so it was Elladan

"It's not the sight that made me sick. It was the smell," Willow replied in a mumble, her ire muffled by her sleeve. She couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the carnage laid out before her either.

She'd landed on the body of a dead warg, but its three brethren were close by and so were their riders. All eight of them had long bloody gashes across their chests or arrows sticking out of them at odd angles like giant pin cushions. Their eyes were wide open and lifeless; mouths agape, screaming in silence. She pulled her sleeve away as she inched farther back from the mess and almost retched again when some of the smell reached her.

She quickly started to breathe through her mouth, but that did little to abate the horrendous stench. At least she didn't heave again. "Although this is all very, very disturbing to look at, it wouldn't make me puke," she finished, shooting Elladan a glare out of the corner of her eye. The guy still stood at her side, but thankfully didn't reach out to comfort her again.

Which was probably a good thing—for him. If he had, Willow could practically guarantee he'd be pulling back a bloody stump.

"You sound as if you have seen much death, my lady," came the slow reply as if Elladan couldn't decide if her indifference was admirable or disturbing. Another glance at his face told her it was a mix of the two. His thick brown eyebrows were drawn together over his long aristocratic nose, but a barely there smile pulled at his lips. She would have thought the expression cute if the turn of events hadn't suddenly made her even more wary of her new companions than she was before. Finding this mess had sullied whatever amiable relationship they'd managed to develop during the short walk back to the field.

"Not so much in person," she said, narrowing her eyes at him as she shuffled farther away from the lunatics with a medieval fetish. "But that's not the point. The point is they're dead. And you guys killed them."

"Yes, my lady." By the horses, Elrohir's eyebrows narrowed in confusion, mirroring his twin. Glancing between her and the pile of dead animals and people, understanding slowly began to dawn on him and his expression softened. His brother's did too and it seemed they realized that she was now scared of them. "As we mentioned before, orcs, and especially wargs, are dangerous, evil creatures with no consideration for life. They needed to be dispatched in order to—"

"Dispatched?!" Willow cut him off with such a high pitch to her voice that it was on the verge of hysterical and she very nearly laughed in a way that would make the Joker proud. The casualness in the way he phrased his words worried her. "You aren't in the Hunger Games, dude! Those guys were people like us, not orcas or whatever. And those animals?" She pointed to the warg she'd recently been sprawled across sharply, her arm trembling slightly. "Vicious or not, they had rights. They all had rights. What kind of fucked up game are you guys playing out here?!"

Willow was vaguely aware that she was starting to hyperventilate. Her chest felt tight and her head was woozy, but she ignored it as the twins only frowned at her. They seemed just as confused as before, but their expressions now held a little more contempt after her accusations. They looked hurt, as if her being mad at them for murder was the shocker here.

These guys must have been crazier than she thought.

Willow didn't care. They were murderers and even though she knew she should be running for her life—again—she was also aware how pointless that would be. They had horses and she only had a pair of exhausted, blistered feet to carry her and no idea where to even run. They also had the advantage of long range weaponry.

"There is no game, Lady Willow," Elladan reiterated, sounding almost annoyed. Yeah, he wasn't the only one. "We are elves. And they were not human and neither them or their beasts had rights in any land. They never have and they never will. They are creatures of darkness; forces of evil that must be destroyed for the good of Middle Earth."

"'Middle Earth'," Willow scoffed, faking his accent. She shook her head in incredulity. They even had a name for their little fucked up world. Well, of course they would; they were trying to escape reality by creating a fictional one. One that probably allowed them to act out their weird fantasies with bar wenches and chamber maids because they were too awkward to go to a club or sign up on a dating site like other people.

But then, what if she had this all wrong? Normal people, even ones who LARPed on an embarrassingly regular basis, were generally sane even if they were a little odd. The friends she had that did LARP didn't go around killing people for real in their games; she knew no one took it that seriously. Plus these guys were so hardcore that they knew a different language and carried weapons that she was beginning to suspect were actually real. From what her friends told her, LARP organizers usually checked to make sure participants didn't have anything real for the safety of other players—but mostly to protect themselves from getting sued.

Maybe. Just maybe she'd somehow stumbled upon a weird outcast subculture in the middle of nowhere that allowed people living in a different reality to play out their fantasies for therapy. Kind of like in that movie Shutter Island. However, in that movie no one had actually died and it was all in Leonardo Dicaprio's head. Either these guys were crazy, or Willow herself was.

She was inclined to believe the former.

During her musings Willow's gaze had traveled back to the pile of dead monsters while the supposed elves just stood there watching her. Spotting movement out of the corner of her eye, Willow tossed a glare over her shoulder at Elladan warningly. He took his outstretched hand back and he let out a quietly dismayed sigh.

Good. He could save his rescuing the damsel in distress roleplay for some other wench.

"Lady Willow," he began again and damn him, crazy or not, for having one of the sexiest voices she'd ever heard, "I know you do not trust us, but we must leave here and make for the safety of Rivendell. If we hurry we may reach there by dusk."

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere with you," Willow laughed bitterly, leaning farther away and twisting her body to give him a snarl. The position was uncomfortable and probably made her look like she was drunk, but she was pretty sure her bitch-don't-touch-me face said everything she needed to. "How do I know you won't stab me too, huh?"

Elrohir made a noise of unmitigated shock and her gaze moved from his doppleganger to him. Like Elladan, his face was twisted in a horrified expression, eyes impossibly huge and mouth open wide enough to catch flies. The brothers blinked a few times, exchanged wordless glances and finally stared at Willow in consternation.

"We would never do such a thing, we can assure you!" uttered the brother farthest from her. "You have our word!"

"No offence, but your 'word' doesn't mean jack shit to me. I just met you asshats!" If the elves' eyes could get any wider she was sure they would fall right out of their heads. She spread her hands out in an exaggerated grand gesture towards the bodies. "And the evidence is right before me, gentlemen, no use denying that you're murderers."

"Enough of this." Elladan suddenly shot forward, his shock replaced abruptly by anger and frustration. Willow, her ranting interrupted, leaned back and rose her hands in a feeble attempt to defend herself, but found there was no point when instead he moved passed her to bend over the corpses.

Rather than grabbing her or assaulting her like she might have thought he would, he grabbed at the leather chest armour of the nearest orc and hoisted it with the ease of lifting a jug of milk. Dragging the lifeless corpse closer to where she sat, Willow yelped when he dropped it in front of her.

"This is not a person, we are taking part in no game and we are certainly not murderers," he said as he knelt on the opposite side. "This," he continued, completely ignoring the horrified expression on Willows face, "is an orc." As if to drive his point home, the elf did something next that made Willow want to run away, scream and vomit again all at once.

To her complete horror Elladan unsheathed a long sharp—and admittedly beautiful—knife from his belt and with one swift arch of his arm he plunged it into the belly of the orc. Elrohir shouted at him to stop, but it was already too late. The leather armour did nothing to hinder the blade as it sunk in with a sickeningly squishy sound and then a slurp when he yanked it out again. Willow wanted to turn her head away, but morbid curiosity held her in place.

Elladan held the blade up, covered in what looked like molasses, only not as thick, and practically shoved it in her face. The fresh liquid—the blood—dripped off the tip of the knife as the elf held it just inches away from her nose. It smelled even worse when up close and Willow finally turned away, fighting off another wave of nausea.

"No, it… I-it's coagulated… It has to be," she tried to argue, but her voice was small and weak. Even she couldn't believe that sorry excuse for an explanation. That blood was practically fresh, the body only being dead for maybe ten minutes. It wasn't enough time for the blood to coagulate that much. That blood was as black as black could be, but there was no mistaking that that was what it was.

But no. No, it just wasn't possible. It couldn't be. People didn't have black blood!

"This is not human blood, my lady, this is orc blood," Elladan pressed as if reading her thoughts. He then used the knife to point at the man's—no, the orc's—head and it's subsequent features. "Those are not human teeth and neither are those human ears."

All Willow could do was blink dumbly when Elladan fell silent, though he continued to bore holes into her forehead with his unrelenting gaze. But she couldn't bring herself look at him. Her gaze remained glued to the carnage laid at her feet and now seeing it in a different light, an impossible light, she felt frozen with fear. She couldn't deny what she'd just seen; couldn't deny that those things weren't human.

Looking at them now, she realized her brain must have been grasping at straws to cling to reality before. These creatures looked and smelled nothing like humans and the wargs should have been a neon sign in telling her that something wasn't right, but she was too stubborn to get it through her thick skull. Everything now was glaringly obvious. The elves, the orcs, the wargs… It was all real.

But it couldn't be… could it? The dead bodies, the starvation, the weird creatures; it had to be her imagination. It was the only logical explanation! She was probably locked in a mental ward right now, refusing to eat in her delusions and she was the one playing out a fantasy in her screwed up little brain. It couldn't possibly be all real.

Deftly, she pinched her arm. Ouch. Nope, she still had feeling. Ok, so she was hallucinating. The stress finally got to her and now she was imagining things. She'd finally cracked and was in a weird mental state wandering around a frozen city, daydreaming about mythical creatures. That's it! She was delusional from hypothermia!

Tearing her gaze away from the dead bodies, it collided with Elladan's once more. His stare softened when their eyes met and he opened his mouth to say something, but never got the chance. As fast as she was able to in her condition, Willow decided to test another theory and her hand shot out to grab the tip the elf's ear with her thumb and forefinger.

She tugged. Hard.

Elladan cried out in surprise and tore himself away from her touch, nearly falling into the carnage like she had earlier. She felt a little guilty for causing him pain, but she couldn't dwell on it in the face of the discovery she'd just made and the rising panic attack that was following. The tug had allowed Willow to feel the real skin and cartilage and the resistance it gave for just a moment, but it was long enough to confirm her suspicions that the point was in fact real and not some cheap latex glued on for effect.

And also real in the sense that it not only looked pointed, but it felt pointed too. The point was not a hallucination. Ugh, of course it wasn't. The grass and the trees and the damn scrapes she got felt real enough before, it only made sense that it was all real.

Not that that realization made her feel any better.

"O-oh my god…" Her words were so softly spoken that she could barely hear them through the sound of blood rushing in her ears. Her eyes never left Elladan as he soothed his injured ear, shooting her dirty looks from under his brows. Another pang of guilt hit her, but it was quickly swept away. "You're… You're an elf. A real goddamn… elf."

"As we have been trying to tell you, my lady," she heard Elrohir gently reply somewhere off to the side.

She didn't look at him. She couldn't bring herself to move after tearing her gaze away from Elladan to stare at the mutilated orc practically hanging over her lap again. She zoned out, taking in every detail of its mottled skin and rotten, pointed teeth. His eyes were open too, staring sightlessly at the sky. They were a pale yellow with tiny, tiny pupils.

Vaguely, she was aware that she was shaking. Her body trembled like the last leaf at the end of autumn and a cold numbness was beginning to take over her, masking the feeling just as quickly. Starting in her back, it spread like liquid nitrogen to her limbs and chest until she could only feel her head. It was thick and heavy as if someone had filled it with cotton balls soaked in chloroform.

After two days, the starvation was finally getting to her. Well, either that or she was so in shock that her body just decided to shut down. In reality it was probably a combination of the two. She was scared and confused and oh so sleepy. She just wanted to nap. Hopefully, when she woke up she would be in a nice padded cell with some friendly attractive doctor that looked like Elladan telling her she would be fine in no time. She'd always wondered what those squishy walls felt like, but she knew that was too much to hope for.

She heard the voices of the elves around her, but she couldn't make out anything they were saying as she tried to concentrate on breathing properly. The harder she tried the more it felt like she couldn't get her lungs to work and her vision tunnelled. She blinked hard, the action making her dizzy, and she felt herself falling. The back of her head smacked the ground hard enough to cause stars to dance in the blackness and before she lost consciousness completely the last thing she saw in that little pinprick of light was one of the twins' concerned faces.


Elladan watched as the young woman's eyes fluttered shut and her body relaxed into a crumpled heap. He felt his own shoulders lose some of their tension as her chest rose and fell at a more steady pace than it had just moments ago. Although strange, callous and rather quick to accuse them about things she clearly did not understand, Lady Willow was still an innocent woman left on her own for days without nourishment and was in need of their assistance.

"Is she alright, brother?" He felt Elrohir's approach before he spoke, but Elladan didn't turn his head to look at him until he was at his side. His brother had switched back to Elvish and came to stand by his right shoulder, looking over him to take in the image of the hellion who called herself Willow Henderson. Elrohir's brows were furrowed in worry.

"I'm not certain. She hit her head when she fainted. I believe it was from shock, or perhaps malnourishment. Perhaps both. Whatever the case, she will be much easier to bring to father now," Elladan replied and the look his brother shot his way made him almost rethink his flippant tone. But then he shrugged. Crossing his arms over his chest Elladan stood from his crouch and faced his brother. "What? She said herself that she wasn't coming with us willingly and you know as well as I do that she needs to see father. I see this as a gift."

Elrohir heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes, glancing down at the red headed stranger, sympathy taking over the exasperation quickly. "Yes, I know, but you don't have to be so crude. The poor mortal is scared and weak with no more than a few sips from your water skin. Which she also just voided, mind you."

"She pulled on my ear, Elrohir!" To emphasize, Elladan pointed to said mauled ear and his brother had to stifle a laugh when he saw how red the tip was. The mortal must have had a good grip on him to leave it so red for so long, but he supposed it served his brother right for what he did. Gutting an orc, dead or alive, right in front of her and shoving the bloody knife in her face like he had was no way to earn her affections.

"You deserved it and you know it, so I beg you not to complain about it the entire journey back to Imladris," Elrohir sighed.

"I won't if you agree to carry the witch. I dislike the thought of her waking up in my arms and assaulting me again while I'm only attempting to guide her to safety," Elladan grumbled, a shiver of fear creeping down the slightly older twin's spine

"Oh, I see. And letting her mistake me for you is better?" Elrohir sniped back with a scoff, but nonetheless he bent to pick up the unconscious woman. Callous and strange or not, he wasn't about to leave her here just because he was worried she'd attack him.

Elladan's grin was all the answer Elrohir needed and he kicked out at him, which his brother easily avoided. The mortal was surprisingly light for how muscular she appeared and he was relieved when she did not stir as he adjusted his grip under her knees. He began to follow Elladan towards the horses.

"Regardless of whom she awakes with, I am certain she will still feel threatened, my friend. That was quite the little fit she just had," Handion said to them as the twins approached. He'd remained waiting patiently by the horses, a smirk now on his lips as he took in the sight of Elladan's ear. Elladan scowled at his friend's teasing, but said nothing in rebuttal when his brother also let out a snigger. "I do not speak the common tongue, but even I could see she is very frightened and hysterical," the third member of their party added with a shrug.

Elladan let his shoulders slump and he sighed, knowing Handion was right. Lady Willow was… well, the only word he could think of to describe her was strange. Her clothes were strange, her hair colour and even the way she spoke was strange. And her markings and facial jewelry were very strange. He had never heard her accent before, it was neither Gondorian, Rohanian nor Harad. She was a very curious woman.

Not to mention rude, but he thought that went without saying.

"Yes, I know," he conceded after a moment of thoughtful silence. "Which is why we must bring her to Imladris. Our father will know what to do and perhaps he can discover where she came from."

"Aye, her accent is rather strange," Elrohir replied, looking over the unconscious woman cradled in his arms. She snored softly, completely lost to the world. Humans were so odd. He tilted his head curiously, noticing the object resting on her nose. "What did she call the contraption on her face again?"

"Glasses," Elladan told him, eyeing the hunk of metal and glass as well. Handion examined them on his other side. "She said they helped her see things close to her."

"Yes," Elrohir nodded, "and she called her tunic a hoo-dee."

"Very strange," Handion muttered. The twins nodded in agreement.

"Enough. We must take her away and quickly, before more orcs happen upon us," Elrohir cut in and bit back a chuckle. "Or before she awakens."

"Ah—Yes, brother, I agree. Let us make haste," Elladan coughed, turning swiftly on his heel to mount his horse while his friend and brother laughed in his wake.

Following in Elladan's footsteps, Handion came up beside Elrohir as he approached his steed, watching the unconscious woman with interest. She still snored and the metal contraption on her face was in danger of falling off with the angle her head was at. It hung to the side at a dangerous tilt over Elrohir's arm. In sleep, when she was neither hysterical nor angry, the woman was rather attractive—for a human.

His brother apparently thought so too. Initially he had used Elvish to communicate with her, assuming she knew it when her face appeared prettier than the average human's. But at her dumbfounded look, he had switched to Westron and watched as the woman's tense posture had relaxed, albeit only somewhat. Looking at her now, they should have known she wasn't elf-kind.

She was far too lean to be an elleth and her cheeks, while they had prominent cheek bones, were too rounded. Otherwise she could have easily disguised herself as an elf with her long dark lashes and small upturned nose. Her hair, however, was definitely different from anything he'd seen before. It was as fiery red as her personality and shone in different tones of scarlet and gold when the light hit it just right. It reminded him of a sunset after an evening of spring rain, almost like the Rohirim but not quite fair enough. Her markings and piercings were another dead giveaway.

"Where do you suppose she is from?" Elrohir wondered aloud as he gently passed the woman over to Handion so he could mount his chestnut mare. Elladan, already in his saddle, approached to stand beside him. Though Elrohir's question was uttered mostly to himself, his brother decided to answer anyhow.

"Mordor perhaps?" he quipped dryly.

Elrohir cast his brother a disapproving glare and pulled Lady Willow onto his lap when he was situated. "Don't be ridiculous, brother," he scoffed. "If she was from Mordor she would have known what orcs were."

Once the woman was in his arms, Handion turned to mount his own steed. Elrohir shifted to make sure the woman was comfortable and awkwardly attempted to push her glasses up her nose a little. When they didn't agree with him and they kept sliding back down, he decided to remove them and put them in his pouch where they would be relatively safe for the journey. He had played with the sticks that ran along her temples to hook over her ears for a few moments before figuring out that they folded inward and put them away, intrigued and curious. He made a mental note to inquire about them when she felt better.

"Besides," Elrohir continued as he took up the reigns with one hand while the other wrapped securely around Lady Willow's waist, "she made herself sick when faced with the stench of death. If she truly was from Mordor, she would have retched at the sight of you, brother dear, not them."

His twin nodded, accepting this as truth. "I agree. I wonder if what father suspects of her is true." He looked over to Elrohir's horse where the woman sat unconscious, head resting against his shoulder. "She is strange enough to consider it, that is for certain."

"I am inclined to agree with you, but we will not know more until we have her safely in Imladris. Let us make haste," Elrohir encouraged, if not only for the approaching dusk, but for the well-being of the woman in his arms as well.

The elves in his company nodded and spurred their horses onward just as he did, leaving the carnage of the battle behind to be taken care of by nature. The wolves would find it soon enough. They turned towards the slowly setting sun and urged their mounts to run as fast as they dared. In no time at all they would enter the protected gates of Imladris and Willow Henderson would be safe.


Sooo... I know there's still not much action, but this is kind of a slow burn story. It might be a little tedious for a while and I'm sorry for that. It will get more exciting though, I promise lol Just not yet.