Chapter Three: A Grumpy Mountain and an Invisible Door

The Fellowship was toiling up the mountain in the snow. The hobbits, including Berry, were near to tunneling. It felt like and endless stream of days had led them to this point, and they were all exhausted, even the Tenwalkers- who had inexplicably multiplied. Frodo, feeling almost delirious, was composing a journal entry in his head.

No clue what day it is, Caradhras.

More Tenwalkers are appearing on the road. We picked up at least a dozen of them about a week ago, but some of them were too rabid in their love for Legolas and Aragorn and we had to, um, dispose of them. There are even a few who are eyeballing me, and it makes me very uncomfortable.
Anyway, the real problem is the road. Either some device of the enemy is re-routing snow in our direction, or this mountain has irritable bowel syndrome. Can't tell which. Legolas is on the edge of a mental breakdown, between his stalking fans and the voices he keeps hearing, supposedly on the wind. We'll see. At least if he collapses we won't have to extend lunch an extra fifteen minutes so he can fix his hair.

And indeed, Legolas was looking pallid, even too much so for an elf. No circles were under his eyes and he did not sweat, but there was a harried look about him and he kept at least one eye on all of the Tenwalkers that he could at any given moment.

Gandalf pushed them onward into the flurries, and the snow only got heavier and the wind howled more loudly. Without warning, stones began tumbling down the mountain, hitting a few of the less wary Tenwalkers over the head.

"This is absurd," Berry piped up. "It never snows this hard this far south or this low on the mountain."

"I agree, " Aragorn said. "Usually these paths are open all winter," Gandalf just glared at them and kept walking.

An hour later they had gone maybe half a mile, and a boulder came down the mountain, killing two of Legolas' fangirls. He looked almost relieved, but then he spoke urgently to Gandalf.

"Okay, I am not out of my mind. The voices are still all around us. One voice, maybe, but either way we had better get lost." The wizard sighed heavily.

"Fine, but there is only one way to go if we cannot pass through the Redhorn Gate," he said darkly. "And I am nearly out of pipeweed. Damnation and hellfire," he cursed to himself.

"Any way is better than Caradhras," Merry said miserably. Berry stroked his curly hair reassuringly.

"Not this way," Gandalf replied.

The company, which was now thirty strong with more accumulated fangirls who managed to keep their furious adoration at bay, stood staring at a long stretch of high grey walls.

"Look, Gimli, you are absolutely no help here," Gandalf said, eyeing the glowing doors that would not open.

"I don't know how you expect me to know anything about the password since the gate has been closed for nearly eternity," the Dwarf grumped right back. Legolas sat trimming his nails with a wee paring knife he had borrowed from one of the Hobbit Tenwalkers who had a huge crush on Pippin.

"I personally don't give a dead Dwarf's dick if we don't get into Moria," he opined sharply.

"Shudup, elfling," Gimli growled at him.

"Boys, if you can't play nicely you can't play together," Gandalf snapped. There was a soft cough coming from a Tenwalker, an elf maiden who bore a rather huge double-bladed sword with glittering red hair.

"Do shut up," Gandalf told her.

"I was only going to try and help!" shrieked the elf maiden indignantly.

"Try away," the wizard sighed.

"I mean, just read the inscription differently. Put different emphasis on it," she suggested. Her eyes darted from the door to Legolas, who had stopped pruning his nails and was now combing his hair our of sheer boredom.

"Speak, friend, and enter," Gandalf read aloud for the billionth time.

"No, no, go with 'Speak 'friend' and enter,'" the ginger elf said.

"Speak… friend…" Gandalf mused.

"Oh!" said Frodo, smiling. "Maybe it should translate to 'say' friend. What's the Elvish word for friend?"

"Mellon!" cried all of the girls present who were of elf descent. The doors began very suddenly to creak open.

"So apparently these creatures are good for something other than scaring us half out of our wits," Aragorn murmured to Legolas. One of the Tenwalker woman who had an absurdly heightened sense of hearing turned to him, her expression one of stunned horror.

"Creatures? Creatures? You were supposed to love me!" she wailed. Aragorn looked both confused and terrified.

"Say what?" he asked.

"You monster! You're so cruel!" she shrieked. "You have ruined my purpose in being here!"

"ZOMG, StriderLuvr, STFU," said one of the other woman Tenwalkers in a most bizarre dialect. "U like, totally don't even matter 2 him. He luvs ME,"

"Says who?" Aragorn wondered aloud, but his words were muffled by a wail of despair from the first Tenwalker.

"I HATE YOU!" she screamed at him, and then she sprinted into the lake, hovered into the air until she was out over the middle of it, and plummeted like a stone into the murky water. A moment of deathly silence followed her plunge.

"Manwe damn it all!" Gandalf cursed. "We almost made it in…"

"What are you talking about?" Frodo asked, but before the wizard could answer the make began to boil and seethe and about a hundred tentacles came flying out of it towards them.

"RUN!" screamed Gandalf, and the Fellowship sprinted for the gaping black doorway of Moria. Unsurprisingly the tentacles made straight for Frodo, but this seemed to affect the Tenwalkers profoundly. In fact, they all stopped and turned to face the tentacles, and began screaming all kinds of weird battle cries. Frodo just barely escaped being snatched before they flung themselves between him and the monster, and the doors slammed shut behind him.

They stood panting and wheezing in the dark, which was otherwise almost eerily silent.

"Awesome," Boromir said finally. "Just great,"

"We are stuck in a Dwarfish hole with no light for four days," Legolas added.

"Oh shut up," Gandalf said as he tapped his staff on the ground. "I have been trying to light this fucker for about two minutes." The tip of his staff flickered twice and then came to life with a pale glimmering witch-light. "Piece of shit," the wizard grumbled.

"Thanks for nothing, old man. I will never get my hair done by that light." Legolas whined.

"If you don't shut up about your hair, I am going to cut it off," growled Boromir. He cast about in the dim light taking stock of their numbers. Berry's voice came from a darker corner suddenly.

"We're down to about fifteen," she said. "But I am more concerned about all the bones and orc-arrows in here,"

"Shit," Gandalf said. "Let's get a move on, people. Does anyone else have a light?"

"I have a magic lantern," said one of the woman Tenwalkers, of sturdy Rohan build but with bizzarely purple hair whose name was Leigh. "It's not really bright, but it will probably help,"

"Good deal. Light it and let's go," said the wizard, who began to lead them on into the darkness.