Dawn grunted as she met the earth unceremoniously.
Three days.
Three days of being dragged around by the most mean tempered orc in the universe with little respite, no food and foul water. Not to mention she hadn't showered since she'd ended up in this hell hole. She was beginning to fear she was giving the orcs a run for their money in the stench stakes.
Twin grunts sounded from beside her and she would have smiled if she'd had the energy. Merry and Pippin - the only things keeping her from losing all hope of anything in this god-forsaken place.
The two called themselves Hobbits - yes Hobbits, if she'd needed proof she wasn't in Kansas anymore there it was – and since their meeting just a little over 36 hours ago, she'd learned quite a lot about her whereabouts and company from the two. Pippin especially seemed to lack the ability to keep his mouth shut. Their favourite subject was talk of their home. They seemed to love describing with vivid detail the pastures and the fields of the Shire and the adventures and mischief they would constantly get up to - especially, Pippin had enthused, in Farmer Maggot's crop. It was obvious, perhaps at times painfully so, how much the pair missed their home. Which really threw the question screaming under Dawn's nose: Why had they left?
Dawn had been surprised to find the two very tight-lipped on the subject, the complete opposite of any other. Even Pippin, who could have given Anya a run for her money in cluelessness, wouldn't let anything slip. The whole affair served to make Dawn, nosy teenager that she was, extremely curious. But even through the use of her best needling techniques she'd only gotten 'to aid a friend'. Of course it hardly helped that their conversations rarely exceeded ten minutes before they were back to impersonating orc backpacks.
Speaking of orcs.
Dawn winced as a loud growl rose up from the group of what she was sure were demons over near the edge of the forest. Dawn frowned slightly. That was new – the forest that is, not the growling. The growling had actually been increasing noticeably the past few days. Something was getting under the creatures' skin. Part of it, Dawn was sure, was the reason Pippin was missing his snazzy leaf cloak-clasp.
Dawn reached up and fingered the clasp on the cloak around her own neck. Merry had insisted on giving it to her the night before when her chattering teeth kept interrupting their conversation. She'd thought at first that the thing would hardly fit but once around her shoulders the cloth had seemed to...not so much lengthen as...stretch maybe? When she'd mentioned it the Hobbits had simply grinned and told her it was Elf-made. Fat lot of good that did in explaining the phenomenon but Dawn had enjoyed the stories of some of the Elf cities that had resulted. Dawn smiled at the memory but it dropped from her face like a tonne of bricks a moment later when a face still weeping from the beating it had taken from the ugly stick loomed into her vision.
"Wha' 'bout their legs? They don' need those -"
Dawn swallowed hard as the face was yanked out of her field of vision and reprimanded. That's when things started getting a bit thick. Where as all the other confrontations between the species had resulted in the smaller, more vicious half-demons backing down, this time the little snot held his ground.
The air grew heavy and orcs, hobbits and keys-made-teens combined, shifted uncertainly. Then the world exploded.
The smaller ones struck first, rushing the leader of the larger species with a roar to rival Spike on a bender. The first one fell within inches of Dawn and for a moment she simply blinked stupidly as the chaos erupted around her. But only for a moment. Sound came back to her with a rush, as did her instinct.
She whipped her head around to Merry and Pippin, calling their attention from the battle around them. Two pairs of expectant eyes looked into hers.
"Get out of here! Crawl for the forest, both of you," she directed hastily, already moving in the opposite direction herself. She could practically feel the Hobbits' confusion at her actions. She wasn't all that sure of them herself.
"I'll catch you up!" She called, cutting off all other protests as she elbowed her way across the earth to the first-felled orc's body. A glance over her shoulder saw her release a grateful sigh as the twin wiggling butts of Merry and Pippin greeted her gaze. Her eyes steeled as she turned back to her objective. Finally reaching the body, she grunted as she rolled it onto its back, scrunching up her nose in disgust at the stench that assailed her nose.
And this was freshly killed.
Ignoring her better judgment (that was currently nudging her stomach to prepare for projectile vomiting), she did a thorough search of the corpse, finally finding what she was looking for in a strap around the creature's leg.
A dagger - or rather a flake of hard flint that had served this particular orc as a dagger. Dawn didn't much care - it only had one property she was interested in.
It only took a moment for rubbing her bindings against the weapon before her hands were free and Dawn flexed her wrists, reviling for a moment in the action. A horse suddenly screamed in the din and Dawn's head snapped up.
Horse?
But yes, there, and atop it was…
"Oh crap."
There were some new players in the game obviously but Dawn was far from trusting the world she'd landed in enough to rely on her judgment of goodies and baddies. Even so, she had to admit that they, whoever they were, were doing a pretty good job with the orcs. Dawn got to her feet, testing the weight of the dagger in her hand.
She made her way through the chaos, scanning the direction she'd seen Merry and Pippin wiggle. It was only through reflexes bred of months of sneaking out of the house right under the nose of a slayer that she was able to avoid being impaled by numerous un-nameable implements of battle. She learned early not to trust the motives of the horsemen. Apparently anything not on a horse was fair game to the humans. As a result she avoided both sides, twisting and weaving through the masses until they thinned around her and she gained a view of her little targets.
Her little targets that were in a-not-so-little-buttload of trouble. Dawn swore as she darted forward, catching only the end of the sentence that had Merry and Pippin cowering.
"…will save you now…"
He never heard her coming, that fact would forever bring Dawn's pride to the forefront upon retrospect. The icky bastard had no warning as she plunged the dagger down towards his back.
Where it splintered.
"Oh- "
Dawn never finished as she sailed through the air. Apparently the orc hadn't appreciated her little foray into the slaying side of the playground. She landed hard on her back, feeling the breath power out of her lungs as her eyes squeezed shut and she folded in on herself. Her body, like her mind was anticipating the attack. It never came.
Dawn opened her eyes and was met with twinkling stars and a sickeningly perfect full moon. With a grunt, she swiveled in the dirt, getting to her hands and knees as she took stock of the situation. The really, really bad situation. She watched with rising desperation as the orc advanced on her friends, neither of which seemed in any shape to put up a fight. She searched her mind desperately as she dragged herself to her feet. Just a shred of a plan, that's all she needed…just a shred…
She was weapon-less, alone and weak - not much to go on. She almost snorted. So what was new? Hadn't that always been the way? She was useless! Beyond being insanely good at being kidnapped and extremely talented at the bait side of life…
Dawn's head snapped up. A shred. Ha.
"Hey! Hey, road-kill-for-brains!"
To her partial surprise, the target orc actually turned at her cry. Dawn took a deep breath. "Yeah you! You sure you're all that hungry?" Dawn watched as, behind the orc, Merry and Pippin scrambled into the trees. Okay, mission complete…kinda. Dawn's voice rang shrilly as she spoke. "Cause - cause you know you really mustn't be if you're set on a couple of appetizers like that…"
The orc, seemingly reminded of its task, glanced in the direction of the fleeing hobbits and Dawn cursed herself before waving frantically for its attention once more.
"Hey…hey…you have a thing for legs right? Well check out these babies!"
Dawn tugged at the skirt of what she'd not-so-fondly dubbed the apocalypse dress, revealing a fair expanse of leg to the goblin. To her left, unbeknownst to Dawn, a man fell off his horse. The action had the desired effect on the orc however and Dawn grinned at the gob-smacked look on its face.
"You know over half of me is leg."
That did it.
With a yelp, Dawn dropped the hem of her skirt and dove into the forest, a salivating orc close on her heels.
