CHAPTER SIX - Meghan Uses a Brief, Needless PotC Quote
The next morning, Meghan awoke with the most enormous crick in her neck. She jerked her head every which way, trying to crack her neck. Eventually she heard and felt the satisfying pop.
"So, what's for breakfast this morning?" she asked in a hushed tone.
"Same as the day before," Pippin answered a bit dolefully. "Journey-bread and dried meats."
"You know, in my time, we call this stuff jerky." Meghan gnawed on a piece of the hard meat.
"Really? Why that?" Merry said.
"I dunno. And then there's this really highly processed stuff that's called Slim Jims. Those things are frightening. I think I might have been scarred by the commercial with the guys that had Slim Jims for hair… I couldn't ever really look at beef jerky the same after that."
"What is a commercial?" Pippin asked innocently.
"Um… it's like a really advanced street seller person. You know at markets and stuff how people try to hawk their wares? It's kinda like that."
The two Hobbits nodded.
"Come come," Gandalf barked with authority. "We must press on. If we move quickly enough, we may see the sky by this evening."
"Whoo hoo!" Meghan partied under her breath.
They all finished wolfing down the simple breakfast and then set out again through the dark and gloomy mines. Even Gimli's fascination with the architecture had eventually worn off.
The hours passed slowly, just as they always did in that clockless hole. Meghan slipped into an easy, brainless routine: left foot, right foot, breathe in, breath out, left foot, right foot. It worked rather well, actually.
'Cept when the Fellowship stopped. She bumped into Legolas. "Sorry…" she whispered. Apparently something bad was happening, because nobody said anything.
"I have no memory of this place," Gandalf mused, staring at three gigantic archways.
They all stood around in awkward silence for a moment.
"If this was really the movie, it would be at this point that a time lapse would occur and it would cut to when Gandalf figures out the right direction. Or maybe it would allow a brief interlude for a dramatic conversation that furthers the plot of the story. Gosh, now I wish I hadn't fallen asleep. I am such an idiot."
"You fell asleep?" Boromir demanded. "I still fail to see what purpose this girl has to serve."
"You're just smarting over the dress comment!" Meghan shot back.
"That is ridiculous!"
"You smell funny!"
"Please refrain from that noise," Gandalf said tranquilly.
Boromir and Meghan settled for shooting dark glares at each other.
As time slowly wore on, the Fellowship once again spread out, waiting for Gandalf to come to a decision. Meghan slumped down (having won the stare-down with Boromir) and started counting the pebbles on the floor.
She didn't even hear Legolas coming to sit next to her until he spoke in a soft undertone. "Hello, Lady Meghan."
"You really don't have to call me that," Meghan said.
"I prefer to. I try to make it a rule that I express proper respect to women by calling them 'lady'."
"Hmm. Wait, does that mean you call, like, your sisters and your friends 'Lady Whatever'?"
Legolas laughed: a gentle but joyful sound. "No, I do not call her by a ceremonious title. I have only met you a week or so ago, and I want to treat you respectfully."
Meghan nodded, understanding that he wasn't comfortable enough around her to drop the formal name. "Well, Legolas, someday I hope you'll just call me Meghan."
He smiled warmly.
"So, will you tell me more of your childhood?" he asked. "I only know that the Valar took you from the future. But what of you? How did you grow up?"
"Well, I'm the youngest of four. But my three brothers are all much older than I. Evan is married with three kids, Thomas is off living in Iceland with a research team, and Chris is in his last year of grad-school. They're all, like, super-protective of me. I could never get a date in high school because all the guys were afraid of my brothers. We're sorta the traditional Southern family, you know, where if a guy comes to pick up the girl, he finds the girl's dad and brothers cleaning their guns on the front porch. But I guess I didn't really mind. They're really cool. You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?"
"No, I am afraid I do not. But I am enjoying the picture you are painting. Please, continue."
Meghan shrugged. "There's not much to tell. I had an extremely normal childhood. In school I comfortably fit in with the outcasts, but I was cool with that. And through it all, I've been best friends with two girls who are almost as crazy as I am: Stefanie and Andrea. They are absolutely obsessed with you guys." Meghan laughed a little, thinking of her two nutty friends. "So yeah, nothing particularly exciting about me. I've maintained a GPA of 3.6 throughout school. I've never been mugged. I've never had a show-down with the local drama queen. I'm pretty ordinary."
Legolas chuckled again. "Pardon me for saying this, Lady Meghan, but you are by far the strangest elleth I have ever met!"
They were interrupted by Gandalf's optimistic announcement: "Ah! It's that way!"
"He's remembered!" Merry exclaimed.
"No, but the air doesn't smell so foul down here. If in doubt, Meriadoc, always follow your nose."
"Wait, we're trusting in your superior olfactory senses?" Meghan asked.
Gandalf shot her a look that was both exasperated and weary. "Yes, Melethriel, we are."
Dang. He calls me by that stupid Elvish name just to tick me off.
They all clamored carefully through the portal that Gandalf indicated, the wizard himself leading the way with his shining staff. The hallway they walked down was just as grey and grody as the previous thousands of hallways.
Until they entered a vast, immeasurable space, that is. Meghan perceived a huge immensity, and the air tasted less stale. Wow. Gandalf's nose was right. Coolies.
"Let me risk a little more light," Gandalf himself said. He did something magicky with his staff and suddenly the whole, enormous chamber was illuminated. "Behold! The great realm and Dwarf-city of Dwarrowdelf."
"Now there's an eye-opener, and no mistake," Sam breathed.
"Whew, you can say that again!" Meghan agreed, staring with a slack jaw at the arched ceiling far above her head. "Dude, this was made by Dwarves? But you guys are super short! How the heck did you get that high?"
It is perhaps fortunate for Meghan that Gimli was too distracted to explode into a fine fit of rage at her for that reckless comment. But, the fact of the matter remains that instead of threatening to lop off Meghan's head for belittling his kin, he let out a cry and ran off toward a side room.
"Gimli!" Gandalf snapped, obviously quite put out that the Dwarf had dashed away from the group. Meghan was vaguely reminded of how in preschool, you got the lecture of your life if you wandered away from your fellow toddlers.
Of course they all had no other option other than to jog after him and enter the dusty chamber. There was a high concentration of decayed Dwarvish corpses in this room, and Meghan shuddered away from each and every one, only to get closer to another. It was a hopeless situation.
Gimli, meanwhile, was moaning in anguish in front of a brightly lit crypt. Gandalf walked passed his shoulder and ran a hand over the runes on the slab.
"Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, Lord of Moria," he translated. "He is dead, then. It's as I feared."
"Were we ever expecting anybody to be alive down here?" Meghan whispered to Legolas. He shook his head sadly.
The wizard handed his staff and hat to Pippin and lifted an old, crumbling book from the clutches of a particularly pained-looking body.
"They have taken the bridge, and the second hall," he began to read.
Meghan could hear Legolas mutter to Aragorn, "We must move on: we cannot linger!"
"What do you mean?" she demanded in an undertone.
"Can you not feel it?" Legolas asked.
Gandalf was still reading the book, which suddenly felt much less important to Meghan now that she knew that Legolas was having some sort of Spidy-sense moment.
"…We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out. They are coming."
"That alone is very disturbing!" Meghan burst out. "But Legolas totally wants to jet, and if he's all whacked out about it, I'm all for dumping this place, too."
Pippin chose that exact moment knock the corpse down the well. It made a huge rackety sound that echoed and rebounded through what felt like the entirety of Moria.
As the reverberations died away, Gandalf snapped the book closed. "Fool of a Took!" he barked. "Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity! And you!" He wheeled on Meghan. "You speak nonsense that none of us can comprehend! If you cannot learn to communicate, than say nothing at all!"
"Okay, first of all-" Meghan's hackles never had the chance to fully raise. They all heard the deep, booming drums from the mine's bowels.
"Frodo!" Sam said urgently. The dark-haired Hobbit drew his sword a few inches from the sheath, and the blade was glowing a soft, electric blue.
"Wait, is that bad?" Meghan asked, all her confrontational attitude gone.
"Orcs!" Legolas snarled.
07.29.07