7. HP/Lord of the Rings
The line below this are some titles I was debating for the story, in case you were wondering. Hm, I remember having fun thinking 'em up...
– Fishing for Heroes –
If it weren't for her past experiences she believed that the dirt street, middle-ages like houses and general lost-in-time 'magical' feel she got from the general world around her would no doubt be charming, relaxing and a very pleasant place to be.
It was times like these, having just had to 'borrow' some clothing from a woman innocently doing her laundry so that she was able to blend in with the local folk (as well as she could ever 'blend in' anyway; as far as she was concerned, she had a broken blender) all the while almost stumbling over said garment; (she really hated these places where woman only wore dresses) that was, of course, roughly three sizes too big for her (although closer fitting than the dreaded Dudley-cast-offs) and not conducive to the art of carrying weapons inconspicuously (at least in places where you could draw them quickly at any rate), that she believed her whole existence was some kind of cosmic joke.
Well, ok; she thought that most of the time, but it seemed more prevalent at said times at which her lot was the hardest.
The sun was shining, the birds were doing their thing and apparently there had recently been a good harvest – all the villagers she had eavesdropped on (psh, have a conversation in public and it was open to the public) had been going on about crops, rations, the local pissant bandit that had been taken down by a member of the local militia (fine, they called them 'guards' but whichever) and of course that so-and-so might be screwing around with Mrs-what's-her-name and the poor husband had no idea.
So really, in the village that time forgot, (or, as she was quickly and horrifyingly coming to discover, was the level of civilisation across the board in this world) there were no large, pressing issues; no reason at all for her to have been extremely rudely and unceremoniously dumped on her ass straight out of her most recent 'adventure' the second she'd been holding the only stuff she was allowed to bring with her and into a muddy, dirty alley way that stank like a rank mixture of excrement and urine (no doubt because the word 'sanitation' had not yet been coined) which pissed her off.
To top it all off she had a pounding headache – surprisingly not because of a hangover, but the effort required to constantly work her 'parseltongue' abilities in order to understand and learn the local lingo, which was very uninspiringly called 'Common' or 'Westron.'
Gods, what she would do to still have her magic– her full goddamn wave-a-stick-solve-a-problem magic and not just the bare dregs left over from that gift, whittled down to genetics (the parseltongue) and shifting abilities.
It was a fucking nightmare, even if she'd had to come to terms with it long before.
She was really very fortunate to have parseltongue still with her – it sure as hell helped with the whole 'getting dumped into random universes that do not speak English' thing. Only think about wanting to understand, and there it was – just like when first speaking to snakes, she'd hear it as clear as day English, speak it as clear as day whatever-the-hell they spoke, and after a time she'd need no translation from the Gift.
But in the meantime, it left THE Headache-from-Hell, hand delivered from the back of a Cerberus deprived of food and roaring for a slaughter; comparable to the pain of kids banging metal pots and pans together a few centimetres from your ear or a blacksmith working on metal the morning of your colossal hangover while your bed just happened to be within arm's length.
Under these conditions, was it really any wonder she was in a foul mood?
Fuck, these first few days were always the worst – she had learned pretty quick-like that recon was the way to go as apposed to the charge-in-head-first approach so favoured by members of her old House; taking the later option could lead to misconstruing which side was in the 'right' (if there even could be a 'right' side) and thus getting royally fucked-over and locked up, experimented on for the key to your powers, and whatever else because that's what bad guys do.
Of course, sometimes the good guys had done that too, but she was in too bad a mood to wonder if that was what she was in for when she was discovered by the 'good guys' in this stupid medieval world.
She knew enough by now to not worry about not being able to find the 'battle' or the sides – hell, she usually ran into them pretty quick-like once she'd arrived, the only problem being whether it was the bad side or the good side. So just because in this merry little village that had a queer mixture of Humans, Rangers (which still counted as 'human' but apparently lived longer than normal and were also called 'Dúnedain') and Hobbits or 'Little Folk' (that actually had no use for shoes and had pointed ears along with a max height of four feet) looked peaceful and unassuming didn't mean that 'Middle-earth' was peaceful or not about to descend into war – actually, she could spot the underlying tension that no one would acknowledge as if it were a purple elephant trying to hide behind a potted plant in a room full of flamingos.
Anyway, no one talked about heavy subjects like war, or anything of real interest to her in the daytime – no, the best place to get the type of information she was looking for was in a pub in the later hours of the night – the place where everyone had 'secret meetings' because the general rowdiness or drunkenness of everyone around ensured the censure of anything that may be overheard.
She really took comfort in those universal truths. It was kinda soothing, to know wherever she'd end up would have a place that you could get smashed and overhear sensitive information at the same time, both of which she felt like doing at that very moment. Although only the second option was available in the immediate future, for obvious reasons.
So she was stumbling down the dirt street in the over-sized, annoying dress while attempting to be inconspicuous. The one thing that was in her favour was that this village was apparently a common place for strangers to pass through on their way about their business, hence the reason for such a diverse group of beings, so she didn't get much more than a second glance which she suspected was the fault of her less-than-elegant gait more than anything.
The Traveller's name was self-given; she had taken on a different name from that which her birth parents had christened her, as a kind of acknowledgement of the changes in her life and that it could never go back to how it was before the End.
Her name was Phoenix. As the fire birds are reborn from the ashes of their own demise, so had she been; the woman found it somewhat fitting in an ironic way to name herself as such. She took no last name, and if the situation called for one she would pick one off the top of her head.
Phoenix, or 'Nix' as she preferred in casual conversation, was a short-statured woman, reaching just over five feet tall, with a lithe build, brilliant emerald green eyes and black hair that could only be described as a cross between 'shaggy' and 'wavy' that hung just past her shoulders. Unusual for the natives, she had two rings of metal through each earlobe, as well as a wider silver stud in the cartilage near the top of her left ear – but those were currently carefully hidden by her hair.
Nix was shaken out of her lamenting and thoughts as (surprisingly) someone bumped into her, almost managing to bowl her over and would have succeeded had the person not managed to steady her through quick reflexes, grabbing her shoulder.
She looked up (and up) snarling mentally at stupid tall people all the while, only to be met with a hooded man, who managed to look fairly menacing and ridiculous at the same time, both because of the fact that he was wearing a black cloak in daylight on a warm day. Seriously. Who does that?
Anyway, Mr. I'm-tall-so-I-run-into-people seemed to incline his head and said in a more cultured version of the language than she had heard so far "I am sorry, milady, I did not mean you harm."
Because he was standing in front of the sun, the hood did its job and shadowed his face, only allowing Nix to see a hint of blue eyes and that he was a traveller, easily taken from the fact that he looked like he hadn't had a decent wash in a while; what with the build up of dirt in the contours of his face and clothes.
As she had seen something similar happen earlier in the day, she made an attempt at replicating the woman's side and slightly inclined her head saying politely, "No harm done, Ranger. I should think to be more careful in the future."
Damn, didn't it suck to have to say it was partly your fault when they both knew full and well it wasn't?
It would seem that she had guessed his occupation/lineage correctly as he seemed to stare at her for a moment, scrutinising her closely with a probing gaze before inclining his head once again and setting off in a direction she recognised as towards the inns of the village.
She had a sinking feeling that she'd just met someone that would start up a new 'adventure' for her, but at least this dude seemed to be a skilled fighter and going by his speech patterns and the way he held himself, had undoubtedly been trained in some form of combat from an early age – which meant she wasn't gonna have to play the Teacher of the up-and-coming-yet-seriously-unprepared Hero again. Thank the gods! That gig was more trouble than it was worth, and she always felt like she was mentally damaging them in some way.
But dammit; she hadn't even gotten a few days to chill out and get properly settled in yet! She'd now be stuck with that thrice-damned headache while following a giant around! Screw that!
Phoenix growled to herself softly enough not to draw looks at the sound that was not compatible to a normal human voice box – couldn't have that. She took a big breath in, and then let it rush out slowly, imagining all her troubles leaving with the carbon dioxide.
Of course, they were still there when she was forced to draw a new breath, so she grumbled to herself and wandered off.
