Disclaimer: I do not own the Lord of the Rings, only my OC, Freya.
I used Italic for Elvish conversations.
Author's Note: Hey guys. Thank you for reading and your support.
Comments and ideas are appreciated so don't feel shy and tell me what you think. ;)
Mira
Chapter Eight
"… Up. Wake up. Freya, you really should wake up now. Come on girl." I hear someone nagging continuously next to my ear. I pull the blanket up and try to hide beneath it. The insistent person at my side pulls it away immediately. Gliriel.
"Ughh, let me sleep. It's too early. The sun is not fucking up yet Gliriel. Please." I say sleepily to my beautiful friend.
"Freya. You are late. The fellowship is ready to depart. Everyone is at the gate." Gliriel says again.
I sit up immediately, jumping out of bed so fast I actually fall to the ground. "Shit, I forgot. How could I forget? Oh Freya, you idiot." I speak fast. I stumble to my feet and go to wash my face, hitting my little toe against the bed. "Ow, ow, FUCK. Not now. Oh God." I say angrily under my breath as I keep moving, not having even a second to waste. When I turn back, Gliriel's waiting for me beside the bed, travelling clothes ready in hand. I rush to change with her help. I tie my long hair in a high pony tail and grab my stuff.
"Thanks Gliriel. You're a life saver." I say as I hurry out of the room with her.
She gives me a bright smile and hands me an apple. "And here is your breakfast."
"Oh thanks, I'm actually starving." I take the apple and take a bite appreciatively.
We walk fast to the gate. Gliriel was right everyone was already there. "Sorry. Sorry I'm late." I pant as I stop before Lord Elrond. He has a hint of a smile on his face. I walk past the elves fast and go to stand beside Sam and his pony. "Hey Sam." I smile at the hobbit holding Bill's reins in his hands. "So am I really late or just a tiny little bit late?" I continue in a low voice.
"Just a bit Freya. Don't worry. It's alright I guess. Master Gimli just got here too." Sam assures me kindly. Oh good. Gimli probably over slept too. I relax a bit and look around. Elves are standing here and there. Arwen, Elladan and Elrohir stand on one side of Lord Elrond. I see the familiar faces of Gliriel and Thandir standing in the back.
"The Ring bearer is setting out on the quest of Mount Doom and you who travel with him, no oath, nor bond, is laid to go further than you will." Lord Elrond starts talking in a firm voice. It's like an announcement. "Farewell. Hold to your purpose and may the blessings of elves, and men, and all free folk go with you." He looks at each one of us and does the hand gesture thing. I know it means some sort of goodbye in elvish. Legolas does the same to him and his kin. I look around at the now familiar faces of the elves. This is goodbye.
"The Fellowship awaits the Ring bearer." Comes Gandalf's voice. Frodo looks around once more and then turns to leave. Everybody's getting ready to leave to. I realize I can't just nod my head and leave. I walk to Lord Elrond and bow my head to him. "Lord Elrond." I say and he raises one of his eyebrows in question, looking down at my face.
"Lord Elrond I… uh… I wanted to thank you. Thank you, for letting me stay here these two months. Thank you for your kindness and your help." I say smiling at him genuinely. He's a kind man, elf, I mean. He may seem serious and uptight at first glance but if you look close enough you'll see his true self, kind and caring, hidden by those serious eyebrows.
"Freya Ellis, you are always welcome in my house. May thy paths be green and the breeze on thy back. Until next we meet." He does the farewell gesture to me. I look at his hand and in a moment decide to do it my way. I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him. I know it's not natural for elves, but it's also not natural for me to say goodbye to someone I care about without hugging them. He awkwardly pats my back, but smiles anyway, understanding my gesture.
I say goodbye to Arwen and the twins next. They are more used to my strange behavior as they put it. Elladan pats my head. "Be careful out there little one." He says grinning widely. "Do not get yourself hurt." Elrohir adds. I nod my head to both of them. Arwen says goodbye carelessly. I don't need to follow the direction her eyes turn to every few seconds to know who she is looking at. "I'll keep an eye on him for you Lady Arwen. Don't worry. No woman shall come close to him while I stand watch." I tell her jokingly, trying to make her feel better. It must be very hard to let go of the man you love, especially when he's going on a long dangerous journey. I don't think I'll ever be capable of doing that myself. She laughs at my joke and hugs me back. "Thank you Freya. Be careful on your way. I hope we meet again in the times of peace." I smile and step back.
I should hurry now. Only Aragorn is still here. Everybody else is outside the gates already. I run to Gliriel and Thandir, engulfing them both in a tight hug. "I'll miss you guys. Thank you for everything." I let go, letting the poor elves breath again. They're both smiling at me.
"Be careful Freya." Thandir says.
"We will meet again my friend. Farewell." Gliriel says the last words. I nod my head, smiling.
I step back and walk to Aragorn. We both take a final look at the elves and then walk to our companions. They're already a bit ahead of us. Aragorn is silent. I know he's thinking of Arwen so I just don't bother him and go to Sam. He's walking with the pony at the back of the group. He turns my way when I reach him. "Well, it's a beautiful day to start our journey, don't ya think my lady?" He says looking around. No matter how many times I tell Sam to just call me Freya, he still says my lady half the times he talks to me.
"Yeah, it is. Though I'm not yet fully awake. I swear it must be five in the morning." I manage to say that through a massive yawn. Sam laughs.
We walk south through the valley of Imladris. After an hour of walking in the woods my muscles seem to have awakened and I begin to enjoy the exercise more. I always was a fan of jogging and hiking. I guess it showed on my face.
"Do you enjoy travelling Freya?" Sam asks me curiously.
"Yeah, I actually do. I never travelled much before though. It's my first time being so far from home." It feels a bit weird thinking about my old home.
"How is it? Your world I mean? You don't talk much of it." Sam asks me. His question attracts the attention of everyone around us. I feel them all listening for my answer.
"Well, very different. My world is more technologically advanced." Sam looks confused so I try to explain things simply. It's so hard to explain such simple things when half of your vocabulary doesn't make sense to anyone. "We have big cities built with stone, steel and glass. With very tall buildings everywhere. Millions of people live in one city."
"Wow. That must be amazing. You must miss your home." Sam says in an amazed tone.
"Well, somehow I do. At first the change was too much. But I'm fine now. I lived alone so…" I explain.
"Why aren't you married Freya?" Pippin asks me, turning his head back to look at me curiously. Ok I didn't expect that question to come up.
"Pippin, that's rude." Merry scolds his friend, hitting his shoulder.
I laugh at that. "It's alright Merry. I don't mind. And I'm just not married. No specific reason."
"But are you not of age?" Pippin asks again.
"Umm… I guess I could be… of age. I don't know. I just never met the right guy I guess. It's not like all my people get married that early. Some never do." I say a bit embarrassed.
"What else is different? You said earlier that there's no hobbit in your world, right?" Sam, sensing my embarrassment, tries to change the topic. I smile at him thankfully.
"Yeah, no hobbits or dwarves. There are small people in my world, but they're just small humans. I heard of elves before I come here though. They're just very different in my world." I chuckle to myself saying that, imagining a Christmas elf standing next to Legolas in my head.
"You have elves?" I hear Legolas's voice right beside me. He kind of appeared out of nowhere. I look at his confused expression.
"Well, somehow. No not really." I keep laughing.
"Do they look like our elves?" Sam asks hopefully. I know he's always been interested in elves.
"They do have pointy ears and wear green clothes. But that's about it." I say, chuckling at the mental picture. I look at Legolas, eyebrows raised more than ever. Alright I should stop. "Ok, well. We don't exactly have elves. I just said I heard of them. As in stories. We have elves in our stories. Not really really. And they're nothing alike." I say apologetically.
"I see. That's why you stared at my ears like that the first time you saw them." Legolas says calmly. I look at him. He's nothing like a funny green elf. He looks more like an angel or even a mythological god. I will never tell him that of course.
No one says anything for a few seconds. Then Gimli starts talking. "You said you have tall buildings, aye lass?" I nod my head.
"Yes, I lived in one myself. On the 15th floor actually." I say, remembering my small apartment.
"That's so tall. Isn't it dangerous?" Sam asks, looking horrified.
"It's perfectly safe. It's not actually that high up. Once you're inside you can't really tell the difference you know. I'm not a fan of heights myself either. But it's safe." I understand how a hobbit who lives in a single floor hole in the ground must feel about height.
"Do you travel by horses my lady? In your world?" To my momentary shock, Boromir asks me the next question. Maybe he's showing me a white flag?
"Uhh… we have horses. But no, we don't travel with horses, not anymore. We go around by cars and trains and some other stuff." I get those confused looks again. So I go on without waiting for the questions to come. "Cars are some sort of mechanical… carriages? Or chariots? Something close to that. You have them right?" I hope I don't have to explain the concept of a carriage as well.
"Yes, yes, we do." Gimli says enthusiastically. "I think your people's craft is close to dwarven craft lass."
I know a little about dwarf cities and machinery from a book I read in Rivendell's library. He's right. They're quite amazing, considering this world is still ages away from any industrial revolution.
"Yeah, close to your craft. I don't have any specific knowledge of these stuff, but your technology is quite advanced compared to the whole medieval aura this world has." Gimli's face brightens at my complement of his people.
He sticks to my side from that moment on, telling me about their cities and people. I tell him about our machinery and try to explain how a car moves on its own. He gets the picture. The idea seems understandable to him it's just not practical in this world. I'm actually happy he understands what I'm saying. He's a fun guy to be around. At some point he warns me about trusting elves too much, eying the blond in front of us suspiciously. It's obvious as daylight that they don't like each other. Some prejudices die hard. I chuckle at his comment about Legolas.
"Now lass, I ain't saying master elf over there is not trustable. You know. They're just different, that is." Gimli continues advising me. Legolas is ahead of us. I'm not sure if he can hear us or not but he doesn't say anything. Watching these two is gonna be interesting. They're constantly annoyed by each other somehow.
The rest of the day flows by fast. Looking at the map is something and actually moving on it is a whole other thing. I mean, we've been walking for a day and we're not even out of the woods around Rivendell yet. When we stop for the night, I'm extremely tired. These guys are tough. And since I didn't want to be treated like a weak woman, I kept up with them all day. Resulting in all my muscles whining at the extreme workout I put them through, the moment I hit the ground. Gandalf calls me over then. "How are you doing Freya?" He asks me in his mysterious voice.
"Tired as hell." I whisper back to him, so no one would hear me. He smiles. "I'm okay though."
Gandalf tells us all that tomorrow we will make it out of the woods and then travel south sticking to the western side of the misty mountains. That's gonna take a while. It's a long way. But thinking about it right now is useless. I hope everyday will just be as peaceful as today. The road seems safe enough. Maybe I was too worried about the horrible things I read in books about orcs and goblins and trolls after all. We haven't been attacked by anything so far. I settle down beside Gandalf and Frodo, spreading my bedroll just a bit away from the center of the circle. Woman or not, I'm not gonna sleep any further away than that. If we get attacked, I don't care if it's appropriate or not, I might actually go sleep next to Legolas. Ehem.. Dangerous direction of thought Freya. Come back immediately.
I look at the little hobbit sitting alone not far from me, staring at the fire Aragorn made a few minutes ago. Frodo seems quieter since we left Rivendell. It's the ring. I know. I just don't get how this stupid ring is doing these things to him but Gandalf assured me that resisting its magic is very hard. He told me for some mysterious reason, I was the only one not affected by its evil pull. Probably because I'm not from this world or something like that. It's scary that a piece of jewelry is capable of controlling you, so I thank god it doesn't work on me.
Sam gives each of us our share of the food and I happily devour everything that's on my plate. The food tastes so good after such a physically laboring day.
After dinner, Aragorn, Gandalf and the hobbits bring out their pipes and start smoking. I watch the rings of smoke go up in the sky. Gandalf's good at this. I'm fascinated by the shapes moving around like a child. But it kind of makes me sleepy watching them.
"You should get some rest. You are tired." Comes the melodic voice of my favorite elf. I look at him sitting beside me on a bedroll. Is he sleeping there? Next to me? I recover fast, so what if he's sleeping there Freya. Don't be a fucking teenager.
"Yeah, I probably should. I'm tired." I say, hiding a yawn with my hand. Moving to lie down on my own bedroll.
He chuckles softly. "Sleep well, little one."
"Goodnight Legolas." I say that and lay down, trying to do it naturally so it wouldn't look like I just took refuge under my blanket so he won't see the light blush on my cheeks.
The ground is hard. It's nothing like the lovely bed I slept on in Rivendell. My body doesn't acknowledge that though. The moment I pull the thin blanket on myself, my body starts to shut down. I want to stay awake a bit more with everyone but sleep takes me. Despite my better judgement, the last thing my mind remembers is the masculine voice in my head. Sleep well, little one.
