So it's official everyone, I've written the final line for this story (about 100,000 words from now). In lieu of that, i think i will be nicer and update more often!
Prepare to be amazed.
Special shout out to my wonderful long-time editor icanhearthedrums (enjoy the vacay! Miss you!) and my newly acquired beta JRBarton. You gals keep the world spinning
Chapter 11 –Searching for a Hobbit Hole-
The closer they came to the waves of the coast, the thinner the forest drew. The heaviest of the brush peeled back, allowing wider allies for the three to track down separate from the main paths of the Elven Way. It was the best thing for them. Ge'elaphi's forces, and the Southlings supporting him, had turned back at some point. No doubt by now they had uncovered the temporary fortress of Faramir, and continued their endless march forward, onward, like an unstoppable force devouring everything in their paths. If Thor's opinion could be consulted, then this chase was comparable to being chased by raging bilgesnipe.
The two Avengers held to their word of keeping up, though they took turns carrying their indisposed friend. Haladarrel had no doubt in his mind that either one was sufficient enough to do the job single-handedly. However, there existed a sort of kinship from the simple act of transporting the archer in their arms. There was little else they could do to help him in general, and this was the only way they may show their support for him.
Despite the swiftness of their pace, the Southlings continued to gain on them. Every step they took toward the coast was dogged in the footfalls of faralirs and the smaller tchelins. If they did nothing to slow the progression of that front, very soon the four would be overwhelmed. As the reality struck him, Haladarrel skidded to a halt just before they reemerged on the Eastern edge of the Elven Way. Something must be done, and for the good of his kingdom, he would be the one to stay behind.
"What are you doing?" Steve asked, slowing beside him. He could see from the determined gleam in the elf's eye what he planned already.
"Oh, no you don't!" Tony exclaimed. He stopped a few yards ahead. Barton still lay unconscious in his fireman's hold. He'd refused to give him up to any other for the last few leagues.
"Haladarrel, I know you want to give us a chance, but we need to stick together here. You know how to treat him, we don't. And you know the way to the coast. We can't afford to lose you." Steve reasoned.
"Here you can. I have come as far as I should. If I do not turn back now and distract them, you have no hope of escape at all." He pointed down the cobblestone path. "Continue on the Way. You shall come to a crossroads where the path forks into the valley or the trees. Take the right fork through the trees and do not slow! You shall encounter a marker, a small stone stuck in the earth and marked in red, follow that to the home of Doodle Bygrove. He is my kin, and will do everything you ask of him."
"No, no," Steve continued to protest, waving off the instructions like visible flies. "Those Southlings, or whatever they are, are going to kill you. You leave us, and it's a death sentence. Together, at least we can do something."
"To harm another Elf is among the greatest atrocities in our land. If they harm me, they consign themselves to death. As yet, they know nothing of my travels with you, and that could be the one thing that assures my safety." He removed his pack and sword, handing both to Steve. His memory conjured at once the image of his king being stabbed by the hand of the Southling, but despite his reservations, he had to at least try and speak amicably with Ge'elaphi's hunters. Above all, he must divert them to buy them time.
Tony said. "Let him go, Cap. We know he's right. We've got to bunk down, recharge, and get out of this wood. We can't do that with an army on our tails."
Haladarrel clapped the Captain on his shoulder and postured slightly to the right. "Do not fear for me, warrior. All will be well, and I shall rejoin you in the home of my kinsman."
With his final reassurance, the Elf left them with nothing more than his bow and a handful of arrows. To take more may display the truth behind his being in the forest, and that was something he could not risk.
:(:):(:):
"Can I summarize something really quick?"
"I sure wish you wouldn't."
"We are still trapped in the middle of an alien forest full of things that want to eat us."
"Tony, please, five minutes of quiet."
"And what are we doing now? We've left our only guide to go off and get himself killed, while we follow the yellow brick road."
"Five. Minutes. Begging."
"After an ELF named DOODLE. Seriously, someone just slap me awake right now. I can take it."
"I will take that to heart and slap you if that's what you want."
Tony stopped walking and turned toward the Captain. "Seriously, Steve, what are we even looking for?"
"You said it." Steve said, walking ahead. "An elf in the middle of the woods named Doodle."
"I swear, we're in Alice and Wonderland."
"If you were hoping I wouldn't get that reference, then you're wrong."
"What if I changed it to Yankee in King Arthur's court?"
"Still not winning your case." Steve pulled up short as the cobblestone path divided. He looked left, then right, and took the left path into the woodland.
"Did you just look both ways before crossing the street?"
"Tony, did your parents ever teach you the quiet game?"
"I wonder what Thor did when he showed up in the mountains and none of us were there. Do you think he saw the Bifrost path?"
They came across the small stone on the right of the path that signified Doodle Bygrove's home. Steve led the way through the hidden stone markers.
"I don't know. I hope he did. Maybe he'll show up here before we can get out on our own."
"Why did we even come here? Shouldn't we have ended up on Asgard? That's what gets me. Who, there, could have sent us here, and why did they do it? I thought Clint's guy-pal pointy-helmet controlled the thing."
"Heimdall does. That's why none of this makes sense to me either."
They rounded the base of an oak and followed the small red markers into the depths of the wood. Day cascaded back into darkness. Soon they would be spending their second night in the forest, and all Tony could consider was how long it may translate to in Earth days. If he based his calculations off of Asgardian time bending rules, that meant it had already been four and a half days on Earth. Then again, time wasn't exactly stable. It moved in a shifting parallelogram that Tony had difficulty mapping. The minute they reached forty-eight hours on Asgardian's time scale, everything jumped forward, and Earth and Asgard existed in the same plane. When they passed four days, the time would shift forward again, and the process would repeat in rising and falling crescendos.
As his mind occupied itself on sub-space quantum mechanics, Steve continued to do the tracking. When they arrived at the small dome-like hovel carved out of the base of a deceased oak-like tree, both pulled up to a stop.
"That is a hobbit-hole." Tony declared.
"I know that reference too, and no it's not." Steve admonished. He strode forward, ready to knock on the door before it suddenly pulled inward. A lengthy, angular face poked out of, what turned out to be, a very old Elf indeed. His chin sported a considerable crop of whiskers that reached from his receding line of white hair down to his belly. The strands had been tied into three intricate plates that wove in and out of each other, which matched the long flowing hair from his skull to his back. His ears had considerable points, which flowed along the dome shape of his forehead and curled up and back at the tips. Had it not been for the white of his hair, or the small creases in his face, one would think he was as young as Haladarrel.
"Who are you?" Doodle asked. He was very shocked at being disturbed from in his home, since he hardly received one visitor every thirty years or so.
"Haladarrel sent us here. Our friend is injured and we need someplace to care for him." Steve explained.
Doodle's two caterpillar like eyebrows bushed together as his long slender neck pushed his face toward Steve. He inspected him carefully, and then sniffed toward Tony. Two knuckles wrapped on the metal casing.
"Midgardians?" Doodle asked. "Men from Terra? Oh vihe." Oh my.
"The Bifrost brought us here, and there are men chasing after us." Steve continued.
"Men? There are no men here. None besides you. No one ever comes here. What is that dead thing that you carry? Why would Haladarrel send you to me? I have no connection with Asgardians." He leaned in a little closer and tapped Clint's cheek with his finger. The human was not as dead as he initially presumed, but he was still not far from it.
"He's been shot with a poison arrow - "
"Poison? Poison! Nasty business, that. I don't know what you expect out of me, though. Haladarrel, you mean? The son of my sister?"
Steve sighed. This was going to be more difficult than he surmised. "Yes. We parted ways on the path, and he told us how to find you. Our friend was shot with something called ela-ela-"
The elf thrust upward to his fullest height, a considerable length that overtook the doorway. He towered above Steve and Stark both as his eyes blew up to the size of saucer dishes. "Elaren! Why did you not say? Get this man inside! Inside, quickly! He let you move him in such a state as this? Well, I shall give a sound wallop to that boy when he returns. Will he return or has he simply sent you here? How did this man even survive to this point? Elarens only exist in the Blanklands. It is a venom, not a poison, my lad. Surely he has not come so far!"
Doodle rushed in behind them and shut the little door to his oak tree home. He indicated the long wicker-like sofa that framed out the sitting room. Before Tony could place Clint down, the elf rushed away through another small door and returned with a few thick furs. He placed those down over the woven vines first and assisted in letting Clint lie back. Next, he asked for whatever formula Haladarrel had concocted already, and took the remnants to a wash basin that served as his sink. He pumped a handle above the basin a few dozen times to siphon the fresh water up through the subterranean water shelf. When he had a sufficient amount, the herb paste was rehydrated and brought back in the tegu bowl to Clint's side. Steve had already worked Clint's arm out of its sling and wrappings.
The elf tsked at the sight. "Bad. Very bad. Has eaten its way through already. Has Haladarrel eased his breathing?"
"Last night." Tony accessed the panel on his helmet and removed it to set aside.
"Great Faramir! There is another of you hiding in all that muss! Strange race, you Midgardians. I knew one myself. I hear the stories from my children or nieces of the man they call the Archer, but I confess that is all I know of Terra."
"You're in for a treat." Steve said, sitting on the arm of the wicker couch. He indicated Clint. "That's the archer you heard about; Clint Barton. Asgard likes to call him the Champion of Midgard, along with half a dozen other things."
"Sleveho!" An exclamation of surprise and delight with no English translation. "This man? This, who sleeps like the dead on my settee, is he that hammer and bow wielding man who took a set against the Enchantress herself?"
"One and the same." Tony said. More seriously, he added, "Can you help him?"
Doodle filled his cheeks with air as he considered the prospect laid before him. It was the kingly duty of any elf to assist the weary and heavy burden who happened across their doorsteps. That was one reason he lived so very far from all society. He wasn't cut from the same cloth as most other elves. He preferred his solitude, silence, and books. He spent his days considering the advancement of a tree's bark along the core of its skeleton, and the development of patterns among what stars he could climb to see. Assisting the random passersby happened on so rare an occasion he nearly forgot his manners entirely.
"Help? Help? Of course I will help, I cannot not help. After all, an archer is no good with an arm that does not work, and if we leave this much longer, that is what he will become. I still do not understand what would cause Haladarrel to move him in such a state as this. He breathes much too shallow, but I fear taking any more of his blood from him would place too great a burden on his heart. We must flush him for now. For that, I need hot water. Nearly boiling water. I have a hearth, but I have not lit it in some time. It will be a challenge. I must find my sun stones . . ."
Doodle rambled and stood to look amongst his papers and ledgers to find the little bursts of sunlight that heralded his sun stones. He had only three or so remaining with which to strike into the heart and create fire. Where had he placed them? When was the last time he'd even needed such a thing?
"I can get the water heated." Tony offered, holding out the repulser on his hand. "Just find me a pot to hold it in and we'll be going in a couple minutes."
"Are you quite sure?"
"If it's faster than waiting for you to dig this place apart then light a fire in a dirty chimney that will probably smoke us out until we're dead? Yeah, I'm sure."
From where he lay, Clint suddenly interrupted them with a shallow moan. He inclined his head back as his eyes tightened against the light that tried to seep in. He coughed a little, gasped, and tried to roll onto his better side. Tony reached over from behind the couch and held him steady. He'd been carried for so long that, when at last they found a place to stop, he decided something must have been amiss and woke up.
"Lemme . . . be." He whispered, trying to push Tony's hand off of him.
"Stop fighting us." Tony warned.
"Stop saving me." Clint replied, lucid again. His eyes forced open and he looked up into Stark's face. "Keep telling you . . . stop saving me. Don't need your help."
"I'm not that good at listening to instructions."
Doodle dipped his iron pot into the basin of water he'd filled, and returned to place it on Stark's open palm. He stepped back to watch as the Iron Man suit fired up the single repulse on its lowest setting. As he worked to get the water boiling, Steve couldn't help a little jab.
"So, next time we're in the field, we're making you cook our pasta, right?"
"From the guy who burns rice."
"That was one time, and with enough chili garlic sauce it tasted fine. You're the one who screwed up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."
"That ratio of proper jelly to peanut butter is an impossibility, and, therefore, should not exist."
Clint groaned, trying to turn over onto his side again to escape their voices. Steve held him in place this time.
"Your shoulder's open, I can't have you moving too much. Just sit tight." The captain told him.
"No." Clint replied stubbornly. "I can't breathe. I need . . . I need to sit . . ."
"Get the boy up!" Doodle instructed.
He came to the front of the couch and lifted Clint up until the blood in his lungs flooded down again. Once upright, he coughed again, then harder as a fit overtook him. Steve grabbed another dish from the wash basin and placed it beneath Clint's face as the blood spurt out of him. He panted and gulped air when he could, but already his muscles burned in exertion from the night before. He felt weak and shaky. His fingertips and toes were cold and blue from the lack of perfusion in his system. Nearly all of his blood remained in his most vital organs, or spewed out of his lungs.
"Take in shallow breaths." Doodle told him.
"Here's the water. Where do you want it?" Tony asked.
"My, you are a fast one. A glass from the kitchen, you with the peculiar colored garments. Bring it hither. Add this to it. Yes, these herbs here." He pulled out the rehydrated paste and handed it to Steve. "Add only a small amount. How hot is it? Let me touch. Yes, that will do."
"What are you doing to me?" Clint asked.
"Flushing this wound before it kills you. Your shoulder is broken, and I can feel your bones grind against one another. This will be painful, less than being infected with the dresken fever, but more than the initial throes of the venom feeding into your bones. Are you ready for it?"
Clint attempted to scramble away. It was all the inspiration Doodle needed. Taking the glass from Steve, he held the archer back and poured the burning liquid into the through-and-through gap in his bones. The scent of death and the chunks of black flowed from the opening in his back as Clint screamed under the torture of the flushed wound. His friends stood beside him, unable to do more than send him silent reassurances. Those hushed words were not enough to keep Barton from cursing at him in twelve different languages from one side of Elvish to the far side of Cantonese. When he wasn't struggling against his own inhalations, he grabbed the plates of Tony's armor as if to tear into him piece by piece. The utter ferocity that stole through him, the Avengers still could not place. What had hurt him so fully? What had destroyed his appreciation of them and his wanton desire to return to them, his home, and everything he loved?
Tony stopped trying to pry him off the suit. Let Clint tear it apart piece by piece if that's what he wanted. If this was the only attention he could get out of the archer, his best friend, then so be it. He would do what he must to be there for Clint. They were, in many ways, more alike than either cared to admit. Tony had the unfortunate habit of running away from his problems rather than facing them, a trait he shared in spades with Clint. If all the man wanted to do was disappear into the woods of Alfheimr and never come back, he had to have a good reason for it. Whatever he hid from them, he also blamed on them, and that in itself became a tough pill to swallow. If all Tony could do to show his support was stand there and take a few lumps to his suit, he planned to do just that.
The torture seemed to last on into infinity, but at some point the old elf declared he was finished. He'd used the last of the paste to fill the fleshy, raw trench of Clint's arm. At some point it would form a seal, he explained, and the flesh would heal into it like a graft of skin or bone. Tony had felt firsthand the effects of Asgardian healing chambers, he could only guess that Alfheimr had the same quality record.
Clint never lost consciousness, never disappeared within himself. He stayed awake and present for every torturous second he was forced to endure. When they were through at last, he fell to his left side against the back of the furs and wicker wood to rest and catch his breath. His brain had the greatest difficulty keeping up with everything happening to him. After a while, a random pain would shoot across him from nowhere at all, a residual effect of his nerves' massive wind up. Those phantom pains would no doubt haunt him for a long while to come.
Tony hovered beside him, regardless of the archer refusing to acknowledge his presence. Even the newly befriended Doodle could sense the thick tension bathing the room in the uncomfortable silence. It was his suggestion, or rather insistence, of getting both Stark and Rogers off into his own room to enjoy their individual respites that finally got the main room cleared. He gave both hearty, though misplaced, assurances that Barton would not possibly take a turn for the worse and that they did him more good by resting than hovering. At first, neither heeded his request, and were ready to all but fight him on the point. He did point out the fact that as a guest of an elven man, they were required to take his accommodations, lest he be forever despised in the eyes of his king. This was not completely true, but it did well enough to convince them to leave.
With no one left in the room but himself and Barton, he at last settled on the miniature stool beside the fire. After a long investigation, he'd come up with the sun stones with which to light it. The chimney did smoke a considerable amount. With time, the air cleared, and he could enjoy the cackling of the coals and wood as they released the sweet odor of fresh spring. He extracted his pipe and stuck it into the flames to get the contents burning. When it fizzled like miniature embers, he extracted it again and set the little wooden end in the corner of his mouth. He took up his graphite and papers, and then launched back into what he had been doing in the first place before his interruption. After all, new species of flowers did not catalog themselves.
I love Doodle. I just... i love him.
To: randomreader WITH a profile: Who reviewed this, just last chapter: "Definitely the best line, Rogers. Faramir actually has some significance? Huh, well I might have to check that out... Okay, I love your chapter titles. "Searching for a Hobbit Hole..." that's totally Stark talking. Keep up the awesomeness!"
I read your review, and couldn't stop laughing. You know my writing so well now. It brings me joy.
Next time: Drunk Father, Gambling Brother, Dead Wolf
PLEASE REVIEW!
