A/N I'm sorry, I know it's been an entire week since I updated, and I won't bore you excuses about the holiday craziness and writer's block, but please forgive me, I'll try to be quicker with the next update. Promise.
Happy New Years everyone!
Disclaimer:
Smeagol: Writer ownsssesss nothing.
Gollum: Thatsss right! Author ownsss nothing, so author shouldn't be writing thissss. No she shouldn't precioussss! Gollum, gollum.
Smeagol: It'sss only fanficssess it isss, nothing wrong with that!
Gollum: Issss too wrong! Author ruinssssesss nice booksesss!
Beyond-the-wit-of-man: Gollum, Smeagol, it's one in the morning on New Year's Eve, don't you have a party to be at?
Gollum: New Yearsss evesess she sayss Precioussss. Partiesss? No, no Partiessssesss, no one ever invitessss Gollum to partiesss. No one likesss usss Precioussss. Nasssty New Yearsessss. One year closssser to to 2012 we issss preciousss. One year closssser to the end of the worldsssessss!
Smeagol: World will not end. Only silly conspiracy theorissstsss think sssso. And New Yearsss issss not nasssty! We likesss New Yearssssss!
Gollum: One more year without our precioussss it is!
Smeagol: Fireworksesssss! Yay! Good Smeagol will go watch fireworksesss now. Leave author to her work!
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
-Albert Einstein
The World Ahead
Sam's Journal, Entry Eleven
We stayed at La Lorain about two weeks, healing our injuries and recovering from the loss of Faldang. In all that time, I kept my discovery to myself. The last thing I needed was everyone to think I had gone mad. Then again, maybe I had lost my marbles. It wasn't all that inconceivable.
Snow was built up on the windowsills, and swirling white flakes drifted slowly down from the heavy grey clouds on the morning of our departure. I shivered as I dressed in the new clothes that had been a gift from The Lady: Dark jeans, a fitted navy top, tall leather boots and a charcoal grey trench coat. They weren't entirely my style, not very colorful and with too many labels in French and Italian, but they were comfortable, easy to move in, and of course would be hard to pick out in a crowd or a rocky mountain landscape, whichever you happened to be in on a dangerous quest to destroy an all powerful computer program/ring.
I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, then pulled out my brush and began to work it through my horrible I-just-rolled-out-of-bed hair, staring at my reflection in the huge gilt framed mirror as I did so.
The face that looked back at me was not the same one I remembered from, how long ago was it? A few weeks? A month? More? I could hardly remember how much time had passed since I had first left the safety of Orwell for this new, terrifying world. I tried to figure out what had changed in my appearance. Certainly my general features were the same, but there was something different in the furrow of my brow and the line of my lips. A thin scar marred the skin over my left temple, and another cut across the back of my right hand. It took a moment for me to find the word for how I looked: Older.
I sighed, wondering what I would see the next time I looked in a mirror. How many more scars would I have? How much deeper would the lines on my forehead and the bags beneath my eyes be? How loosely would my clothes hang on me? I would never have called myself exactly fat before, just maybe a bit chunky. Now though, my waist had shrunk several inches, my arms and legs were becoming dangerously close to scrawny, and my cheeks had gone from a child-like plumpness, to sharp and hollowed,
Yanking the brush through the last few tangles of my hair, I began to pull the curls back from my face and force them into something resembling a braid. I had had enough of my hair getting in my eyes during fights.
With a wry grin, I realized that I was actually choosing my hairstyle on the basis of whether it would hamper my fighting ability. Well, maybe not exactly an ability-I was still moderately hopeless in all realms of the world of combat- but nonetheless, I was actually considering whether or not my hair would get in the way during a fight. If only my self from two months ago could see this. She would probably be thrilled.
Shaking my head, I turned away from my reflection and looked around for anything I hadn't yet packed.
Half an hour later, having finished off a croissant and cup of coffee, I was standing with the others in one of the seemingly countless dining rooms of the inn, while The Lady briefed us on the plans for travel. First, we would be flown to Luxembourg, the idea being that in such a small country it would be likely that neither Sarn nor Sebastian Kyler would have many people on the lookout for us there. After a brief fuel stop, the plane would take off again, headed for a small airstrip owned by La Lorain that was situated a ways south of our final destination at Mt. Jishaku.
"I am afraid that from there you must find your own way to the Mountain." The Lady continued, "We have no one who knows that land well enough to guide you, and few that would be willing to attempt such a treacherous journey even if they did."
"Of course Lady. And thank you; you have done more than we could hope for for us as it is." Stride gave a little half-bow that looked a bit ridiculous.
The Lady only smiled one of her small, calm smiles, and beckoned to Ryan and Oliver who were standing behind her holding piles of various packages.
First, she took a small object wrapped in silvery cloth from Ryan, and unwrapped it carefully, handing it gracefully to Stride, and speaking to him in a voice too low for the rest of us to hear. I caught a glimpse of green stone as he slipped it onto his finger, but looked away hurriedly when I saw the glint of a tear in his eye.
Next she took a similarly wrapped package, and handed it to Bear. I looked at it curiously as he unwrapped it to reveal what appeared at first to be a bunch of unidentifiable leather straps, but I soon recognized as one of the gun holders that so many of the La Lorain men and women wore under their jackets to keep their firearms hidden but easily accessible.
She continued down the line, handing each of us a gift, accompanied by a few quiet words. Merry and Pete each got a nice shiny new handgun. Leonard was given a belt of the long, slim throwing knives that I had seen him practicing with in the training rooms hidden under the inn. And, to Pete's great amusement, when Gerald requested a single hair from The Lady's head as a gift, The Lady gave him not one, but three. Personally, I found this rather sweet, but wondered how Gerald was planning on keeping track of three hairs during our trip.
Finally, she arrived at me, and once again I was caught in her unnerving gaze. She reached out with one delicate gloved hand, and I saw that she was holding a small box of beautifully carved curly maple.
Hesitantly, I took it, flipped the clasp, and opened it to reveal… seeds? I looked up at her in confusion, wondering exactly why she was giving me a bunch of seeds, while the others got a veritable armory full of weaponry. Not that a new gun would have been of any particular use in my hands.
She gave me a knowing smile, and stooped gracefully so that I could hear her quiet voice.
"This is another one of my personal projects. I trust you know what genetically modified food is?"
I nodded, not getting it. I knew what GM was. Scientists could use genetic modification to make plants grow bigger, or taste different, or have different types of nutrients or chemicals in them than they normally did, but I had no idea what a bunch of GM seeds were supposed to do to help us on a Ring destroying quest. Unless that is, they could maybe grow into plants that would strangle enemy agents of the dark side or whatever other unfriendly things we might run into.
"These are seeds for several different types of trees, crops, and flowers that have been modified so that they will grow nearly anywhere, and thrive in nearly any sort of environment, driving out pollution and disease as they do so."
Awesome. I loved plants, I really did, but this was going to help us on our quest how exactly?
"Thank you Lady, but, well what do I use them for?" I asked quietly.
She only gave me another knowing smile, and said, "I trust you will know when the time comes, Samantha. Perhaps sooner." Then, without another word, she moved on to Fred.
I stared down at the little box, wondering exactly what use I could ever have for it, except maybe planting a pretty garden if I ever made it home.
You know that little purple review button really is very pretty…
Tavaril Lasgalen: Yup, I figured I'm taking Tolkien's work and using it for my own writing, so why not steal a little from Dickens as well… ;-) And actually, to be perfectly honest, I can't take full credit for the mirror/computer idea, the inspiration came from another author, but I thought it would work well enough.
AshleySciFigirl: I wondered if anyone would catch that… yes, Ryan is Rumil and Oliver is Orophin. I needed a few more elves in the picture, and decided that would work as well as any.
I agree, a modern LOTR movie would be awesome. Actually, my plan for the future is to be a filmmaker, so maybe…. Although, I can hardly imagine what sort of copyright issues would arise if innocent little fanfilms that aren't making any profit have to be careful about that sort of thing. ;-)
Elemarth: Thanks! And yes, odd is certainly one word that could be used to describe this.
Merlyn2: I just couldn't resist having Gollum be Scrooge for a bit, I had just seen a stage version of A Christmas Carol, and was reading A Tale of Two Cities at the time, so I sorta had Dickens on my mind at the time. And yes, I decided it was time for someone to start figuring out the fact that they were reliving LOTR, but I don't plan on having Sam's discovery bring much change to the story, especially as in my mind she has only seen the movies, and is not a big LOTR fan, so she won't really be able to control or predict very much.
Jeremy: Thanks! Sorry for the late update, I'll try to make up for it. Happy New Years to you too!