CHAPTER 14

AN; sorry for the late update! We have 1234 views! Yay, cool number alert!

I cross my arms and hug them close to my body as I look around me. The trees are so big… it's scary, almost.

Gimli sees a stain on a leaf, and for some reason, tastes it. He spits it out. "Orc blood!" he says, grimacing.

Part of me wants to laugh at Gimli for tasting a random substance. But the last time I mocked someone, it was Aragorn, and now we aren't speaking.

Actually, he's talking right now. "These are strange tracks," he mutters.

"This forest is old, full of memory and anger." Legolas says. My brother has an annoying habit of stating the obvious. I'm quite sure everyone could tell that, even Gimli, who scorns trees of all kinds. "The trees are speaking to one another," he adds. I strain, and I can hear what sounds a bit like the trees talking. I'm not as good as reading it as Legolas.

"Gimli!" Aragorn hisses, quietly for some reason. "Lower your axe."

He does.

I sense something, and start to speak, before I remember I'm not speaking to Aragorn. Legolas, however, also picks something up, and starts hissing to Aragorn in elvish that the white wizard approached.

We all get our weapons ready, Aragorn his sword, Legolas his bow, Gimli his axe, and me, two knives in each hand.

A blinding light appears. We all try to attack it, but everyone's weapons are bounced off – and since I was going for a direct attack, I end up sitting on the forest floor with a possibly damaged spine. I squint through the light, trying to make out the figure behind it. I can't.

He speaks, and his voice sounds awfully familiar, for some reason. "You are searching for two young hobbits," he says.

"Where are they?" Aragorn says, grabbing his sword again.

I'm almost positive I know this voice, although I'm not sure why I know it, or how I know it. I do not know Saruman, so how do I know his voice? I pay no attention to the words, listening instead to the rhythm of the words, the slight accent.

It sounds almost like…

But he's dead.

"Who are you?" Aragorn interrogates. "Show yourself!"

When the light fades, I'm right! I jump up once and clap my hands just once, in a way most unbecoming for a warrior. "Gandalf!" I breathe.

Gimli and Legolas bow. I end up doing a combination of a bow and a curtsey, as I don't have a skirt of, so I can't curtsey, but my palace upbringing is forcing me to curtsey.

"But… you fell." Aragorn says, as if solving a hard equation.

He nods, and tells us his adventures. "Through fire and water. From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, I fought with the Balrog of Morgoth. Until at last, I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountainside. Darkness took me. And I strayed out of thought and time. Stars wheeled overhead and everyday was as long a life-age of the earth. But it was not the end. I felt life in me again. I've been sent back until my task is done."

You know, I've met some people who can tell tales that make you think you're living right beside them, in the middle of their adventures. Gandalf, evidently, is not one of these. But he still is pretty cool. I mean, who else falls down a pit and ends up on top of a mountain?

"Gandalf…" Aragorn breathes, like he has finally found the answer to that tough math equation.

"Gandalf? Ah, yes, that was my name… Gandalf the grey. You may now call me Gandalf the white! Come, war has arrived at Rohan. We must ride to Edoras."

I'm not completely sure what good we can do in stopping a war, but who knows?

Once we have gotten out of the forest, Gandalf whistles. I clap my ears over my hands and wish I could whistle. I try it now. Nope – nothing.

A beautiful white horse is galloping towards us, faster than I've ever seen anything move before. "That is one of the Mearas, unless my eyes are cheated by some spell," says Legolas.

"Your eyes are cheated by some spell. Can't you see it's a donkey?" I say. Gimli chuckles quietly.

Slowly and deliberately, the horse picks up some grass from the ground, chews it deliberately, and spits it at my face. Now everyone is laughing.

We all mount, me behind Aragorn. "I'm sorry", I mutter. I hate apologizing, but it seems like this is a worthy cause.

He turns around – which is quite dangerous on a moving horse – and smiles. "Me, too."

To Rohan we go - to turn the tide in a war.