Eddy - February 17th - Geez

I don't know why Iris got worked up over such a simple thing. I'm supposed to be helpful, right? Seriously. I was hungry, and it would definitely go faster if I helped Iris. And then she just blows up at me.

So maybe I shouldn't have said that comment about Tom. He was the jerk, not Iris.

But it is hard to be with her, sometimes. She can have pretty high expectations. We hardly argue, but when we do, she's extremely stubborn. I just don't know what to do sometimes.

The rest of the day was tense, obviously. But everyone else seemed to be in a better mood than Iris and I. That just made my mood worse.

"Hey, Eddy." I glanced up to see Haldir. We'd finished lunch by now and were back on the road. Oh the endless joys of walking.

"I don't need a lecture right now." I snapped.

Haldir looked slightly hurt, but I really didn't care. "I wasn't going to give you a lecture. I was just going to ask you if you thought the leaves were beautiful today." He paused for a second. "But I guess I won't."

He quickened his pace a little and caught up to Aranor, who was walking behind Hallie, Liz, and Cathor.

Ugh. Cathor.

The dude was apparently some sort of "supermodel", or had that physique, whatever. But just because Hallie and Iris were fangirling over him didn't mean he could be trusted. I didn't like the guy one bit. Especially since he is a shadewalker.

Shadewalking creeps me out, to be honest. I don't like it when Liz does it. It makes her seem too powerful. That she can control the shadows- there are just some things that shouldn't be done. Now we have another shadewalker in our midst, so I don't just have to keep an eye on one of them.

It's not that I don't trust Liz, it's just that she and Hallie seem so powerful. I mean, Hallie's invulnerable (which all of us consider unfair), is awesome with a sword, and has combat magic (which she's pretty good with, when she's not sneezing vases into oblivion). And Liz has her dang shadewalking, which is like invulnerability in itself.

I walked along in silence for a while. Iris talked to Haldir a lot, which just made me grumpier. She should be apologizing to me. She's the one that blew up, anyway. She could be so annoying sometimes.

Finally, we stopped for the night. We were all soaked to the bone, because it had started raining. We couldn't even make a fire, because the raindrops made the wood too wet and we could light anything.

We pitched the tents, and then huddled up in our sleeping bags, eating lembas for dinner. We had fresh clothes on, but if the rain kept up, we wouldn't have very many dry clothes for long.

It was going to be a long night.

Around midnight, I woke up, and realized that the rain had slowed a little. Haldir was asleep beside me. He was snoring, which I find kind of amusing.

I put on my cloak and walked outside, because I needed some fresh air. It was feeling sort of cramped in the tent, and I had been hunched over in there all night.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of voices. I looked around the tent, wondering where the voices were coming from. Aranor and Cathor were in the tent next to mine. And then Iris, Liz, and Hallie shared a tent. The voices were coming from there. Along with the sound of crying.

Quietly, I stole to the side of the tent.

Iris was the one crying. "I just feel so bad!"

"Hey, he's the jerk. He shouldn't have said all that stuff about Tom and whatever." Hallie. She was whispering. I wonder how I had heard them…

"But I said all that stuff about him being in the way," Iris said.

"It'll be okay. Everyone has their fights sometimes," Liz said.

"I still think it was his fault," Hallie said. Gee, thanks, Hallie.

"No, it was totally my fault," Iris said. Her tone hit me with a pang.

"Well, it was partly your fault, and partly Eddy's fault then," Liz said.

"So what should I do?" Iris asked.

"Well… I guess just give the two of you some time to cool off, I guess. Eddy's a good guy at heart, it's just that sometimes he can be opinionated. It'll be better in the morning. A new start. Just go to sleep. I know that whenever I fight with my brother, we get really mad at each other, but in the morning, everything's fine again. You'll see."

"I hope you're right," Iris said, sighing.

"You should still wait for Eddy to apologize first though," Hallie said. "He should own up to his own faults." There was a slight pause. "No buts!"

"Okay, we should get some sleep," Liz said. "Knowing Hallie, she's going to make us walk until we fall on our faces."

"True that," Hallie said. Iris giggled.

I walked away. It was partly my fault… and I could hear how sorry Iris was. I guess I was kind of a jerk. I walked back into my tent. I lay awake, hands behind my head. What should I do now? Apologize, I guess… it really was a stupid thing to get worked up over. And it was mainly my fault. I sighed.

Why was being a boyfriend so hard?

February 18th - Raining on my Parade

It was raining. Again. Our cloaks helped, but we were still getting soaked.

Lembas for breakfast. I kept having to eat more and more of that stuff. It's supposed to be filling, but I'm feeling weaker and weaker. Haldir and Aranor are still as spry as ever though. It has to be the Hourglass. We're running out of time.

But I have some more important things to worry about right now.

Like how to deal with my girlfriend. And avoid Hallie's glare. And Liz keeps sending me looks like, "Shouldn't you be doing something right now?"

I just looked at her like, "I know, I know! I'm getting there!"

She rolled her eyes. I could just hear her voice in my head telling me to hurry it up.

I had already apologized to Haldir, for snapping at him. He had been nice, saying that it was alright, and he understood. I hoped Iris would be as forgiving.

Finally, I gathered up the courage to walk up to her. "Hey, uh, Iris," I started awkwardly.

She turned to look at me. There was something different about her eyes. Instead of their usual green, there was a grey tint to it. Along with a lot of different emotions that I couldn't read.

"Listen… I'm sorry. I was a jerk."

She took a deep breath. "It's okay. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."

I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. "Um, it was mostly my fault. And I'm really sorry that I hurt you."

"I guess we both need some work, huh?" she said, smiling slightly.

"Yeah, I guess so," I said, smiling. "Anyways… I am really sorry for being a jerk."

"Darn right you are!" Hallie suddenly cut in. What was her problem? Yeesh. She didn't always have to rub it in my face like that. I apologized!

But Iris started laughing. Things were still a little tense between us, but they were better at least.

Iris hugged me. I could feel her laughs. I looked over her head at Liz, who smirked and rolled her eyes. Whatever that meant.

Hallie- February 21st - Laundry Day

We're all still really tired. We have a month left. A MONTH. I don't know if we're going to be able to make it. There's so little sand left, it's scary.

And we had to stop again. Not because of the rain this time, but because we are literally out of dry clothes to wear. So we found ourselves near a small river, and after thoroughly checking it for small green dwarves, we decided to wash our clothes. And take baths.

Oh, and Liz spilled soup over Cathor's shirt. Again. Seriously, it can't be a coincidence that she keeps ruining his clothes.

So as we were washing our clothes, after taking baths in the ice-cold water, (luckily, us girls still had some dry clothes), I just had to ask. "Hey, Liz," I said.

"What?"

"Iris and I have a question for you." I said, smiling.

She gave me a confused and slightly weirded out look. "That's your creepy smile. Am I going to like this question?"

"Maybe."

She sighed. "Fine. Go ahead."

"Are you purposely ruining all of Cathor's shirts so that when he runs out you can see him shirtless?" I giggled. She really looked creeped out now.

Her face turned beet red. "No!" she sputtered. "Absolutely not. I'm just clumsy! I tripped on a root today, and he happened to be in front of me, that's all. Plus… you know I don't have a thing for shirtless guys."

"Are you sure? Because if you don't want him..." I paused. "Iris and I will take him." Iris burst out laughing.

She splashed water at us. "You weirdos! That just put a really weird picture in my mind," she said, shuddering.

We were laughing. I splashed water back at her, which probably wasn't a good idea, given that these were our last set of dry clothes. The rest were drip-drying on a line Haldir tied between two trees.

Soon we were involved in a full out splash war, and we were completely soaked. I laughed at the absurdity of it all. Here we were, three teenage girls lost in Middle Earth, having a splash war. Yep. That certainly happened everyday.

"What are you doing?" I heard Aranor call. "It doesn't really sound like you're washing clothes."

We stopped and hung our last articles of clothing on the line. Aranor was standing behind a line of bushes.

"We were just having a little… fun," I trailed off. Oh. My. Emu. Aranor... was not wearing a shirt. Um. Okay. That's totally fine. Yeah. I'm pretty sure my face was beet red. Or worse. Maybe I looked like a tomato.

I quickly ducked my head and turned back to Liz. She was laughing. Like, really laughing. Bent-over-may-roll-off-and-die laughter. I glared at her. "Oh be quiet."

She tried to say something, but couldn't because she was laughing too hard. Iris' face was pretty red too. Just then, Eddy walked up (thankfully wearing a shirt). He just looked at all of us.

"I'm going to go die in a hole now..." I muttered, gathering some of my clothes and Elyon. I started to trudge up the hill, but slipped. And Aranor caught me. Holy Fudge. Someone's gorgeous. Ugh. This was obviously not my day.

At this point, Liz was dying. I think Iris was starting to laugh too. Ugh. I doubt she'd be laughing if Eddy was shirtless.

"Um... thanks..." I stuttered, trying not to stare at him. "I... I'm going to go check on the clothes. Yep. Okay... so... see you later." Yep. Brain has malfunctioned.

I totally sprinted away. Facepalm, facepalm, facepalm. I could not be falling in love with the heir to the throne of Gondor. This wasn't happening, right? Oh good Eru... I could just see Aragorn's face... not that I was looking forward to seeing him anytime soon anyway. We had sort of kidnapped his kid and ran off without his permission...

Behind me, I heard Aranor ask, "Was it something I said?"

"No… it definitely… wasn't… something… you… said," Liz managed to wheeze out before erupting into peals of laughter again. I… hate her.

Wait. What? I was falling in love with Aranor? Ugh. My brain has definitely stopped functioning correctly. I don't love him. I find him attractive, true, but that's it! I mean, sure, his smile makes my knees wobble sometimes and sparring with him makes me happy and… fudge.

This is so not my day. I finally managed to make it back to our encampment, where I hung my now washed clothing up on the line. Once that was done, I sat down against a tree. As much as I hated to admit it, simple stuff like that really does sap my energy. It's the stupid Hourglass. It gets heavier every single day.

Suddenly, I heard footsteps. I forced myself to jump up and had my sword at the ready.

"Goodness, don't kill me." It was Haldir. Relaxing, I sank back down to the ground.

"Sorry. I'm just a little tense, I guess."

"I understand. This quest weighs heavily on your shoulders." He smiled and sat down next to me.

"Yeah. But not just that. I'm seriously messed up... emotionally, physically, with my powers... it seems like my streak of bad luck is never going to end." I looked over at Haldir. "You ever feel that way?"

"Definitely. But I can tell you from experience that the storm does end, and the sun comes out. Just like it did today. The rain stopped, and we were able to experience some warmth again."

I groaned. "Why do you have to be so inspirational?"

Haldir smiled at me. "It's in the elf handbook, along with a recipe for awesome shampoo."

"So that's how Legolas does it."

We laughed. I could hear everyone coming up the hill from the river. I was pretty sure Liz was still laughing, and if I wasn't so tired, I might punch her. Oh Eru. I hope Aranor is wearing a bloody shirt.

They rounded the bend, and the first thing I saw was Liz' face. It was really pale. She glared at me, and I shrugged at her. I really had no idea what was going on.

But then I totally understood, because Cathor came around the bend... sin shirt. I burst out laughing. Haldir looked at me, and then at Liz, and then at Cathor, and he smiled, laughing too.

And so that is the reason Haldir and I ended up rolling across the forest floor, laughing our heads off. Cathor walked over to us. "Are you two alright?"

"We're doing great, Thor." I responded. Liz glared some more, and I continued laughing. Iris was laughing, too, by this point, and I'm pretty sure Aranor thought I was crazy. Cathor rolled his eyes and walked away... hopefully to find a shirt. I noticed that he had a tattoo on his forearm, but I couldn't tell what it was. I wondered if it was like Liz's shadewalker tattoo, and then I wondered if a shadewalker could choose where the tattoo was located.

Eventually I stopped laughing, but I had to wipe tears out of my eyes. It felt so good to laugh, but my stomach ached. Maybe I'd have a six-pack in the morning.

Haldir helped me off the ground and we wandered closer to the fire, where Iris was making some stew and Eddy was thankfully staying out of her way. Haldir grabbed a seat next to said eagle-man, which left the only open seat next to Aranor. Glaring at Liz the entire time (because I knew this was her doing), I walked over and sat down.

Ugh. This sort of stuff happened to me all the bloody time. I'd find some guy attractive, and then I'd get stuck in a group project with him or something and I'd never be able to speak to him again. Why did I have to be so awkward around guys I liked?

It took me a second before I realized that Aranor had been talking to me. Fudge. Fudge my mind. I glanced over at him. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I asked if you were feeling okay." Oh my gosh. He was concerned. Shut up, mind. Shut. Up.

"Yeah... I'm fine. I'm... ah... sorry for running off earlier." I'm totally going to stop talking now.

He smiled. My heart sped up. Okay, this was getting out of control. "It's alright," he said. Was it just my imagination, or did he look a bit proud of himself? Gah.

See? This is what happens.

"Dinner's ready!" said Iris. I sighed. This relieved the awkwardness, if only slightly. You know what? I was probably just imagining the awkwardness. Yep. That was totally it.

So we ate our stew, engaging in small talk when it suited us. It was, to be honest, a pleasant dinner. You know, about as pleasant as it can get when you're on a quest for your life.

"Hallie." I turned to face Aranor again.

"Hmm?"

"Would you like to spar with me after dinner?" Of course. After I repeatedly bang my head against this tree and tell myself a million times that no, this isn't happening and that I don't like you.

"Sure." Oh my goodness... I was down to one-syllable conversations. Where's that tree?

Liz and Cathor had to clean up after dinner tonight. My goodness... the fluff. It's almost like Valentine's Day hit us a week late or so. Aranor and I grabbed our swords and went off a little bit to spar.

I was getting better. Obviously, I wasn't the best swordsman in the world (not without my powers), but since I'd lost my powers, I'd almost become a better swordswoman. I didn't have to rely on some supernatural event to keep me alive. I was able to defend attacks and know why they worked and how they worked for me. I was able to go on the offensive. One thing that had stayed with me, even after my powers had departed, was my ability to see holes in others' attacks. Why? I wondered that too. But then I realized that it was a lot like debate- seeing holes in people's cases.

I didn't have to have my powers to be pretty good.

I balanced Elyon in my hand before the round. I loved this sword. Smiling, I turned around to face Aranor, but found that he wasn't there. I looked around me, confused. He wouldn't just leave me.

Suddenly, I heard something behind me, and then felt the cold of a blade under my chin. An arm slid around my waist and I was pressed against someone. Startled, I froze, but kept a firm grip on my sword.

"Your goal is to escape." Aranor whispered in my ear. Holy. Fudgsicles. Why in the world is this happening to me? Okay, focus. If I'd had my powers, I wouldn't be in this situation. Wait. S.I.N.G. Oddly enough, I remembered the self-defense acronym from the movie Miss Congeniality. You know, the one she used on the guy she liked. Because that is totally how it will work for me. Okay. Let's try that.

I jabbed my elbow into Aranor's gut, causing him to gasp. Solar-Plexus. Then I slammed my shoe down on his foot. Instep. Around this time, I was able to twist around. I punched him in the nose (oh gosh, I hope I didn't break anything), and then kicked him. Hard. Down there. Nose and Groin.

Aranor fell to his knees. I placed Elyon under his chin.

"I surrender," he coughed.

"Oh, Eru, Aranor, I'm so sorry."

"Totally... fine." He was still sitting on the ground. I sat down next to him.

"Are you sure? I punched you pretty hard. Is your nose bleeding? Look at me." He turned his head to face me. Luckily his nose wasn't bleeding- probably his blood of the Eldar. For a moment, I stared at him. Got lost in his eyes, etc. You know, all the cliches.

"I'm fine. Little worse for wear, but glad you can protect yourself." He smiled at me.

"Well... if that's the case... you up for round two?"

*whispers* I ship it.