Chapter 28: Three Elves walk into a bar...
Change to summary is only temporary - just a little experiment to see if anyone else would read if I emphasised the "Legomance" aspect of the story :-)
Disclaimer: I do not own any of this, well except for the OCs (with the possible exception of Mary Sue who just seems to be doing her own thing with no help from me whatsoever).
Author's note: this chapter will be a bit violent in places. Mary Sue apparently thinks she's Jack Reacher. (The book version, not the Tom Cruise version, which has got to count as the most spectacular piece of miscasting in movie history – Tom Cruise that is, not Mary Sue. She'd make a far better Jack Reacher. Henceforth, I may have to call her Mary None Sue.) Hopefully though it's in keeping with my 12 rating – certainly not as violent as the three most recent Bond films. But I guess this means I should also add that I don't own Jack Reacher, and possibly apologise to Lee Child for borrowing the cold water trick (think of it as an homage – if you say it with a French accent it sounds suitably respectful).
Mary Sue paced up and down the narrow room. She had been doing this for several hours now, since they were thrown into the cell. The feeble daylight through the high, dirt-smeared window near the ceiling of the semi-basement room was now fading fast, so she guessed it was well after 4.00 pm. A feeble naked bulb hung on a flex from the ceiling, casting a sickly light into their prison. Sally looked up from where she sat on the dusty floorboards, back against the wall, arms wrapped round her knees.
"Will you stop doing that? It's doing my head in," Sally said, fear making her voice sharp and angry.
"Can't help it. Too wound up to stay still." But sensing that Sally was close to the end of her tether, Mary Sue stopped, leaned against the wall opposite her human companion, then slid down it into a sitting position. She put her head on her knees, shutting her eyes, deep in thought. Her hand cupped the bruise on her cheek where one of the men had struck her when she'd seized a moment on the boat to throw her mobile phone overboard. Obviously they'd been looking forward to seeing what information they could glean from it. She was rather surprised that she and Sally had not yet been interrogated, but she supposed that they were being left to stew, with a view to them getting into such an over-wrought state that their resistance would already be half gone through fear of what was to come, making the eventual questioning easier for their captors.
There had to be something she could do. Memories of the way she and Haldir and the Rangers had rescued Gimli came back to her. Maybe there was a strategy that would work. She didn't think that she and Sally had a realistic chance of escape, but maybe, perhaps, they could do something to even the odds for the other elves and their mortal comrades. Even if that meant that they themselves would come out of the situation badly. Or not at all. She shook her head. Dwelling on that wouldn't accomplish anything. She thought back to some of the hand-to-hand combat techniques Haldir had taught her on long evenings by the campfire on their journey south to the Haradwaith. For a moment she got distracted by the memories, and smiled to herself. She'd rather enjoyed the excuse for a wrestling match – tussling with Haldir had a certain appeal. She wasn't sure what she'd enjoyed most – ending up pinned to the ground by him, or the rare occasions when she'd managed to land up on top, astride his rather pleasantly muscled body. Though actually, she realised, she'd be equally happy just to have another of their silly arguments, specially now they just went through the motions of squabbling more out of habit than anything else. With a sigh, she forced her attention back to the present. No point thinking that a blunt approach to combat would work. Instead, everything depended on distraction and misdirection.
She waited in silence as the light in the window faded to gloom and the wilds outside became steadily darker. It all hinged on how quickly she could read human psychology, how rapidly she could weigh up what sort of a man her captor was. Eventually, the wait was over. She heard the sound of the door being unlocked and opened, and a man came in, bearing a couple of plates of some sort of stew and a couple of tin mugs. He wasn't wearing any sort of mask. Mary Sue took this to be a bad sign. Their captors didn't care if they saw them; they clearly didn't mean for her or Sally to survive long enough to describe them to anyone. Their death sentences had already been signed and sealed. In one respect, Mary Sue thought, that made it easier. She wasn't putting Sally at risk of anything that wasn't going to happen anyway. She looked up at the man.
She remembered what she'd read about the psychology of a certain type of hyper-masculine man, drawn to combat, and to violence, whether it be street fighting or rape or beating his spouse. She noted the look in this man's eye, a sort of flat, dead look, coupled with an anger flickering behind his eyes, and a hunger that seemed to grow when he took in the helpless, slumped position of the two women. Her gut instinct was that this was the rarest type, and most dangerous, the psychopathic rapist. It was enormously risky, but her only hope lay in trying to use this to her advantage. She shot him a brief look, then averted her eyes as if in terror, wriggling away into the far corner, crossing her arms in front of her chest. He put down the tray, and as she'd hoped, came towards her, rather than Sally, seemingly getting off on her display of terror.
Reaching down, he hauled her to her feet. She pulled back against him, drawing him towards her. Then suddenly, without warning, she shifted her balance and brought her forehead crashing forwards onto his nose. She heard the crunch as it shattered, felt the splatter of blood spray over both of them. She brought her foot down on his instep with all her weight, then as he lost his balance sideways, used his momentum to spin him head first into the wall. He gave a grunt of pain, but recovered fast and made a grab for her. She turned with his movement, bracing her hip so that he rolled over the top of her as she ducked. His momentum carried him down to the floor. As hard as she could, she brought her DM-clad foot into contact with his head, just above the ear where she'd read the skull was thinnest.
He lay there, inert. His breath came in grunts and snuffles, nose still oozing blood.
"Should we put him in the recovery position," asked Sally, in a small voice.
"Depends on whether you want him to recover. Personally, I can't say I do. Come on, we've got work to do," said Mary Sue, and led Sally out into the hallway beyond the door, locking the door behind them.
"We need to find the armoury." Mary Sue set about a systematic search of the cellars of the building. After a few false starts, she found what she was looking for. The fifth door she opened revealed racks of semi-automatic weapons. As quickly as she could, Mary Sue worked her way along the racks, taking the firing pins out of all of them bar one. She checked the ammo clip on this one, chambered a round but left the safety on ("Cocked and locked," she muttered to Sally). She put a handful of spare clips in one pocket of her fleece. She took a another quick look at the gun, and set it to "burst". In the corner, she found a box of hand grenades, and stuffed a couple into the other pocket, together with a flare.
"Never know when they might come in handy. Let's get you out of here." She started up the rickety wooden stairs, gesturing for Sally to follow. At the top of the stairs, she paused, listening. When she was as sure as she could be that the coast was clear, she opened the door. They seemed to be in what must once have been the kitchen of the house, in the servants' quarters at the back. She opened the kitchen door, which lay at the back, on the landward side. The faint light of dusk was dwindling, gloom gathering about the surrounding countryside.
"Head that way," Mary Sue said, gesturing to the east. She shoved the stolen firing pins into Sally's pocket. "Wait till you're a good distance from the house then chuck these into a pool somewhere in the bog. Then keep going till the land begins to rise, then head south, skirting the hillside. Make sure you keep a couple of hundred feet above the coast path at least. You'll have to do most of the journey in the dark, but so long as you keep going with the uphill slope to your left, you'll be going in the right direction, and you'll eventually get back to Elgol. And keep moving – if you stop in this weather, you'll freeze. Just keep it slow and steady and don't exhaust yourself. Go!"
Mary Sue waited till Sally disappeared into the shadows of the peat hags, then shut the kitchen door. A few moment's investigation revealed the servants' back stairs, and she hastily and quietly made her way up to the attic, where the Victorian servants must once have had their bedrooms. It looked as though a few of the rooms were now being used by the Brunwasser troops, but mercifully, none were around. Mary Sue went into one of the empty rooms and poked her head out of the dormer window. True to its pastiche Victorian origins as a piece of "Scottish Baronial", it boasted a crenellated parapet round the edge of the roof, in heavy dark stone. Mary Sue slung the semi-automatic round her neck, stepped gingerly across the slates until she could sit in the valley gutter between two angles of the roof. She slid down the lead flashing, coming to a halt behind the parapet. She crept along behind the parapet until she reached the north west corner of the house, where she found herself perfectly positioned with a vantage over the north side, from which her comrades would mount their attack, and the west side, where she could try to cause a diversion.
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At the foot of the gully, Eddie and Steve watched as the Elves, Men and Dwarf from another world hunkered down amid the peat hags and waited. The Elves in particular seemed to have got waiting doing nothing to a fine art form. The hours crept by. Suddenly, Steve felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He took it out, startled. They'd agreed on no contact except in case of emergency. He drew his coat round himself and the phone so that no stray light from the screen would give away their position and opened the message.
"S&M: held captive." It was short and cryptic. And Steve couldn't help a smile – by sheer coincidence the initials could make it look like a stupid joke if anyone was monitoring the SMS traffic. But his smile faded rapidly as he realised the seriousness. Not only were the two women in extreme danger, they were also in a position to blow the whole attack wide open. And he was absolutely clear on the training he'd received back at base in Hereford about torture: talk early, spill all you know. Because everyone talks sooner or later, and the sooner you talk, the less pain before you're dead. It's the job of your superiors to make sure you don't have enough of the full picture in your head to compromise the whole op. But Mary Sue did know everything – she'd helped to plan the attack.
He gestured to Legolas, who came over to join him. As quickly as he could he told him the situation. The two of them came to a rapid agreement: no point sticking to plan A, which had been to wait for the dead hours of early morning to attack. They'd have to go as soon as it was completely dark. Legolas went over to tell the others.
Steve heard Legolas speak the language that all of them, Men and Dwarf, could understand. But then he heard Haldir switch to the more musical language the Elves spoke when they were alone. There seemed to be some sort of very heated exchange taking place. Haldir, normally impassive, was visibly upset. Legolas laid his hand on the other's shoulder, and seemed to be trying to calm him. Eventually Haldir sat down on the ground, a stricken expression on his face. The two dark haired elves seemed to be trying to pretend not to hear the conversation, and engrossed themselves in checking their weapons.
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Night finally arrived, dusk fading to inky blackness, and the group started on the plan. Earlier, Steve had explained to the inhabitants of Middle Earth about night vision goggles; they were amazed by the whole idea. He told them that the goggles worked by picking up body heat, and therefore, unfortunately, their best bet for approaching the house stealthily was to get very cold – in other words, take a dip in the river before making their way across the moorland. They waded across, laid their weapons on the far shore, then went back into the water and immersed themselves completely. Then, shivering, they started the slow trek up the gentle slope. Just before the summit, they dropped to the ground and crawled, avoiding any chance that they might be seen silhouetted. Still taking their time, so as not to work up any warmth, they made their way down the hill towards the house. They halted about 100m away, and Haldir and Legolas moved in on either flank to do some reconnaissance. They returned within moments, and using Steve's set of hand signals, communicated that there were 6 troops on the perimeter, all with guns.
Then suddenly, all hell broke loose. Mary Sue had been sitting behind the parapet, and with her superior eyesight had spotted movement in the heather. Catching a glimpse of a pair of figures approach, then retreat, she realised the time was right for a bit of distraction. She pulled the pin from a grenade, counted a couple of seconds, then lobbed it off the building towards the troops.
There was a flash and huge noise. Three of the Brunwasser men were thrown clear of the blast, either dead or seriously injured. The explosion took both defenders and attackers by surprise. But the remaining defenders were more disadvantaged. The flash saturated their infra-red goggles and destroyed any night vision their eyes had built up. For the moment, they were blind. Mary Sue pulled out another of her stolen goodies, a flare, and launched it. Suddenly the landscape was bathed in unearthly, monochrome light. She could see the remaining defenders struggling to raise their guns. Mary Sue let off some short, sharp bursts of fire, and dropped two of them. The third turned his muzzle back towards her eyrie up on the roof, only to be shot by one of the approaching elves. He pitched face first onto the gravel, an arrow sticking out of his back.
From above and behind her, Mary Sue heard the grating sound of the window being opened. She glanced up and saw a man climbing out, pistol in hand. She fired off another quick burst, then swung herself over the parapet. She traversed rapidly sideways along the stone lintel, then grasped a drainpipe and started to scramble downwards until she could reach sideways towards an open window on one of the upper stories. She dropped onto the carpet of the corridor inside. From her left, the sound of feet running down a wooden staircase reached her ears. She ran in the opposite direction, bursting through the door at the end of the corridor, only to find herself staring at a scene of complete chaos.
Mary Sue's run had brought her to the balcony running round the edge of a ballroom. Down on the floor below, a seething mass of men, elves, orcs and a lone dwarf were engaged in close-quarters combat, knives and axes being wielded with gory results. Mary Sue realised she couldn't shoot into the crowd without running the risk of taking out her friends. Instead, she crouched down in a nearby niche, taking cover behind a rather voluptuous Victorian copy of a classical statue, and waited for her pursuers. They were only seconds behind her, and they too paused, nonplussed by the scene below. Their hesitation was fatal. Mary Sue fired off a couple of quick bursts. She was just changing the clip when suddenly she felt a cold blade by her throat and an even colder voice in her ear.
"I think you are just the bargaining chip I need," the voice croaked, in a coarse and heavily accented Westron. She turned to find herself staring at the heavily scarred face of an Uruk Hai. "Lower the gun to the floor – carefully." She did as she was told. "Now move – in front of me, down the stairs." They made their way along the balcony to the curving sweep of stair at the far end, the Uruk being careful to stay sheltered behind Mary Sue. Just as she started to take the first steps down the staircase, she caught a glimpse of a familiar head of blond hair below.
"Haldir," she yelled. The Uruk pulled her head back by the hair, exerting enough pressure with the knife to produce a bead of blood on her neck.
Haldir looked up and saw Mary Sue. Their eyes met. There was a wordless exchange of glances, then Haldir inclined his head just the tiniest bit to the right. With a fluid motion, he drew an arrow from his quiver, nocked it to the string and fired, just as Mary Sue moved her head a fraction in the direction he'd indicated. The arrow buried itself between the Uruk's eyes, point deep in his brain. As he fell, the knife blade scratched Mary Sue, but barely broke the skin. She stooped and plucked the knife from the monster's lifeless hand and ran down the stairs.
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Sally stumbled across the hillside, blind in the darkness, feeling bitterly cold and terrified. She'd thrown away the firing pins, as instructed, and made it to the slope at the other side of the glen just as the light faded, but now she couldn't see a thing. She had no idea of how long she'd been walking for.
Suddenly things went from bad to worse. She stepped on a loose boulder. Her ankle gave way and she found herself tumbling down the hillside in a shower of loose rocks and scree. Eventually she came to a halt. She felt her face – her hands felt sticky, though whether the blood was from cuts on her hands or cuts on her face she couldn't tell; all her skin felt too numb with cold for her to register any pain. Unfortunately the cold did nothing to numb the pain from her ankle when she tried to get up. Before she could stop herself, she gave a shriek of agony. She crumpled back to the ground and lay curled up, whimpering. It was all she could do to stop herself throwing up. The world contracted in and became centred on the fiery agony surrounding her ankle. She didn't even hear the man approach. The first she knew was the gun barrel jabbing in her ribs.
"Who the hell are you?" the man demanded.
"S...s...Sally." Between cold, fear and pain, she could barely form a coherent word.
"Bloody hell Frank, it's a woman!" a second voice came out of the darkness.
"What are you doing out here?" the first man asked.
"Who... are... you?" Sally said. Her brain vaguely registered the fact that if they were her pursuers from Camasunary, they would already know who she was.
"Need to know. And you don't. Where the hell have you come from?"
"Camasunary... captured... friend still there... hostage." Sally started to sob uncontrollably, body shaking.
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Legolas had given up on trying to use his bow in the confined space, and was fighting with his twin knives, gutting orcs or slitting their throats with cool, detached efficiency. Elladan and Elrohir were protecting Eddie and Steve from the orcs as the two men crouched one either side of the doorway, firing their pistols to keep the remaining Brunwasser troops from entering the ballroom. Gimli was cutting a swathe through the orcs with his axe. Suddenly, Legolas noticed a new figure on the scene, by the windows at the far side of the room.
Mary Sue had been cornered by Simeon. In the scuffle, she'd lost her knife. Improvisation being her forte, she was armed with a brass statuette she'd picked off the shelf behind her head. It didn't look like it was going to help her much. The Nazgul advanced on her, morgul knife poised ready to strike. Legolas realised that there was no way he would be able to fight his way through the throng to reach her in time. In his peripheral vision, he saw Haldir watching with a look of horror. He was also too far away to get there. Legolas glanced quickly round, and spotted an opening.
He used one of the Uruk Hai as a spring board to leap upwards and grab the parapet of the balcony. With a fluid movement, he swung his leg up and heel-hooked the edge. The Uruk swung his sword towards Legolas's trailing leg, but the elf was too quick. He rocked his weight sideways, pulled himself smoothly upwards and vaulted over the balustrade. The Uruk roared in frustration, yellow fangs showing. Legolas seized a large vase from a nearby table and dropped it onto the monster's head. The huge beast dropped to the floor, poleaxed by the impact.
The elf's next move was to jump gracefully onto the top of the balustrade. Like a coiled spring, he crouched, then launched himself into space. Arms outstretched, he caught the chandelier in the centre of the ceiling and swung over the hordes of orcs below. At the highest point of the swing, he released his grip and flew towards the wall hanging above Mary Sue's head. Unsheathing one of his daggers in mid flight, he stabbed it into the heavy tapestry on impact. He slid downwards, the fabric ripping as he went, landing at the base, poised ready to fight.
Simeon paused in his advance towards Mary Sue, and turned to face Legolas.
"Golug scum," he hissed. The Morgul knife danced in his hand as he probed for an opening. He and Legolas circled one another warily, the elf holding his twin blades. The face that had once been Simeon's broke into an inhuman smile.
"You know the prophecies, the witchcraft with which Sauron surrounded his wraiths. We cannot be killed or bested in battle."
Suddenly there was a dull thud as the brass statue made contact with the wraith's skull. Simeon dropped to the ground.
"Can't be killed or bested by a male. But I ain't male, honey, not last time I looked anyways," said Mary Sue. Legolas flashed her a smile and knelt to check on the prostrate figure. Suddenly the glass in the window above their heads shattered. There were several earsplitting bangs and flashes, leaving everyone in the room completely disorientated, friends and foes alike. Then an evil smelling gas filled the room. Legolas clutched his throat. It burned. His eyes streamed with tears, as if someone had thrown pepper into them. Of the people in the room, only Steve and Eddie really knew what was happening. The SAS had arrived.
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It took most of the night to sort out the mess. Sally had tried her best to explain the situation to the squad who had found her. Her explanation hadn't been very coherent, but they had at least got the idea that there were hostages and friendly troops in the building. They already knew from the intelligence GCHQ had supplied that for some unaccountable reason, the Chancellor of the Exchequer counted among the "unfriendlies". They had also been briefed about the legion of strange monsters, though nothing quite prepared them for the reality.
Eventually, the surviving Brunwasser mercenaries, orcs and Uruk Hai were subdued. Simeon remained unconscious. Gradually, Mary Sue and her companions recovered from the tear gas. Gimli came round fastest, the elves felt the effects for longest. Steve, Eddie and Mary Sue managed to put the picture together for the SAS's commanding officer. Steve realised that he was in big trouble: a serving soldier caught up in an unofficial, unsanctioned operation. He'd be lucky if he got away with a dishonourable discharge. A court martial and long prison sentence seemed more likely.
With the first light of morning, several Chinook helicopters arrived to remove the captives. A civilian air ambulance arrived for Sally and airlifted her to hospital to have her broken ankle seen to. Escorted by a group of SAS men, the group from Middle Earth set off along the coast path to Elgol.
Haldir and Mary Sue found themselves walking side by side. Realising that Elladan and Elrohir were within earshot, Haldir spoke in English.
"How the hell did you come to get captured?" he demanded.
"That's great, thank me, why don't you?" said Mary Sue angrily.
Haldir glared back at her in response, then said "I was worried sick." His expression softened. "But you were bloody brilliant. If you hadn't been on that roof, we'd have been cut to ribbons by machine gun fire." He gave her a huge grin, and her anger evaporated in an instant. The two of them walked on for a bit. Steve caught up with them.
"I'm still a bit confused – relieved obviously – but confused as to why the Brunwasser people were mainly using pistols rather than semi-automatics."
"I nicked the firing pins from all the guns in the armoury. Sally threw them in the bog," Mary Sue told him.
Steve grinned at Haldir. "You're right, she is bloody brilliant!"
After an hour or so, they arrived back at Elgol. Legolas was surprised to see Lottie come hurtling across the car park towards him.
"Legolas... It's Helena! The daft bugger's only gone and come all the way up here on the train. She's in the pub at Sligachan."
Legolas swore loudly and fluently in English, then Sindarin, then Khudzul.
"Master Elf, who in the name of Morgoth taught you that kind of filth?" asked Gimli with a laugh.
"I hang out with a bad crowd. You, mainly," Legolas answered, then turned to the twins. "Elladan, Elrohir, come with me." And the three elves set off at a run back up the coast path towards Sligachan. The SAS commander looked in confusion at Haldir and Mary Sue.
"Legolas's girlfriend has shown up," Haldir explained. "They're headed for Sligachan."
"But that's a good 12, 14 miles away."
"They'll still get there faster than the rest of us can drive," said Haldir with a grin.
"Who do they think they are, Stephen Kiprotich?" asked the man.
"I think they'd leave him standing," said Haldir.
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Helena sat nursing a cup of tea – her third of the day – in the bar of the Sligachan Hotel. The barman hadn't batted an eyelid at the arrival of a heavily pregnant woman carrying only a small bag, who'd got off the bus at lunchtime and ordered a plate of fish and chips, then seemingly taken up residence. Aside from the gnawing worry in the pit of her stomach, she was quite comfortable. There was a log fire nearby and she felt warm and a little sleepy after the heavy meal. She listened with amusement to the conversation at the next table, glad to have something to distract her. A couple of locals were engaged in conversation with a party of tourists (American or Canadian – Helena's grasp of accents wasn't good enough to tell the difference, though she was sensible enough to know not to guess and put her foot in it). They were obviously trading myths and legends for beer. She shut her eyes and started to listen to the tall tales the locals were spinning.
The first was the tale of the five sisters of Kintail.
"Many years ago, a fisherman had six daughters, all beautiful," began the older of the two men, his voice softened by the characteristic lisp of the Gaelic speaker. "One day a Viking ship put in to port and the handsome young captain fell head over heels in love with the youngest girl. At first the father was stubborn, insisting that his daughters should be married in order of age. But the captain promised to sail back to Norway and return with his five equally handsome brothers. Eventually, he wore down the old man's resolve, and the captain and the youngest daughter were married. They sailed into the sunset, and the five remaining sisters sat down by the sea to await the arrival of his five brothers. But they waited in vain, and eventually, after many years, they turned to stone. And they sit there to this day, five mountains along the side of Glen Shiel, waiting still, and looking out along Loch Duich." Helena found herself quite carried away by the legend.
She was equally taken with the next, the story of a race up a mountain playing the pipes, between hero and villain. The good versus bad simplicity of the tale amused her. In the story, the two men raced higher and higher, each playing a haunting pibroch as he went. Just shy of the summit, the hero was slightly in the lead when the villain whipped out his sgian dubh, the knife a highlander keeps in his sock, and slit the bag of the hero's pipes. But the hero made a last desperate leap, landing on the summit with the final wail of his pipes. Ever after, the mountain had been called Sgurr Uaran, the peak of the cry. Helena sat, a faint smile on her face as she realised the subject matter of the yarns was changing to a topic much more germane to her.
"Aye, a lot of the local legends round here are to do with the fay folk. Fay as in fairy, and fey as in uncanny," said the second of the locals, his west highland accent soft and lilting. "They come out of the shadows, often at night. Some say they come from the sea, like mer-people, that they're selkies, fay folk inhabiting the bodies of seals. Others that they hide in the woods and emerge in the dusk in autumn to dance by the burns and among the heather. Sometimes men fall in love with faerie women, only to have their hearts broken when the faeries disappear into the dusk like the mist, and sometimes faerie men seduce young maids, then leave them unwed, with child."
"Is that so?" said a familiar voice, laced with amusement. Helena's eyes snapped open. Standing in the doorway stood Legolas, flanked by Elladan and Elrohir. All three were dressed, not in modern clothes, but in tunics, leggings and boots, cloaks slung round their shoulders. Each carried a bow, and the dirt and blood of battle was still on their clothes and faces. Their hair was tied back in warrior braids, and there was no mistaking the unearthly beauty of their faces, nor the elven shape of their ears. Both locals and tourists gaped in amazement. Legolas gave a smile, and strode across the room towards Helena. He paused for a moment by the party seated at the next table.
"Unwed, I'll grant you. But have you ever tried getting a marriage licence when one of you is an elf from another world? As for the rest... Fay gets girl knocked up then scarpers... Bit of a cheap racial stereotype, don't you think?" He gave a grin, then turned and took another step, standing over Helena. She looked up at him, dirty, messy, sweaty, battle-stained, as near to dishevelled as she'd ever seen him, and swallowed hard, feeling a very familiar warmth in her body. She realised that if he wanted her, right here, right now, she'd just go along with it, audience and all. Hell, she wouldn't just go along with it, she'd nail him to the floor. He reached out his hands, and she took them, letting herself be drawn to her feet. He took her in his arms and kissed her. She tangled her hands in his hair, kissing him back with a heated desperation. Eventually, they broke apart. He let his hands slide down her arms, and looked at her, a serious expression in his eyes.
"What on earth were you thinking, meleth nin? Travelling in your condition? And Mary Sue and Sally got captured – that could have been you. I've been worried sick ever since I heard that you were here."
"Mary Sue? Sally? What's happened?" asked Helena, voice filled with anxiety.
"It's alright, we rescued Mary Sue. Actually, more accurately, Mary Sue rescued us. She'd already helped Sally escape. Sally's got a broken ankle, but she's been flown to hospital. And Mary Sue managed to incapacitate the Nazgul. "
"That sounds like her. How did she do it?"
"Belted him over the head with a hideous brass statuette." Legolas paused. "But you're changing the subject, meleth nin. I was worried sick, and I'm still worried about you over-tiring yourself on the journey."
"I couldn't bear sitting at home worrying about you. And don't worry about the travelling, I got the sleeper from London, it was very comfortable."
Legolas heaved an exasperated sigh, not entirely sure in his own mind whether the exasperation was due to her nonchalance or envy at the comfort of her journey compared to the hell he had endured in the back of that bloody van. Either way, it was clear that Helena was not in the least fazed by the situation. He sat down on one of the chairs and pulled her onto his lap. Then as if realising he'd set about things in the wrong order, he gestured to Elladan.
"Here," he said, handing him some money, "go and ask for 'three beers'. Do you think you can manage that?"
Elladan grumbled something about "bloody imperious princelings", but set off for the bar, where the barman stood, mouth hanging open. Legolas began the lengthy business of telling Helena exactly what they'd been up to. As he detailed the long trek over the mountains, the nerve wracking wait, the discovery that Mary Sue and Sally had been captured, and the final battle, together with how near to death Mary Sue had come, Helena went rigid in his arms. Eventually as he came to the end of his story, she managed to speak in a chastened voice.
"I'm sorry. I see now why you didn't want me to come. Is everyone alright?"
"Yes, everyone is fine, meleth nin." Legolas held her close, resting his cheek against her hair and breathing in the familiar scent of her.
Author's notes:
According to Wikipedia, there were seven sisters. But the version I've put here is the version I learned as a child, visiting Loch Duich on holiday. Also, the story I learned about the etymology of "Sgurr Uaran" (pronounced Skoor Ooran) differs from the Wiki entry, which has it as "Sgurr Odran", Odran being a disciple of St. Patrick. Pibroch, or ceol mor (great music) is a form of theme and variations, played on the pipes, Gaelic harp (clarsach) or fiddle.
Hope you all liked the "Leggy" moment – maybe not quite up there with surfing down stairs on a shield or climbing onto the back of a mumakil, but I did my best.
So, nearly at the end now. I guess we need to find out how the tadpoles are getting along...
