In which everyone who's planning to march to war gets ready, and Sharley is a teensy bit more terrifying. Just a bit.
Lorna and Thranduil reached the halls far more swiftly than everyone else, because the elk could easily outpace any horse.
It made the journey both terrifying and uncomfortable – terrifying because she was so high off the ground, and uncomfortable because, though the elk's stride was smoother than that of a horse's, there was still a fair bit of jolting. Fortunately, Galasríniel had sent a painkiller cordial with her, or she would really be hating life right now.
"What do I need to pack?" she asked, as soon as they'd got the elk stabled.
"Yours need only be basic," Thranduil said, leading her into the halls. "Food and water, spare clothes, whatever toiletries you wish. As you have no proficiency with a weapon, I will teach you along the way, but I will find you one. What you really must focus on is your telekinesis. Fortunately, there is much for you to practice on between here and Gondor."
The idea was rather appealing. She hadn't used her telekinesis at all while she'd been pregnant, for fear that it would somehow harm the babies, but she didn't need to worry about that now. They were safe and sound now, and would remain so until everyone returned. Thranduil's gates, she knew, were reinforced by magic; anything that could get through them would have already killed everybody outside them.
She didn't have many spare clothes, but there were a few odds and ends lurking in Thranduil's wardrobe. Having lost so much muscle, could she even properly carry a pack? An exercise regimen was another thing she'd have t practice along the way, because right now she had all the strength of a lima bean with cancer.
Climbing all these damn stairs was a good start, though she was annoyed to find herself out of breath halfway. Thranduil looked down at her, and reached to pick her up, but she shook her head.
"I'm never going to get better if I'm coddled," she said. "Getting my strength back is going to suck, but there's no way around it."
"If you push yourself too hard, you will only make it worse," he pointed out.
"Climbing stairs isn't 'pushing' much'v anything, but I'd like to slow down. I've got to take three steps for every one'v yours." Lorna knew he didn't mean to move so fast – he was so tall that he simply couldn't help it. He was going to have to start helping it when they traveled, however, or he'd leave her miles behind in no time at all, and there was no way she was riding that elk the whole bloody way to bloody Gondor. She hadn't been joking about airsickness.
He arched an eyebrow. "Do not go too slowly," he said. "This might well be the last true privacy we will have for months. I would rather make the most of it."
Lorna laughed. "Okay, you can carry me, but just this once."
Angmar's history was so oppressive that Sharley could feel it miles before they actually reached the accursed place. It was fortunate that Memories weren't native to Middle-Earth, because this place could have produced them by the thousand.
From all she could see, its ruin was Sauron's fault, as most of what was wrong with Middle-Earth seemed to be. A morbid part of her really, really wanted to meet the bastard, even if she couldn't actually kill him while the Ring endured. Her ability to feel pain had mostly be lost when she died, along with her ability to feel almost everything else; he could torture her all he liked and get no result, and if he dared enter her mid, he'd run into everything else that lived there. And that would be amusing as hell.
Though the voices had been weirdly quiet while she traveled with Galadriel. They were still there – she could always feel them, even when they didn't speak – but they were largely silent. That was extremely odd, but she thought she knew why: they probably didn't want to risk Galadriel hearing them. Telepaths, as they and Sharley knew, could hear them, as they'd all learned the hard way with Von Ratched, and Galadriel was a far more telepath than he was.
Whatever the reason, they were nearly to Angmar, and she was certain that the evil of the place would grate on her even if she couldn't see its Time. It was almost…sticky, like a film of half-congealed oil on her skin, and it had an odd, bitter taste unlike anything she'd ever encountered. Though the sun shone behind them, the sky over it swirled with an angry boil of dark clouds.
"Pleasant," she muttered, pausing when they crested a hill.
Looking at the desolation below them, it was difficult to believe it had ever been alive. There had probably once been towns and cities, but there was little of that left of them now – there were ruins, but nothing more. Whatever had happened here had happened with a vengeance, and left nothing in its wake. She didn't particularly want to check what it was, either.
The door that the…things…had come through was indeed closed, but it was ridiculously easy to find. Unlike the Other, rips in this universe weren't exactly common, and this was a big one – but where the hell had it come from?
She sought its Time, sorting through the ugly threads of Angmar's history, but as with the creatures themselves, she found nothing. Not where the door went, or where it came from, or how to lock it. Whoever had made it, however, probably hadn't counted on the fact that it could be destroyed.
"Lady Galadriel," she said quietly, "touch my back, and stay behind me. Whatever you do, don't break away."
"What will happen if I do?"
Sharley looked at her. "I don't know," she said. "And I'd rather not find out."
"Sharley, have you ever done this before?" Galadriel's blue eyes were somehow every bit as Sharley's father's.
"…No," she admitted. "Not on this scale. But I know that I can."
Galadriel did not look at all reassured by that, and Sharley couldn't blame her.
"It'll be okay," she said. "Touch my back, and hold still."
The nasty lines of Angmar's Time drifted everywhere, displaced by the door. There was little that Sharley could physically feel in the present, but when she immersed herself in Time, past or future, she felt as close to alive as she possibly could. Time was a living thing, with a deep, massive pulse that replaced the heartbeat she no longer had, sang through her veins in a simulation of blood.
She gathered the threads, their poisoned heat burning her as they twined around her fingers. It was rare that she found Time that had actually be rendered toxic, but this would cleanse it, would sterilize with fire not seen, but felt.
The lingering evil in it lashed out at her, but all it gave her was a dull, distant memory of pain, and she welcomed even that, because it was feeling, it was a faint approximation of life, and Sharley laughed as she gathered the last of the Time-lines and tore.
The fire took her, burning from the inside out, and for a moment, just a moment, she felt herself breathe without consciously willing it. Angmar's wounded history shattered all around her, and she had to contain the ripple effect, or it would create a paradox the like of which she could never hope to control. She wanted to destroy it, not half of Middle-Earth, and as she'd told Lady Galadriel, breaking things was all too easy.
Angmar screamed in her mind, but it abruptly fell silent. The fire within her died; her scorched fingers cooled and healed. She came back to the present, grieving the loss of her senses as she opened her eyes.
There was nothing left of Angmar, or the door; the land, though still barren, lived, and would continue living.
She turned to Galadriel, and winced when she saw total horror in the Elf-woman's eyes. The reaction didn't surprise her, but that didn't mean she had to like it.
"Angmar is gone?" Galadriel asked, outwardly remarkably composed, for the most part.
"Angmar," Sharley said, "never was."
Fortunately, Thranduil and Lorna were both dressed again and making preparations when it hit, or things would have turned very awkward.
Never in all his life had he felt anything like it. Someone, somewhere, had expended an immense amount of power – power that was completely and totally alien. He could think of only one source for it, too.
"Sharley?" Lorna said, eyes wide.
"I certainly hope so," he said. "I would rather not even consider there being another here who could use such power. Galadriel will likely have a very interesting story to tell us, when next we see her." Whether Sharley meant to or not, she had just set unrest in motion all over Middle-Earth, for none who felt that would allow it to remain without investigation. Elrond, Saruman, Sauron…well, if nothing else, she would prove a very effective distraction.
Lorna snorted. "You're probably right. How long does it take to get to Gondor?" she asked, apropos of nothing.
"In spring, with fair weather, two months," he said, rolling an under-robe very tightly. "Longer, if the roads have fouled over the winter and not yet been repaired. We had best hope Von Ratched finds no reason to use his unwitting puppets before then, or there will be little we can do."
"God do I wish we had a car," she sighed, stuffing spare socks into her pack. "Even my old van, which was a lemon from hell. I crossed three thousand miles in two months, and that was with plenty of stops."
"My smiths did attempt to craft the shell of a car," Thranduil said. "It was the engine that stymied us."
"You'd need more than an engine. Maybe someday we'll get an actual mechanic here. Wouldn't mind seeing Shane again."
Shane – leader of her gang, he knew, and the one who had taught her to fight, among many other things. He had been to her some bizarre amalgamation of elder brother and father, and she was more than a little like him. Thranduil would not mind his arrival, though Eru knew what Legolas would make of the man if he did. "That would certainly prove…entertaining," he said. "I would love to inflict the entirety of your old gang on the Council."
"Sure God wouldn't that be a mess." She stuffed the last of her spare clothes in her pack. "There, that's done. Now what?"
"It will be at least another day before the swiftest of the riders reaches us," he said, helping her to her feet. "I've sent out the summons to those of my army that live elsewhere, so that all will be gathered within the next two days. Until then, I can think of one or two ways to pass the time."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "I just bet you can. It's too bad we'll be surrounded by people in the middle'v nowhere in five weeks."
"The middle of nowhere I cannot help," he said. "We need not be surrounded by people, however. Hardly ideal, I know, but not impossible."
"You're impossible," she said, swatting him on the arm. "Now get that dress off before I wreck all your buttons again. You really ought to wear a toga, just to make things more convenient."
Hundreds of miles away, Von Ratched was wondering what the hell had just happened.
The common people hadn't noticed, but he felt like he'd been punched in the brain. And he had no idea why – nor did he have any way of finding out. His network of unknowing spies was not nearly big enough, because everything and everyone in this benighted world moved so slowly. Even when he was young, things had not been this primitive.
He was quite sure no other cursed had done it, because no human, no matter how strong their curse, could have done something so massive. The wizards would not, and Sauron was still safe and weak in Mordor. Galadriel, possibly, though like the wizards, she was unlikely to do something so…noticeable. Not without very great reason, anyway.
With a sigh of frustration, he went to the chest of drawers in his room, removing a glass vial and his hand-forged syringe. He had a morphine addiction that went back nearly a century, and while he could not derive real morphine in Minas Tirith, he had distilled a decent substitute from poppies taken from the houses of healing (which, quite honestly, had horrified him. It was called leechcraft for a reason).
The rush of the drug soothed him – as much as it actually could, anyway. All his life, Von Ratched had hated not knowing something, but there was as yet no getting around the limitations of Middle-Earth's medieval technological levels.
He knew several ways of generating electricity, but he lacked several of the raw materials, including any way to make wire delicate enough to produce filaments for a light bulb. The Dwarves could likely do it, but Dwarves, apparently, did not travel this far south. The smiths in Minas Tirith seemed to specialize in weapons and armor, with a few dedicated to jewelry and decorative items, none of which were useful at all to him.
For now, he had to find some way of defending against whatever had used such power, but he knew already that that was likely impossible. Damn this world and its supernatural beings. Von Ratched had always been at the top of the food chain, whether those around him knew it or not; he very much wasn't, to his mounting irritation. On Earth, he had preferred to work in the shadows because it was convenient, but for now it was a matter of survival. There were too many beings whose attention he could not afford to draw – not yet.
His network of would-be puppets was not as vast as he would like, but it was big enough. Elves would hesitate to kill humans, and would suffer psychological distress if they did. It might not be a proper Kinslaying, but it would be rather close, since humans, like Elves, were Children of Ilúvatar, and this was not the First Age. The truly bloodthirsty Elves were long dead. If he could not overpower them, he could psychologically overwhelm them. Everyone had their breaking point – and then he could use the weapons he'd designed. So long as Galadriel stayed where she belonged, he could devastate the Elven armies of Middle-Earth. What he would do if she did not, he had yet to divine, but he had better think of something, and soon. He couldn't be sure how much time he had.
It took two days for the rest of the Elves to arrive at the Woodland Halls, and by then Thranduil had nearly finished all the preparations needed to march to war. Swords were sharpened, and the heavy armor seldom worn by his soldiers had been checked and checked again. Packs for each were put together, carrying rations and water, with room for personal items.
Lorna had at first refused armor, pointing out that she was in no physical condition to even move in it. He had some basic plate forged anyway, because she would be much stronger by the time they reached Gondor. He didn't think she properly comprehended what two months on foot would do to an Edain body – she would likely be in the best condition of her life by the time they reached Minas Tirith.
While he was busy preparing, she exercised her telekinesis, which was often a source of frustration for her. The weight and size of the things she could lift surprised him, but she had no control over them at all, and had destroyed more than one piece of furniture by accidentally smashing it against a wall or ceiling.
"I need actual training with this," she said, sitting on the floor in despair and staring at the splintered remnants of his wardrobe.
"What you need to do is discover how it works," he said, eying the mess with no small amount of annoyance. "Practice with smaller things first. We do not hand new recruits live steel at the beginning of their training. Think of small objects as your practice sword."
"I really hate it when you're right," she grumbled, climbing to her feet.
"When have I ever been wrong?"
She gave him a Look with a capital L. "Do you want a list?"
He was tempted to say yes, but wisely thought better of it. Knowing her, she'd actually make one.
"Thought so," she said with a grin. "All right, do we have everything? It's not like we can stop at 7-11 if we've forgot anything." She couldn't believe how many of those there had been in the States, but they were damn convenient.
"We are fine, Lorna. Stop worrying."
"Because that's possible," she griped. "We're leaving our children before they've taken their first proper breath. I've traveled a lot, but this is the first time I've left anything worthwhile behind me. What if we don't come back? Ordinarily I'd say it'd be a given that you would, but we don't know what's out there."
He took her by the shoulders, which were still far too bony. Her eyes were wide with an anxiety totally foreign to her nature. "All will be well, Lorna. Even if our entire host falls, the children will not lack for people to care for them. Until then, they will sleep, safe and unaware. Nothing has ever breached these halls."
"I hope it stays that way. I just…I can't help but worry, you know?"
"It is because you are a mother," he said, kissing the top of her head. "To this day I worry when Legolas strays far, and he is as capable a warrior as any I have ever known. Now you need to come eat something, before the wind blows you away."
"Berk," she said fondly. "Cake. I need cake."
"Of course you do. Come, Dilthen Ettelëa."
She arched an eyebrow. "You can't exactly call me stranger anymore," she said. "Not with how familiar we are, if you get my drift."
Thranduil laughed. "You are the first of the ettelëa," he said. "You will always be little stranger to me."
"All right then, Drag Queen Barbie. But sooner or later someone's going to turn up who actually knows what your nickname means, and then you'll get laughed at until the end of time."
They're going to have all kinds of fun once they're off to war. I pity everyone around them.
As always, reviews make me smile. Title means "Prepare" in Irish.
