Hello everyone!
No one likes these, so I'll make it quick - thank you to everyone reading thus far! I am writing a story about the life of Beornia (the relative of Leona) to give some sort of context for my improvised Lore. It's called "Heiress of the Riddermark" and its not as fun as this, but there are SOME characters we know and love popping up.
Please shoot me a review! I'll love you forever
They arrived at the doors of Moria after sundown that night. Loena was walking beside Legolas, who had been guiding her with the rope with relative ease. He'd picked it up the necessary skills to guide her fastest of their companions; best at communicating quickly in a way she could understand.
The darkness had become absolute around her. Other than those first moments of blurred light after Aragorn and Gandalf had attended to her, she had seen nothing. It was like a prison, that deep thrown darkness. She stumbled and stubbed her toe more times than she cared to count.
"The walls of Moria!" Gimli cried as they approached.
"Here the Elven-Way from Hollin," Gandalf said grandly and Loena felt the slow down of the company as they approached. She shuffled her feet and slowed, nearly tripping as she toed a rock in her way. "The west-door was made chiefly for the Elves use in their traffic with the lords of Moria. Those were happier days, when there was still a close friendship between Dwarves and Elves."
"It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned," Gimli growled, a few steps ahead of Loena and Legolas.
"I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves," Legolas snapped back.
Loena wished she could see them, picturing the great jewels and carvings that would adorn the mountain before her. To her right she could hear the quiet lapping of tiny waves on the shore-line, and could feel a sudden chill, and realised that there must be a great lake before the entrance.
"Dwarf walls are invisible when closed," Gimli said, and Loena felt slightly relieved. At least she wasn't missing out on too much, then.
"Yes, Gimli," Loena heard Gandalf walk around her, and towards the front of the company. "Their own masters cannot find them if their secrets are forgotten."
Beside her, Legolas chuckled. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"
"It seems an unnecessary precaution," Loena said to him in a low voice.
"Dwarves are great fans of over-engineering," Legolas agreed.
She heard a much louder splash at the beach of the lake, and heard Frodo gasp and draw back. Loena pictured him stepping into it accidentally, and drawing back.
"Well, let's see," Gandalf said, disembodied voice thrown her way from ahead. "Ithildin. It mirrors only stars and moonlight."
Beside her, Loena heard Legolas lightly gasp.
"What's happened?" Loena asked.
"The moon has come out from behind the gathered cloud," Legolas narrated to her, and they began to walk again. "It shines on the door. It has become illuminated, great spiralling decorations of leaf and vine, as well as writings."
"It reads, 'The doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak Friend, and Enter," Gandalf announced.
"What do you suppose that means?" Merry asked, somewhere from Loena's right.
"Oh, it's quite simple," Gandalf said, rather cheerfully. "If you are a friend, you speak the password and the doors will open."
"If an enemy spoke the words, would the doors open also?" Loena asked.
Beside her, Legolas laughed. "I believe they would, though it is entertaining to think of. I wonder, if one of Durin's folk had a falling out with a friend, whether they'd be able to access it."
"What if they were slightly at odds with each other, and neither friend, nor foe?" Loena asked.
Legolas mused, "We may be overthinking this. I doubt the dwarves put so much thought into it."
"I feel as though I must get indignant now, on their behalf."
"Do you know the word, Gandalf?" Boromir asked.
"No," Gandalf replied, and Loena felt her stomach plummet, and felt hopelessness descend.
"Then what was the use of bringing us to this accursed spot!" Boromir charged, and Loena near winced as his voice echoed louder and angrier. "You told us once that you had passed through the Mines. How could that be, if you did not know how to enter?"
"I do not know the word – yet," Gandalf stressed, irritated. "And to answer your second question, I did not enter this way. I came from the East. If you must know, from the inside you may thrust these doors open with your hands. From the outside, nothing will move them save the spell of command."
Loena wondered if they were all going to be standing, gathered at the base of the mountain, as Gandalf tried every word in Elvish and Dwarfish in every combination he could think of. The thought made her feel rather despondent, but also relieved. She had had a foreboding feeling about the Mines; firstly by Gloin's tale at the council that none had spoken to any inside in a year, and secondly by Gandalf's insistence that they do not pass through that way.
Gandalf called out, his words deep with magic and power. All around them Loena felt a gathering warmth, and a slight breeze against the soft skin on her face and on the underside of her arms.
"Annon Edhellen, edro hi ammen! Fennas Nogothrim, lasto beth lammen!"
Loena almost felt prepared to stand and move, but all around her was quiet. She could not hear the doors of Moria opening up.
"Nothing's happening," Pippin said, matter-of-factly.
"I once knew every spell in all the tongues of Elves, Men and Orcs," Gandalf said grimly.
"What are you going to do, then?" Pippin asked, undaunted, somehow, by the clear irritation in the wizard's voice.
"Knock the doors with your head, Peregrin Took," Gandalf snapped. "But if that does not shatter them, and I am allowed a little peace from foolish questions, I will seek for the opening words."
Each of the Fellowship drifted from watching while Gandalf tried his combinations of words. Aragorn sent Bill away, and Sam said a tearful farewell.
"Horses remember the tracks of their owners," Loena told him confidently, as he sat, dejected, by her side. She ached to reach over to him, and comfort him with a hand to his back. But she knew she would simply be flailing as she reached across, so she kept her hand by her side. "He will find you again."
"I don't doubt it," Sam said. "He's such a clever horse." He sobbed a little. "I'm just awful sad to see him go. He was my last connection to home."
The urge to reach out and grasp his hand intensified in that moment. She stilled herself once more, worried that in the effort, she'd accidentally hit him in the face.
They'd sorted their clothes out, the ones that they'd carry through the caves and the ones that they'd leave behind. Gimli helped Loena with hers, describing each garment as he went through. By the end, Loena had gotten rid of all her other clothes, as well as anything that had been a source of comfort along their journey. If the dwarves were as hospitable as Gimli said, then she would be able to replace them by the time they entered.
Across from her, Loena heard a splash, and turned her head sharply. She heard another one, and the lapping at the edge of the pond seemed to sound louder.
"Who threw that, Gimli?" Loena asked.
"Merry, and Peregrin," he answered her.
"Have they stopped?" She asked.
"Yes," Gimli informed her. "Aragorn has staid their hand."
"Good," she said, wishing the dread in her stomach would leave her be.
Loena heard the clank of Gandalf's staff on the ground, and then he huffed. "Oh! It's useless!"
The water stirred behind her, and Loena huddled her cloak around her shoulders. She ignored it as best she could, and decided to worry instead that they'd have to track back to Caradhras, and give the mountain pass another go.
From off to her side, she heard Frodo push up and stand. "It's a riddle! Speak 'friend' and enter. What's the elvish word for friend?"
"Mellon," Gandalf spoke, and before her, Loena heard a great cracking and creaking, and she got to her feet. A rush of old, stale air pushed out across her, and she breathed it in with surprise. Together they all walked across, with her holding onto Aragorn's elbow for guidance. The terrain was rocky, but not rocky enough for her to be carried.
Gimli was a stark contrast to the rest of the party. He moved over the threshold with a booming cheer. "Soon, master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the Dwarves! Roaring fires, malt beer, ripe meet off the bone!" Loena's mouth watered at the thought of it. "And they call it a Mine! A Mine!"
Loena felt something crack underfoot, like a piece of thin, brittle rock.
"What was that?" she asked Aragorn, and heard him gasp beside her.
"This is no Mine," Boromir said, loudly, desperately. "This is a tomb!"
Aragorn filled Loena in quickly. "Bones lie all around us of slain Dwarves, the thing you stood upon was a…" she heard him pause. "The bone of a skull."
Loena felt revulsion in her stomach, as well as the dreaded fear knot itself deeper into her fingers. "We must leave," she said hollowly. "Now."
"Oh no!" Gimli's call was great, and terrible. Desperate with anguish, an expanding cry that echoed the hall. "No!"
Loena couldn't imagine it; the sight of slain kinsman littering the floor. If they were so near the door, they must have been achingly close to escape as well. Fear netted itself in the back of her throat. She took a step backwards.
"Goblins!" Legolas cried out.
Loena pushed back, but Aragorn stilled her. "Legolas has found that the arrows are Goblin arrows," He told her quickly. "We are in no danger yet."
"We should have never come here!" Boromir called out. The panic grew around Loena, and she could feel the tension rising in her companions. It seemed, suddenly, terribly noisy and busy. Everything grew about her, she now so infinitesimally tiny and frightened. "Now! Get out of here! Get out!"
Aragorn held Loena tightly against his arm and turned her around.
But there was a splash, and the snick of something large and wet speeding through the air. Loena felt her panic rise again, and clutched at Aragorn's arm.
"Frodo!" The Hobbits yelled, and she could hear their fear.
Aragorn cursed beside her. "Stay here," he ordered. "Loena! Do not move!"
She nodded soundlessly, and let go of his arm quickly. She heard Aragorn yell and run from her, towards where she knew the entrance of the Mines was. The sounds were terrifying, and without explanation, and only her imagination to guide her, it felt far worse. She went to grab at her sword, knowing she'd feel better for it resting against her fingers. It took her an embarrassingly long time to find the hilt, despite the weight of the scabbard to guide her. She found Gíed nonetheless, and drew it quickly.
She heard the cries of warfare, and the splashes of the pond out the front of the Mines. She heard Aragorn yelling out, and Frodo calling for him. She heard the sharp sound of sword being buried into flesh, and she heard the twang of a bow-string.
She heard Gandalf bellow; "Into the Mines!" and then hears all the fellowship call for each other. Another twang as an arrow was released from a bow, and then the thundering arrival of her friends becoming louder, and louder, as they pushed back into Moria.
The excitement is far from over, for above their heads the rock begins to crack and fall. Loena jumped back, and winced as a rock fell close enough for dust to rise up and tickle her hands.
"Aragorn!" She called desperately.
"Here," he said beside her, pulling her arm and holding her safely by his side. She leaned on him as they ran, and felt that his clothes had become rather wet. She ignored it, and focused on running with as much confidence as she could bear. Soon after they'd started, Aragorn slowed again, and the sounds of rock falling were muffled, as though they were happening now exclusively on the outside of the cage.
"The way is blocked," Aragorn murmured to her, and he sounded light and tired with worry. "Rocks have fallen and the wall has collapsed. We will not be able to leave this place."
Loena's heart hammered in her chest. "But the Goblins—"
"I know."
"Aragorn, if there are Goblins—"
"We have now but one choice," Gandalf said, interrupting her, stern and as grave as the mountain above them. "We must face the long dark of Moria."
"What was that thing?" Loena asked, head spinning. She gripped at the cheap, dampened cloth Aragorn dressed himself in, desperate to find something to hold onto, something to orientate herself. "I heard many strange noises from it…was it a creature? Was it the keeper of the pond?"
"A creature of many tentacles, and a purely evil thing," Gandalf replied to her. "There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world."
Despite the dark, all of them unconsciously, and unanimously, decided to keep walking for several more hours yet. None wanted to stay in Moria that was entirely necessary. The way was rather unencumbered, so Loena was given her rope again, and she trailed behind Boromir, who was guiding her.
"Damn Saruman and his blasted spies," Boromir said, half to himself and half to her. "I cannot help but think how unfortunate it was for the Gap of Rohan to be closed."
"He must have been trying to force us this way," Loena said absently.
She nearly ran into Boromir, and realised he must have stopped at the thought of it.
"Sorry," he said to her quickly.
"No bother," she dismissed it quickly. "Why did you stop?"
"I hope you're wrong," Boromir said in way of answer. "I don't want to think what sort of devils lie in wait for us here, now, at Saruman's command."
"At least in Moria, Gandalf and Saruman seem to be on relatively similar footing," Loena said. "It was easy to turn the storm at Caradhras against us, and it would be a simple thing to protect the gap of Rohan when it is so close to Orthanc. Down here both Gandalf and Saruman are expert."
Boromir didn't seem convinced. "Saruman has had months to prepare for our coming. And we number only ten."
"That's one better than nine," Loena tried, cheerfully, but Boromir fell silent ahead of her. She felt rather bad, as well, after saying it, and realising how little she would be of use in a fight. What use was being able to hold a sword, if she could not swing it? Her useless bow thumped on her back as she walked. She ignored it best as she could, but with every step it hit against her spine, and she felt as though it were slamming with the beat of a cruel chant; ues-less, use-less, use-less.
"Careful now," Gandalf said to the group, as they ascended the stairs. Loena could hear nothing to indicate what was going on around her, but she knew a great cavern yawned up at them from below, and an impossible distance surrounded them and up, and up above. "Let us hope our journey has, thenceforth, gone unnoticed."
Figuring out how to get Loena up the stairs had been a challenge. The path was too narrow for her to be carried, and the steps were too strenuous for one person to port her up. She could not walk side to side with someone, for fear of taking a misstep and one of them ending up falling to their doom. She could not walk along behind with her rope, as she'd done for the past days, because the stairs turned and bent, and had been crafted into odd sizes.
In the end, Loena was to hug to the wall as tightly as she could, and grasp the hand of Legolas in front of her, who could support her if she fell. He was as comfortable walking sideways as he was walking straight up the stairs. He took to the role cheerfully, and communicated well whenever a stair was particularly high, or an angle they were taking particularly sharp.
"The wealth of Moria was not in gold or jewels," Gandalf said, ahead of them. "But in Mithril."
"It is in veins in the walls beside us," Legolas told her, and they took the next step together. "It sparkles like starlight in the glow of Mithrandir's light."
"Bilbo had a shirt of mithril rings that Thorin gave him," Gandalf said, addressing the entire company.
"A little higher on this one," Legolas murmured to her.
She thanked him, and hoisted her foot a little higher, pulling herself up after him.
"What!" Gimli started. "A corslet of Moria-Silver? That was a kingly gift!"
"Yes, and, I never told him," Gandalf said, sounding nostalgic. "But its worth was greater than the value of the whole Shire and everything in it."
Loena realised that the faint, clinking sound she'd come to associate with Frodo surely must have been the coat of mithril. She imagined that it had been given to him by his uncle before they had made their leave from Rivendell.
She smirked, and made to call out, but stopped herself at the last moment, ducking her head down and pushing up to the next step.
It could be another corslet, she did consider. She did, however, privately doubt it. In the quiet after Gandalf's pronouncement, Frodo had said nothing anyway. With something close to relief, she decided to follow suit. She was certain that he would have some reason for keeping the silver secret.
It was to be another day of long walking. Rushing through the abandoned Mine as quickly as possible still remained the Fellowship's main prerogative. By the time they had alighted the stairs, they still thought they had many hours ahead of them. Gandalf had confirmed that the rest of the way were flat, and Loena was given some of her previous freedoms. Despite his misgivings, Gandalf allowed Pippin to guide her this time.
He was so nervous that he overcompensated. "The floor is sloping upward!" Pippin yelled.
"Quiet!" Gandalf ordered from the front. "Besides! The floor is sloping downward."
"It sloped upward slightly for just a moment," Pippin amended, mostly telling Loena. "But yes, general trend is sort of downward."
"Sort of downward?" Loena asked. "How can something be sort of downward? Surely down, straight and up are absolutes."
Merry cackled, who had been walking behind her. "I think she's got you there, Pip."
"The slope isn't all that steep," Sam keyed in ahead. "I'd be sayin the same thing, Pippin."
"Thank you Sam," Pippin said. "Loena, there's some loose rock just here."
Loena walked a little more gingerly by his order. She felt them beneath the soles of her feet – they were definitely not big enough to warrant attention. She sighed, almost wishing for Boromir and his dark mood instead of Pippin's meticulous caretaking.
"It depends whether or not you mean for it to be taken literally," Frodo called back. Loena wondered how long he'd been pondering over it. "Sometimes words like 'sort-of' are just used to fill in the space between normal dialogue."
"Can we talk about something else?" Loena asked, feeling as though she'd stepped back in time to her tutoring in Minas Tirith, and was about to be lectured on the grammatical formation of positive clauses.
"You brought it up," Pippin told her. "Careful! Here! The ground's a bit cracked."
Loena walked on as normal, and could feel not distinguishable difference between the ground she walked now and the ground she'd been walking just before. "You were the one who said 'sort-of'."
"I say 'sort-of' all the time," Pippin countered. "You were the one who suddenly has an issue with it. The ground isn't cracked any more, by the way. You can walk normally again."
Loena hadn't really changed how she'd walked, but she lengthened her stride a little and did her best to relax into each step. "I can't remember a time before now that you've said 'sort-of'."
"Well, that's hardly proof," Pippin countered. "Ground is cracked again."
Loena set back to her usual stride, long, faux confident strokes now gone.
"I don't remember either, Pip," Merry said smugly.
"I rightly don't," Sam admitted ahead.
"This is a stupid argument," Frodo told them. "You'll never settle it."
The conversation abruptly ended, and Loena staggered into Pippin.
"Pip!" she hissed.
"Sorry!" he yelped. "Gandalf's just stopped, and well, it was all rather sudden—"
"How could you have been annoyin' all of us for hours with your natterin'," Sam said hotly. "And you forget to pipe up now?"
"I am sorry Loena," Pippin said, plaintive.
"It's alright," she sighed, irritated, but full well in the knowledge that he probably hurt more than she did. "Why did we stop?"
"Gandalf is up ahead," Frodo described. "He's standing before three different doorways. He looks—"
"I have no memory of this place," Gandalf said, hollowly, as if to answer her.
"Lost," Frodo finished simply, gloomily.
"Loena!" Gimli greeted her, and she felt him sit by her left. The Hobbits had left her to rest atop a rather large boulder as they waited. "How do you fare?"
Loena considered for a moment. "Well. Or, as well as can be expected. How, you?"
Gimli stopped, and Loena suddenly, stupidly, realised the enormity of what she'd just asked him. He was, obviously, not well. They sat in the greatest Mine of his people, now dusted with the bones of his kin.
"I am sorry," Loena said quietly. "You do not have to answer. I know you must be in pain."
"Thank you," he said gruffly. He paused again, and the silence bloomed between them. "I only came to say…" he trailed off as quickly as he'd started talking again. "I only meant to talk to you, because I feel as though I haven't…for a time."
Since her, incident, Loena supposed. She felt equal parts ashamed and warmed.
She let her voice go light. "What shall we speak of, Master Dwarf?"
"How about our poncy princeling over here," Gimli muttered, and Loena entertained herself by imagining Gimli shooting Legolas with a dark look.
Loena laughed. "I'm sure he can hear us, Gimli."
"The ears of the First Born are quite adept," Legolas called, somewhere across the cave.
"Why do you say that?" Sam asked, his voice far fainter, somewhere across the room.
"No reason in particular," Legolas said airily.
Loena chuckled, and Gimli muttered next to her. With her newly sensitive ears, she was pretty certain he'd muttered something about overcompensating and low birth-rate, but she decided to leave his rumblings to himself.
"Describe it to me," Loena said suddenly.
"Describe the…"
"The Mines," Loena said, a little breathlessly. "I am saddened that I cannot. I have seen many things since I left Edoras, but nothing of the Dwarves."
"That is a tragedy," Gimli said, and he did seem truly saddened. "For the creations of my people are strong, and large. Stone is as familiar to us as our own flesh, and we're born from it as much as we're born from our mothers. The mountains yearn for our touch, and when we respond, they bless us with a great, perfect beauty."
Loena tried to picture it before her eyes, but all she could see was a great empty room.
"What of Moria?" Loena asked, a little desperately.
Gimli paused. "I had not…I have not been to Moria before today," he admitted. "We have not seen the city yet, and as for the Mine, well…I'd not do it justice, not in its current state."
Loena stopped. She knew that his reluctance came more from his anguish over the decrepit failure Moria must now seem to him. An eternity of empty halls, lines of mithril unfinished and unmined, great walls coated with grime and dust, once-proud floors stained with age and disuse. Loena wished she could see it, still, if just to imagine what it would have looked like in it's golden age.
"You told me you came from the city under the Mountain," Loena said, remembering. "What was it like there?"
"Ah! The Lonely Mountain!" Gimli said, and she could hear the wistfulness on his voice. "Great caverns of blue and gold! Hollowed and triangular, as high as the mountain allowed, and as deep as we could dig. You must imagine – the roof is as high as the sky above your head. The people are rich and fat, and kind. The women adorn their doors with jewels in the shapes of flowers, and they wear emeralds and rubies in the hair of their beards. All is warm, and all is beautiful."
"I should dearly love to s—" Loena stopped herself. "I should like to visit, one day."
If Gimli had known what she'd nearly said, he didn't say anything. "You shall! We all shall go, and feast in the halls of my father."
Loena remembered the food Gimli had described as they'd first entered Moria, and her mouth watered. "Careful, now, after all this questing I might just be hungry enough to eat through all your stores."
Gimli snorted. "A brave notion, but not even the hungriest lass in Middle-Earth could out-eat a Dwarf with a belly that needs filling."
"Ah! It's this way!" Gandalf called back, and Loena turned her head towards the sound in surprise.
"He's remembered!" Merry called, joyed.
"No!" Gandalf replied merrily, and Loena felt her exhalation deflate slightly. "The air doesn't smell so foul down here. If in doubt, Meriadoc, always follow your nose!"
"Like a bloodhound," Loena muttered humourlessly.
"Come, Loena," Gimli said. "We can always turn around. I shall guide you."
Loena accepted the end of her rope with a smile, turning it through her fingers.
Together, the Fellowship followed Gandalf through the portal, and down through the dark.