Authors' Note:* Sun Queen and Ivory Moon duck as Eirual steps into rant mode.* **PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE MESSAGES ABOUT MIRKWOOD ELF ON OUR REVIEW PAGE. Mention it at the *end* of your review for *our* fic, if you wish. It's rude to come into our story to bother Sun Queen. Write her yourself if you must. Thank you.**
*Eirual steps down and returns to normal.*
We wish to mention that the *first* part of this story is starting to wind down. It should go until Christmas or thereabouts. Don't worry however, part two should start soon after Boxing Day. Enjoy.
The Nightrunners (who are back from Toronto by the way)
Phone Calls and *The Bag*:
Soundtrack: The Dreaming Tree (Dave Matthews Band)
Standing here
The old man said to me,
"Long before these crowded streets
Here stood my dreaming tree."
Below it he would sit
For hours at a time
Now progress takes away
What forever took to find
And now he's falling hard
He feels the falling dark
How he longs to be
Beneath his dreaming tree
Conquered fear to climb
A moment froze in time
When the girl who first he kissed
Promised him she'd be his
Remembered mother's words
There beneath the tree
"No matter what the world
You'll always be my baby."
"Mommy come quick,
The dreaming tree has died."
The air is growing thick
A fear he cannot hide
The dreaming tree has died
Oh, have you no pity?
This thing I do
I do not deny it
All through this smile
As crooked as danger
I do not deny
I know in my mind
I would leave you now
If I had the strength to
I would leave you up
To your own devices
Will you not talk?
Can you take pity?
I don't ask much
But won't you speak, please?
From the start
She knew she had it made
Easy up 'til then
For sure she'd make the grade
Adorers came in hordes
To lay down in her wake
Gave it all she had
But treasures slowly fade
Now she's falling hard
Feels the fall of dark
How did this fall apart?
She drinks to fill it up
A smile of sweetest flowers
Wilted so and soured
Black tears stain the cheeks
That once were so admired
She thinks when she was small
There on her father's knee
How he had promised her,
"You'll always be my baby."
"Daddy come quick,
The dreaming tree has died
I can't find my way home
There is no place to hide
The dreaming tree has died."
Oh, if I had the strength to
I would leave you up
To your own devices
Will you not talk?
Can you take pity?
I don't ask much
But won't you speak, please?
Take me back, take me back, take me back...
Save me please.
"So what are we really doing here, Legolas?" Arwen's voice sounded tired, so tired.
I didn't have a good answer for the human woman. "Past mistakes, maybe?" I hazarded. "We screwed up so bad last time, so we're back again to slay some orc, save the world, stop the evil..."
My attempt to lighten the mood fell flat. "Break some more hearts?" Arwen asked.
I shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what to tell you, Undómiel. I'm so far out my depth here..."
"But what do you think I should do?" she pressed. "Damn elf! You hate giving advice, don't you? You're all the same."
I snorted. "A bit rich, coming from you."
"'Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes,'" she quoted, smiling slightly. "But honestly, Legolas. I don't know what to do. I want to go to him, I want to see him again, but..." she trailed off.
"It hurts," I finished. "He doesn't know who you are. He cannot understand."
"If he did, I could forgive him," she admitted. "If he could look at me with love in his eyes, I could forgive him anything. He did that to me." Sinking to the couch, she continued. "But right now? It would all be a lie. He is not Aragorn to me, and I am not Alice for him."
"Hmm...so you're in love with Aragorn, but he's currently stuck as Adam. At the same time, Adam's in love with you, but he thinks you're Alice, so that doesn't count." I shook my head. "Life's a bitch sometimes, isn't it, Arwen?"
She chuckled lightly. "When did you become perceptive and all Freud-like?"
"I *met* Freud, Lady. I've had thirty millennia to practice my perceptiveness. Do you know how long that is?"
"Ouch. But being dead doesn't mean that you forget."
"I know. But consider this a fresh start, a second chance."
She eyed me dubiously. "A second chance?"
"Okay, let's try this: next time you see him, try to *not* beat him off the walls. Then we'll see what happens. How's that?"
She laughed. Her clear laughter might have contained a trace of the maniacal, but it was only a very small part. "It's a start. None of us have had a very good week, have we?"
"Well, I got hit by a car, covered in river water, punched by a NYPD officer, stampeded by rampaging rocker-hobbits, and had my apartment trashed by a psychotic witch."
"Well, I was suffering from chronic depression -couldn't figure out why before- then I overdosed on flight, found out I was depressed because I'm a elven princess reincarnated, nearly died, and then assaulted a cop who is the love of my life."
"Fine," I grumbled. "You win. You *did* have a worse week than me."
She opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the telephone. It echoed weirdly through the ruined apartment. Arwen looked at me, her expression worried. "Who would call you *now*?"
The telephone rang again, its tone discordant. I eyed it apprehensively. "I don't know," I replied, reaching towards the receiver.
************
Felix suppressed a sigh of relief when Legolas's apartment came into view. "Come on, let's get inside," he said.
Gabe lingered momentarily, running a practiced eye along the street. The weak light of dawn was just beginning to hover on the horizon, reflecting on the far-away river. More importantly, however, all the incandescents were glowing steadily, showing that there had been no recent magic use in the area.
Peter tugged on Trish's arm, ushering her towards the door. Felix rapped smartly, and to nobody's surprise, Mrs. Briggs opened the door with her usual smile. "So nice to see you, dears," she exclaimed, as if it were not dawn, and they weren't covered in dirt and blood from their recent battle.
"Good morning, Mrs. Briggs," Peter said jauntily.
"Mr. Leo is upstairs with that lovely young lady," Mrs. Briggs continued, as if unaware that Arwen had entered the apartment near death only six hours earlier. "Go on up."
The hobbits headed into the lobby, followed by Gabe, with Trish trailing them. "But who's this?" Mrs. Briggs asked suddenly as the little girl entered. The others stopped dead, not at her words, but at her tone. Gone was the sugary old-lady voice; it had been replaced with something far colder.
Sam looked back, gesturing for the girl to follow. "This is Trish," he explained. "She's lost; we found her out on the streets. Don't worry, we're taking care of it."
Mrs. Briggs peered at them, and studied Trish once more. "Well. Isn't that nice?" she asked, her voice not a bit warmer. "Thank heavens they found you, sweetheart." She nodded to the others. "Up you go then. Be careful, my darlings," she said, and shuffled out of the lobby.
"That was weird," Felix commented.
***********
I picked up the phone, dread coiling in my stomach. This was bad. Elven intuition was rarely wrong. "Hello?"
"Legolas?"
I recognized the voice instantly. "Glorfindel? What is it?"
"It's bad, Legolas. Get everybody together, and get out of your place now. Get out of New York."
"What? Why, Glorfindel? It's too soon. I haven't got everybody!"
He ignored me and continued. "Get to the JFK. Gate 54. A plane will be waiting."
"I don't understand."
"Legolas, I think the phone is tapped. I can't talk. Please, just get out. Now!" In my immortal life, I had never heard Glorfindel sound frightened. He did now. In fact, he was positively frantic.
"Glorfindel, what's coming? What is it?"
"The Nine, it's the-"
The lights flickered.
The phone buzzed momentarily with static, garbling the Eldar's words. I strained to catch what he was saying over the rising hiss, and caught: "-White City Enterprises, Legol-" .
The lights flickered again, and the static cut out suddenly.
The line was dead.
"Glorfindel? Glorfindel!!" I slammed the phone down. "Dammit!" Rounding on Arwen, I demanded, "Are you sensing any magic use around? Anything?"
Her eyes went a solid blue as she cast a seeking spell. Several seconds later, she blinked, her pupils returning to normal. Looking confused, she shook her head. "Nothing. If there was anybody casting, they're gone now." She looked at me imploringly. "It could just have been a coincidence."
"I doubt it. That was Glorfindel. Apparently, there's something big headed our way. We've got to get to the airport. We've got to get out of New York."
I stepped away from Arwen, my mind reeling. I didn't know where the hell the others were, as far as I knew, Sam and Felix were still running the streets of Necropolis. I headed for the door, half formed plans racing through my head. Arwen followed me uncertainly, but before I got there, I heard the rune-trigger being shouted from the hallway.
"Legolas!"
I scanned every person as they piled into my apartment. Gimli. Pip. Sam and Frodo? Excellent. They showed up. Oh, look, some ragged little street kid I didn't know. Well, this was an unexpected turn of events.
"Hey guys," I greeted. "Guess what? We're leaving New York. Right about... *now*!"
"Sounds good," Felix agreed.
"What do you mean?" I asked, half-curious despite myself.
He looked down, refusing suddenly to meet my gaze. "I just think that this place is getting too hot," he said. "I mean, the mage activity here is not good."
Gabe nodded. "He's right, Legolas. We went up against half a dozen mages just to get back here." He gestured to the little girl. "This is Trish. That gang was after her."
I spared the girl a single glance, then returned to the subject. "Anyway, we're leaving. I just got a call from Glorfindel, something about the Nine being after us..."
"Oh. Yay." Pippin turned and headed for the kitchen.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"Getting supplies." I heard the fridge door open, and then the hobbit was rummaging around, tossing leftovers onto the counter.
"Right," I turned and walked to the bedroom, where I opened the closet and looked around frantically for a bag. Spotting one of Gabe's hockey bags, I hefted it onto the bed. I ripped it open, planning on dumping the contents to the floor, and stuffing my clothes into it. Yes, that was certainly my initial plan...
"Holy shit!"
The others came running at my shout, to find me staring at The Bag with something resembling shock. "Gabe..."
"Oh," he said, totally unconcerned. "You opened one of my bags."
"Gimli," I muttered, "how many weapons did you bring with you?"
He peered into the hockey bag, tossing several nasty-looking guns onto the bed. "This is the smallest one. There's four more like it."
Felix peered over my shoulder, and whistled, impressed. "Wow. That's a *lot* of weaponry."
"Where the hell did you *get* all this stuff?" I asked, still not believing that this arsenal had been in my apartment for days without my knowledge.
He shrugged, suddenly not interested in looking at me. "Here and there, y'know. Christmas, birthday gifts, that kind of thing. Some of it is pre-war, but it should still be useful."
He reached into The Bag, picking up several wicked-looking knives. He passed them around to the three hobbits present. "Here," he said, "take these. They've got better balance than the ones you've got."
In the manner of Santa's insane half-brother, he distributed the remaining items from The Bag.
He handed me a small, nasty-looking handgun. "Elf. This is a gun. Do you know how to work it?"
I calmly swiped the sleek weapon, and in ten seconds had it disassembled. Ten more seconds and it was back together. I swung it around my finger like a nineteenth-century gunfighter, slammed on the silencer, dropped into a firing crouch, and nailed my reflection in the bedroom mirror.
The ex-dwarf-turned-professor looked impressed. "Good. I was afraid you still only used that poncy bow of yours."
"Piss off."
For a while, the hobbits amused themselves by holding open a canvas rucksack and attempting to fill it with clothing tossed from across the room. Finally, Gimli muscled them out the door with instructions to make excuses to Mrs. Briggs. I was glad; the Nine might be after us, the city might be going to hell, and we might be flying into the face of certain death, but I'd be damned if I was losing my lease. Arwen was in the kitchen making Trish a milkshake. A milkshake? I had milk?
Finally, we had managed to pack all the weaponry and clothing that could be carried without having to sit on the bags to zip them up. As we passed through the living room --correction, what *used* to be my living room before it was wrecked by a witch with an anger management problem-- I saw Sam bending to scoop up a handful of the scattered athelas leaves. I grinned; it looked like a bit of the gardener had survived.
"Right, then?" I asked. "Let's go."
We headed for the door, but I held up my hand in sudden warning. I cocked my head, and heard the swift patter of feet on the stairs. I opened the door cautiously, vaguely noticing that Arwen was charging a spell behind me. The others held their breath, watching, waiting...
Mark's cropped head poked up over the landing, and he grinned. "What did I miss?" he asked innocently.
I twitched. "Where's Adam?" I asked, my voice lowering dangerously.
Mark shrugged, oblivious. "I left him at his place and walked back."
"You moron!" Arwen exploded. "You half-witted, scruffy halfling. He could be in danger!"
"What's going on, anyway?"
Screw this, I wasn't explaining *that* again. I grabbed the ex-hobbit by the scruff of the neck, vaguely realizing that this didn't work so well now that he was as tall as I was. Stuffing the rucksack full of guns into his arms, I steered him towards the stairs. Behind me, Arwen and Felix were ushering Trish out of the apartment. She was still slurping her milkshake, a contented expression on her face.
We reached the lobby, which was mercifully empty; my building's *sane* tenants were mostly still asleep at this lovely hour of dawn. Then it hit me. How the hell were we planning to get to the airport? We didn't have Adam's car, and none of the hobbits had any means of transport.
This occurred to Felix at the same moment. "Ummm, Legolas? You don't have a car, do you?"
We might have still been standing in the bloody lobby, surrounded by bags of weaponry, had Gabe not arrived. Seeing him appear at the bottom of the stairs lit inspiration in my brain. "Gimli..." I ventured innocently, "how are your hot-wiring skills?"
His face fell. "Oh, no, no way, Elf-boy-"
"Gimli, this is where I point out that we are *seriously* running low on options." I pointed at the line of parked cars across the street. "That one and that one. Do it. Now."
Gimli broke into the cars I'd indicated with a speed that made me slightly nervous. The alarms didn't even have a chance to begin wailing before the ex-dwarf shut them off. I turned to the rest of our merry little band. "Okay, who is actually *licensed* to drive a car?"
Blank stares met mine. Alice groaned. "I can drive. But may *I* point out that we are violating about sixteen *major* laws and we can't fight the threat of Sauron if we're locked in a nice jail cell somewhere..."
I shrugged. "So we'll be really careful." I turned to her. "Besides, you're not going to report us, are you, Officer Starr?"
Her blue-eyed gaze bored into me. "Shut it, Thranduillion."
I realized that the little girl, Trish, was still clinging to Felix's arm. Shit. This was going to be a problem. I crouched down to face her. "Hey honey, we have to get out of New York 'cause we're in a lot of trouble."
Behind me, one of the hobbits snorted. "Understatement."
"So," I continued, "We're going to have to drop you off somewhere before we leave. Where are your parents? Where's your family?"
Her eyes grew huge. "No-no-no!" Her voice rose in intensity, a pathetic little cry. "Don't leave me!!"
"But sweetheart," Gabe tried to reason with her, "We can't take you out of the city with us. That's kidnaping, and your parents-"
"My mommy's gone, I can't stay here." She looked like she was about to cry. "Please, don't leave me."
Sam cut in, "We could leave her with Mrs. Briggs-"
"No," she said, her voice adamant.
"But-"
"*No*."
I realized there was no reasoning with a stubborn eight-year-old. I sighed. "Fine, we'll take her to the White City. Elrond and Galadriel can figure out what to do with her."
Arwen took charge. "Right. Gimli, take the hobbits and Trish. Go to the JFK and wait. Legolas and I will go pick up Adam and meet you there."
I watched as Gimli drove into the waking city with four rockers and eight-year-old in tow. Trish was installed in Mark's lap in the passenger seat; the ex-hobbit wore the expression of one who is supremely uncomfortable, but struggling to hide it.
Arwen turned to me. "Let's go get my dumbass partner so we can get the hell out of this city."
I nodded vigorously; I'd had quite enough of this magic-sinkhole, mage-infested city to last me quite a while.
And when you're immortal, that's saying something.