When the Worlds Cross
By Heather and Jane
Disclaimer: Middle-Earth and its peoples belong to the great J.R.R. Tolkien. Mia, Rowan, and Randy belong to us. Any and all similarities to real life events/people are pure coincidence—unless they appear with permission (reason for this will come in a later chapter.)
Summary: The Woods of Lothlorien, where visions dance in their heads and Gimli acts stubborn—of course.
Authors' Notes: co-written between Jane and Heather, two Lord of the Rings fans that are trying to keep true to the story. First part more movieverse than bookverse, but will soon go to bookverse. Credit to Heather's father and our friend Wesley as story consultants.
Additional notes – we paraphrase a quote from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode here too. And beg forgiveness for not posting sooner, because of personal reasons, but rest assured. The story will (most likely) be fully posted before Two Towers comes out.
Chapter Seven
Woods of Lothlorien
~*~*~*~
The first night away from Moria, while nearly everyone else spent the night in an uneasy sleep or on guard, Mia could not sleep thanks to nightmares involving the dark, Gandalf's fall, nine fingers (thank you SO much, Smeagol), and Randy the Ringwraith attacking. The nightmares became worse when Darth Maul showed up (though why Mia's second favorite villain would show up, she had no idea) and she woke up for the second time in an hour.
Oh, forget this! Mia thought in exasperation, deciding to stay up for a while. That usually got the sleeping job done. She sat up slowly, startling Frodo. Whoops, didn't know he was awake! She half-smiled at him. "Morpheus run away screaming 'nyah nyah nyah'?"
"Pardon?"
"Can't get to sleep?" Mia translated dryly. What was the point of taking a classic mythology class if she couldn't reference it?
Frodo said simply, "I have this watch. And I do not want to sleep." He paused. "Did you know that would happen?"
A plethora of panicked phrases went through Mia's head before she said, "Do you want a lie or the truth?" Oh, what was that? her inner self yelled. That's telling him that you knew all along anyway… She ignored that voice—it didn't necessarily mean she'd known all along, really.
"Neither." Frodo paused, and in a quieter voice, said, "If you did, could…"
"No, Frodo," Mia shook her head. "It could not have been prevented. I am sorry." She tilted her head back and stared up at the sky, wondering about the disasters that could have occurred had she or Rowan told about the upcoming events.
"Are you having trouble sleeping as well?" Frodo said after a moment.
"Yes. Nightmares."
Frodo had an idea of what about, since he recalled her admission of her fear of darkness, and looked at her for a moment. But all he said was, "I hope they do not trouble you anymore."
"As do I," Mia muttered.
They sat in silence until Mia fell asleep sitting up and the next watch people were awakened. (Some very reluctantly, of course.) After stifling a yawn, Rowan said to Frodo, "Didn't I say she'd wake up?" before shoving Mia into a better sleeping position. ("The sky is fallin'—zzz.") She frowned at her friend. "Since when did she become Chicken Little?" she remarked absently, and looked at the Ringbearer. "Get some sleep, Mr. Frodo."
The hobbit nodded and went to see if he could get some sleep. Rowan wandered over to the edge of the campsite and peered out into the dark land. There are no Balrogs on the surface, she told herself firmly. Right? She shook her head. "For Pete's sake, Mia's the one who's afraid of the dark," she muttered.
"The dark and demons are different two different things," Legolas' voice said.
Rowan jumped slightly. "Legolas, I'd appreciate if you didn't give me heart attacks at this time of night," she whispered.
"Pardon my startling you. The future truly has no way to deal with such demons?" Legolas asked, moving to stand with her.
"If they do, they forgot to tell me." Rowan reminded herself to meet his eyes. (It would be the girls' luck to be fond of men that so differed from them in height!) Surprisingly, it was easier to meet the elf's eyes now. Probably because of the fact that we all had a near death experience recently. No reason to be shy. "There aren't a lot of demons in our time, though."
"Then perhaps they sleep deep underground or have all been vanquished," Legolas said cheerfully.
"Or have been moved to lie dormant in the hearts of men," Rowan muttered. Legolas glanced at her but she shook her head. They were already depressed enough without her adding in the upsetting facts about the future. They didn't have demons with horns, fires, and substance of shadows—they had demons that pretended to be normal humans.
Don't start thinking down that path, Rowan told herself. You'll end up like Mia who worries about everything and is scared of the dark!
She wondered where the Ringwraiths were.
~*~*~*~
In the morning, nobody talked much, except to make sure that they were all safe and sound. The saddened fellowship moved on until they came to a river in a golden forest, which made most of the Company feel some measure of relief. Of course, the dwarf was not one of those people. Gimli had been talking about how it was a wood haunted by an evil woman, saying that all dwarves were warned against ever going there. "Once she looks at you, you're caught under her spell," he warned the hobbits gruffly. Merry gulped. "You should be nervous, young hobbit."
Legolas shook his head. "I do not agree," he said, frowning at Gimli and moving away from the dwarf. "I do not agree at all."
"Me either. Haunted forest indeed," Rowan jibed Gimli. Mia rolled her eyes. "Perhaps the dwarf puts too much into superstition."
Gimli snorted and moved on ahead.
Mia tapped Rowan's shoulder. "Rowan, don't tease the dwarf."
"Why? Can he hurt me?"
"Yes!"
"Oh."
This sent Merry and Pippin into (thankfully) quiet hysterics, with even Frodo smiling. Rowan let out a huff and moved ahead, while Mia tried to get her hobbit friends to shut up. "Remember the ribcage hat," she reminded them, and they shut up instantly.
"Would she really do that?" Sam asked, bewildered.
"Don't risk it," Pippin told him.
~*~*~*~
Once they had crossed the river, it was already night again and Legolas offered to climb a tree to see where they were. Aragorn agreed with that idea, while Rowan tried to calculate how high the closest branch was. Pretty far up, Rowan finally decided.
Just as Legolas was jumping for the branch, they all heard an elvish voice come from the tree.
"What do they say?" Boromir asked Legolas, who was listening closely.
"Okay, I think I have mentioned I barely got past how to say proper thank yous," Mia hissed to Merry and Pippin, who were pestering her with similar questions.
"They say they could hear us coming from a mile away in the dark but have no fear, they know of our journey and bid us come up," Legolas replied as a ladder dropped down. All climbed up except Gimli, for dwarves do not like elves.
Once everyone was up the tree, the Lorien elves told the Company (those present and in the tree, anyway) that the hobbits could sleep with them on the loft they had on the tree, as well as the ladies. (Rowan jabbed Mia in the ribs to keep her from smiling too much at that one.) The rest of them including the dwarf could sleep in the next tree, as long as Legolas took full responsibility for the dwarf.
Sotto voce, Mia said to Rowan, "And I know who wants responsibility for the—OW! D'ya HAVE to keep hitting me?!" She rubbed at her ribs indignantly. "Honestly, it's like being in a Three Stooges show," she grumbled.
"But you're not funny," Rowan told her.
"I'm tired. Sue me."
Late in the night, Mia awoke to the sound of movement. Great, can't I EVER get any normal sleep these days? she moaned inwardly, noticing that Rowan was sleeping like a baby. I'm not even a light sleeper! She turned over, so as to not face the sound sleepers, and saw Frodo looking down the trunk of the tree they were in.
For a moment, Mia wondered if the hobbit was trying to get a bad case of vertigo and then remembered what was down there. He must have heard something too—and she knew exactly what that was. Not an Orc they had passed without incident but another creature entirely. Although Frodo only suspected, Mia knew it was Gollum.
So Smeagol's still alive, Mia thought, propping herself up on one elbow. That's all right. She wondered again where the wraiths were—and more specifically, what Randy was up to. He knows what's supposed to happen…and if he's gone bad, he's gonna try to do something bad…to be insanely obvious. She started to say something, in hopes of distracting Frodo, but Haldir came up just then and distracted the Ringbearer from the search for Gollum.
Mia laid back down, knowing nothing else of interest would come of this night. Unless I have another one of my Star Wars crossed nightmares, she thought, and dropped off to a relatively dreamless sleep.
~*~*~*~
The Company and the Lorien elves set out early the next morning—too early for the very sleepy Rowan. Soon they came to the banks of the swift moving river Celobrant. There were no bridges across the river, as a safety measure of the land. A young elf approached on the other side. Haldir cast him a few ropes the elves made for the company to pass on.
"Ropes. We're going to…oh, suddenly I remember why I didn't go on the slide when I was in grade school," Mia muttered, staring at the ropes. Rowan frowned at her, wondering where this came from. "What? I used to be afraid of heights!"
Rowan rolled her eyes. "Heights, the dark, demons…good grief, is there anything else that you're afraid of?"
"Well, possibly flimsy bridges," Mia replied.
Before anyone could say anything to her (and it looked as if Pippin were about to say something), Haldir spoke up, while holding up a hand. "The dwarf must be blindfolded," he said sternly.
"Blindfolded!"
Rowan knew what problem this would cause so she stepped back and spoke to Aragorn, who looked slightly concerned. "Aragorn…?"
"Is there a problem you have, Lady Rowan?"
"Not me, personally. I just think the easiest way to solve the problem of Gimli not wanting to be blindfolded would be if we were all blindfolded."
"Good idea, Lady Rowan." He spoke a little louder to the rest of the company. "I do not see fair to single out the dwarf. So we shall all walk blindfolded."
Mia made a face at that one. "Walking around in the dark and across a rope bridge. Oh, yay." Sam patted her arm sympathetically.
Legolas shook his head indignantly. "All of us blindfolded," he said, in a near grumble.
Rowan blinked slightly as he walked off. "Seems to me that he's off for an elf sulk," Mia commented, grinning wickedly. "Go fix the story." She shoved Rowan. "Go for it, girl!"
"Mi-ia!"
Mia just made a shooing motion and, exasperated, Rowan walked over to Legolas. She thought a second and said, "No offense, but you're kind of acting…er…childish." The Prince of Mirkwood frowned at her, but she didn't back down. "Come on, Legolas. It is fair—and you're starting to look really silly to everyone back there."
Legolas sighed, glanced at the golden woods around them, and then said, "I suppose that if I agree, Mia will keep her insufferable jokes to a low?"
"Since she'll be in a panic, most likely."
"All right then."
"I heard that!" Mia complained as they returned.
Rowan frowned at her. "You did not!"
"Yeah, well…I wondered if there was something that you guys didn't want me to hear." The girls frowned at each other before the Company was blindfolded. At least I fixed something that could have gone badly, Rowan thought—and wondered how many other close calls there had been.
~*~*~*~
That evening, the Fellowship arrived at the Cerin Amroth, where their blindfolds were removed and their eyes consequently dazzled by the beauty of Lothlorien. Although Rowan and Mia had read about Lothlorien many times and dreamed of being there once or twice, they could not believe their eyes. It was more beautiful than either of them had imagined.
"Can you believe this place?" Rowan wondered aloud as they followed their guides.
"I almost feel like I'm reading the book again," Mia murmured, in the same awed tone.
On towards dusk, the remaining Fellowship finally came to the city of Galadrim, and Rowan heard Mia muttering about not having a camera. The company climbed the stairs of the massive tree that made the city. Upon a high talan was a large hill, and in this hill sat Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel.
They spoke of many things, the most touching of which was Gandalf's passing.
Following what the story had said. At least Mia was pleased.
As they were parting for the night, Galadriel gave them all one last long look in the eyes. Another thing that paralleled what had happened in the books—save for one thing that had the girls from the future exchanging frightened looks as they walked away from the high talan.
That night, the hobbits talked of what they had seen in Galadriel's eyes in their room. So too did Rowan and Mia, but their visions were not as 'pleasant' as those the others had experienced.
"Okay, Mia, we both know we saw something when she looked at us. What I saw was not what I expected to see," Rowan told Mia.
"I don't think it was supposed to be," the other girl pointed out. "Remember how in the book most did not talk about what they saw."
"That's true. So…what did they see?"
Mia rolled her eyes. This was what came of being the local book expert. Everyone wanted answers that were fairly obvious. She sat back against the wall. "The book says that they all saw something they would rather have than be on this quest," she said. "While never exactly specifying what each one of them saw… But that's not what I saw when Galadriel looked at me."
"Me neither." Rowan glanced out at the Lothlorien woods, and then at her friend. "I'll tell you what I saw…it's more like what would happen to Middle Earth if we left right now."
"I think that's what I saw." Mia looked at the floor, frowning slightly. "Danger, pain, death, a lot of volcanoes, oddly…and the Orcs running around as if they owned the place. Also plent of other ugly creatures." She looked up. "You know what that means, right?"
"That since we've been here, something's changed," said Rowan, feeling as if she were stating the obvious. "I think I know what it is." Mia gave her an inquisitive look. "It's Randy."
Mia shook her head. "But the Nazgul got Randy back in Bree…"
"Yes, they did, they got him all right. Right up working beside them." Rowan made a small face at the memory of Randy's attack.
"But if he is with the…" Mia shivered slightly, remembering her worry from the other night. "He knows what happens and when…"
"So the story has changed," Rowan said, "and we have to stay to keep it balanced!"
Both of the girls sat in silence, thinking about this revelation and what to do now that they knew.
To Be Continued in Chapter Eight—the Breaking of the Fellowship (not chapter title, btw).