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.

Summary: Things change as Mia negotiates with Gollum and Orcs, and Rowan with spiders.  Though 'negotiate' may not be the right word for it…

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.

Warning: Heavy spoilers for the end of Two Towers and the beginning of Return of the King.

References and quotes include a mocking of a Spaceballs quote and a reference to My Little Pony: The Movie.  If we missed any, let us know.

Reader thanks following chapter.

Chapter Twelve

Hostile (or not) Negotiations

~*~*~*~

After twelve hours of straight climbing, with breaks that only lasted for about three minutes, Rowan and Mia finally reached the top of the mountain—and were perilously close to the passage of Cirith Ungol.  Rowan paused to frown at the passage thoughtfully.

Mia only collapsed, sighing happily.  "Thank Heaven!  We are done with climbing that monstrosity!"

"Okay," said Rowan, giving her a look, "but we can't stop now.  I saw a trio way down a the bottom of the mountain and three guesses on who it is."

"I'll not guess," Mia muttered, groaning as she got to her feet again.  "Man, I so am going to need therapy…ooh."  She winced, looking at Cirith Ungol with dread.  "Umm…Rowan…"

"Is there something wrong?" Rowan asked innocently.

Mia gave her a dirty look.  "Well, for one," she said, with a touch of sarcasm in her tone, "there would be the wee problem of a spider named Shelob…"

"Oh.  Well."  Rowan shrugged lightly, glancing back down the mountain.  "Gollum's going to be here any time now, and the only way through is…ah, great.  Shelob's Lair."  And she'd just been thinking of how they were going to sneak through, not what they were going to do about the sneaky Smeagol's planning with the spider and the end results of that alliance.  If you could call it an alliance, more of a business deal— Rowan made herself stop thinking that.

"Oh, man."  Mia grimaced.  "What are we going to do?"

Rowan tilted her head, thinking.  All right, so we have a pair of hobbits that are going to see trouble and a couple of nasties that are going to be trouble…and what can we do to stop it?  Stop it!  She almost grimaced.  That was messing with the storyline—hold it.  Am I thinking like Mia?  Eeek, no, no…  Rowan thought about what she would do about this, and then she grinned evilly.  "I got it," she said, almost happily.  "I so got it and it takes care of a lot of stuff."  Mia looked at her hopefully.  "You distract Gollum—"

"Smeagol," Mia corrected her, no longer looking so hopeful.

"—whatever—if he shows up any time soon," Rowan told her.  "Give me the bag, I need to get something."

Mia removed the pack from her back and handed it over, rolling her shoulders slightly in relief.  She asked, "Get what?"

"You'll see. Distract the Stinker, I'll be right back—and not in the horror movie way," she added hastily.  While Mia rolled her eyes, Rowan reached into the bottom of their bag and pulled out a small flashlight.  She twirled it around and turned it on briefly, grinning.  "And you said I was silly for bringing it for theater at school."

"Color me wrong.  What are you going to do and how do I distract Smeagol?" Mia hissed.

Rowan shrugged.  "You're the brains of the outfit.  Tell him you have a fish," she suggested, checking to make sure her sword was easy to unsheathe and heading for the lair of the gigantic spider monster.  "If that doesn't work, get him with your dagger."

Mia gave her an indignant look.  Rowan didn't see it, because she had already disappeared into the darkness leading to Shelob's lair.

Time for a party—provided that she could find the energy for one.

~*~*~*~

It was a long wait, for Gollum to show up and for Rowan to come back.  Mia sat back in a shadowed area, after making sure it was well out of sight of the top of mountain, and took out her book on the Elvish language.  She flipped towards the page she had left off on and began reading, half-keeping an ear out in case there was danger.

There wasn't danger for a while.

Then Mia heard scrambling and some slithering sounds, and hurriedly put the book away, pressing herself back into the shadows.  Someone was here and she seriously doubted that it was the goodhearted hobbits.

"Silly…hobbits keep Precious.  Smeagol get back, yes, my Precious…Shelob…help get Precious back…"

Oh, good grief.  Smeagol's whispered inanities were creepier than Tolkien had made them out to be, and a lot more pitiable.  Mia felt sorry for the creature, trapped by his 'addiction' to the One Ring, and then feared for Frodo.  If everything here is a lot more or a lot less than the books say, she thought, then my favorite hobbit is in serious trouble!

"…be friendly with Shelob, yesss, my precioussss, we will…"

As if Frodo and Sam weren't in trouble before! Mia's inner voice exclaimed.  Good grief girl!

"Shut up, and oh, man," whispered Mia to no one.  "It's Smeagol.  I've got to stop him…" And stop playing Plot Exposition with herself while she was at it, but anything was better than a panic attack.  "What about the story line?"  She glanced at direction of the lair, wondering and fearing.  "What about Rowan?" she mused aloud, not hearing any screams of a horrified teenager or shrieks of an enraged spider.  This might be had.  On the other hand, she could hear Smeagol breathing—and he sounded a lot closer than he had been thirty seconds ago.  Well, that isn't fair.  All right, here we go…smoke 'em if you got 'em.  She took a deep breath.  "Smeagol!"

The sounds of movement abruptly stopped and Smeagol hissed, "Who's there, Precioussss?"  He slunk a little closer to Mia's hiding place and she winced ever so slightly.  "Who'ssssss there?"

"You don't need to know right now," Mia said in a low voice, wondering if she oughtn't try speaking through her hand or something.  "Know that I see you and I know what you're trying to do."  She felt so stupid hiding in the shadows.  At least her language might work on the creature.  "I advise you not to, if you are aware of consequences."

"Smeagol doessss not care," Smeagol informed her, sounding almost annoyed with the advice.  "Smeagol wants his precious back, will have his precioussss back…"

So much for talking around it!  Mia sighed softly and went for bribery, her hand sneaking down to her dagger.  I do not want to be violent…  "I'll give you a nice fish if you stop."

"Fish…Smeagol like fish."  He crept closer.  "What Smeagol do for fish?"

Whoever said a way to a man's heart is through his stomach is probably right, thought Mia.  But this is seriously too easy…am I caring?  Not particularly!  "All you have to do is not talk to Shelob right now," she said.  "Just go back to the nice hobbits…and come back later if you really need to."

Mia felt the part of her that did not want to follow the sacred storyline (a very small part of her, of course) balk at this, but she ignored it.  She had a very, very unsettling feeling in her gut about what was going on in the cave at that moment, and it was better to cover one's butt in these sorts of situations.

"Yesss…Smeagol do," Smeagol whispered, creeping close enough so that Mia could see his shadow.   Then the creature stopped.  "…where fish?"

"Ummm…" This part Mia hadn't thought about.  Her mind told her that she could either run out to give him the fish or put the fish out later.  He might try to run into the cave where Rowan the weapon wielder is running around if I do the first and that…would make things bad.  She frowned.  Or worse.  Second option, then!  "You must go back first.  Otherwise, you will not get your nice fish or—" Mia grimaced slightly—"or your Precious."

That got Smeagol's attention and he turned around, half suspicious, half hopeful.  "You help Smeagol get back Precioussss from little hobbits?" he asked, his speech remarkably clearer.

Mia tried not to smile.  What did he think the 'mysterious voice' was, some kind of miracle worker?  "Yes, Smeagol.  You can get Precious back later.  You will have it forever."  I'm not exactly lying, she thought.  Am I?  Great, now she was having moral issues over Smeagol—could her life get any weirder?

Thankfully, no one answered that.

"You promise…Smeagol go back, yesss," Smeagol muttered before Mia could say a word.  Okay, what was that? the girl wondered.  "You promise…nice hobbits, go back…" He slinked back towards the shadows and then down the mountain before the girl could even think of not gaping.  "Go back…see nice Shelob later…yessss, promise of fish…"

"Good God, people in Middle-Earth are gullible!" Mia exclaimed softly, staring after the admittedly creepy Smeagol—and oddly was reminded of a fantasy book series she used to read.

Moments later, Rowan came out of the cave, looking very happy.

"What were you doing?" Mia snapped, getting to her feet and wincing as her somewhat cramped muscles protested.

"Taking care of something," Rowan said coolly as she put her bow back over her shoulder.

Mia knew that look.  "What did you do, Rowan?" she asked sharply.

"I took care of Shelob for the time being," said Rowan, smiling innocently.

"You didn't kill her, did you?"

"Of course not," said Rowan, looking annoyed.  "That would be a really big change."  Mia sighed with relief, slumping against the wall.  "And you would so totally flip.  I just…maimed her severely, that's all."

"What!" Mia yelped, her eyes widening.  That is so not good, that is so not good, eek, no, no, we messed with the storyline…  "Rowan!  How…." She only barely managed to keep her voice from going high pitched—hysterical reactions weren't something they needed.  "You've already changed a lot!  You got rid of her before she bit Frodo!   You changed the story—you…you messed with the sacred storyline!"

Rowan rolled her eyes.  "For one, we already changed the storyline by being here.  Remember Randy?  Evil big Randy the Nazgul wannabe?  And for another thing," she went on, cutting Mia off before a response could be formed, "if Frodo got bitten, you'd go all hysterical and spastic, and we'd never get to Mount Doom on time.  Do you really want that to have happened?"

"Errr…well, when you put it that way…" Mia sighed.  She hadn't liked that part of the story much—had her actually yelling at her book when she'd first read it.  Not that it was unusual for her to dislike scenes in books, but that one had just taken the cake.  Just taken the cake.  "I guess you're right, but not totally," she admitted and Rowan grinned proudly.  "And I took care of Smeagol, thank you for asking."

Rowan nodded.  "Excellent.  I take it you didn't necessarily negotiate with him?"

"Not exactly," said Mia dryly, and her friend laughed.  Yeah, yeah, very much funny—just what did she do with the spider?  "So," she went on, "what did you do to Shelob?"

"How about I tell you later," suggested Rowan.

Mia eyed her for a moment before shrugging.  So much for the idea that a high from a fight led to bragging.  "So, now what?"

"We keep going," Rowan replied, checking her arrow supply nonchalantly.  Mia took the hint and went looking through her pack—where did she put the bloody smoked fish they'd made a few nights back?  "Unless you'd like to meet up with the hobbits and Gollum…"

"Smeagol."

"Whatever…'cause if we do that," Rowan mused, "the right people won't be at the right place at the right time."

"Right, and without Smeagol, the Ring will never be destroyed."  Mia paused, thinking about this.  "Unless we butt in, but I really, really don't want to do that because I think I read something—"

"Okay, okay, I get the point," Rowan cut her off, wincing slightly.  "Bad idea to butt in because we changed so much, yada yada.  So let's…why are you putting down a fish thing?" she exclaimed.

Mia gave her a look as she set down the smoked fish—it was not going to be much of a loss for them, since they still had the lembas and that bit of 'fresh' food had stunk too.  Hope that Smeagol doesn't mind the fact that it's cooked…  "I said I'd give Smeagol a fish if he went back to the hobbits."

Rowan's jaw dropped.  "Good grief.  That plan worked?"

"Yes."

"Huh.  Now, let's go—and no freaking out."

Mia gave her an annoyed look.  "I will not freak out."

"Yeah, right," muttered Rowan, and Mia got that same sinking feeling in her stomach.  How badly (or not badly) had the spider been maimed?  Oh, well, I guess I'll find out soon enough…  The girls began to walk into the pass.  "Hey, Mia?"

"Yeah, Rowan?" the taller girl said, peering through the shadows uneasily.  We so should have waited for Frodo and his mystical nightlight, we so should have…  She paused.  Mystical nightlight?  Oh, I am losing it…

"What do we do when we get to the other side?"

Mia frowned at her friend.  "What do you mean?"

"Orcs," Rowan said, exasperated.

"Ohh…" Mia winced.  She'd forgotten about those.

"Yeah, ohhh," Rowan mocked lightly.  "It's not like we can go invisible."

"Right…Orcs have guards, right?" asked Mia, an insane plan started to take seed in her mind.

Rowan blinked.  What?  "Uh, yeah, I guess so," she said carefully, wondering where this was going.  "Why?"

"And the Orc guards are kinda…alone?" Mia went on, trying not to grin gleefully.

"Probably—why?" Rowan demanded.

"I have a plan."

"Brilliant," said Rowan dryly, grabbing Mia's arm and preventing movement for a moment.  There was utter silence and the girls continued walking, this time a bit more cautiously.  The shadows lessened a little after a moment and the girls could make out the other's form, just barely.  This was somewhat of a relief.  "Um, what's your plan?"

Mia shrugged, affecting an air of casualness.  "Well, it's no rally the denizens of Flutter Valley and Ponyland to defeat the Smooze type of plan, but it involves something called cynicism," she said lightly, and then smirked evilly.  "And blunt objects."

Rowan stared.  "You're insane."

"Exactly—they're not expecting that!" Mia exclaimed.

"No.  No way," Rowan stated firmly, halting.

"Yes, yes way," the other girl countered, likewise stopping and frowning.  "I know it'll work."

Rowan and Mia stared each other down, until Rowan said, "Okay, why not?  Can't be any worse than a logical plan."

Mia frowned, somewhat offended.

"Let's do it."  There was a sound behind them, very much like one someone climbing would make—and it was a bit too loud and close to just be an echo.  The girls exchanged panicked looks.  "And now!" Rowan finished.

"Aye-aye, sir!"

The girls ran for the other end of the passage.  And two hobbits and one Gollum creature were left puzzled by a somewhat maimed and incapacitated spider—though Smeagol was quite happy with the discovery of an abandoned fish and the prospect of getting his Precious back 'forever.'

~*~*~*~

"You do realize," Rowan said conversationally as the girls stopped to take a breather.  "That it will be somewhat difficult to get the Orc's attention or to distract them from the fact that we are small, female, and smell nice—and therefore, not Orcs?"

Mia waved a hand dismissively.  "Got that part all figured out, don't worry.  By the way, what did you do to Shelob?"

"Well, I tried negotiating," Rowan said, remembering her less-than stellar idea of trying to talk the gigantic monster into walking away.  Speaking of walking away, who let Mia decide when we start moving again?  Argh!  She hurried after her friend.  "That failed, so I resorted to hostile ideas.  A few arrows in the eye, in the knee, and whoosh, the spider was a bit gone."

"That seems too easy."

Rowan gave Mia an annoyed look.  "I'm making it sound easy so you don't flip," she said patiently, and the other girl frowned for a moment before nodding.  'Cause we don't need that while going into Mordor—jeez, are we in trouble—and while watching for Randy the Evil Nazgul.  "And that's what happened.  Basically.  And what's your plan?"

"Simple, brilliant, and it involves disguising ourselves as Orcs," said Mia cheerfully.

Rowan jerked to a stop.  "Okay, what?!"

~*~*~*~

Mia peered around a rock-face corner, and nodded in satisfaction.  "We have Orcs.  Two Orc guards.  Count 'em, two."

"Do I need to remind you that you don't speak Orc-ish?" Rowan hissed from a higher point.  Upon their discovery of where the gang of Orcs was hiding, the girls had immediately decided to split up—with Mia on the ground and Rowan at some point above her.  The first still wasn't too happy with this, as she was still fairly terrible with weapons and knew darn well that Rowan wasn't exactly as fast as Legolas was with a bow.

She would be, of course—just not quite yet.

"Don't need to.  Come on, ya thought I didn't think of that?  Don't answer.  Ready?"  Mia ignored the 'wha' look and stepped back behind the rock face, clearing her throat softly.  All right, here we go…and hope we stay alive!  She said an Elvish challenge phrase, one that the book had said was usually called before charging into battle with Orcs—lucky them.  There was a scramble, prompting Rowan to raise her bow, and Mia held up a hand.  "Five, four—"

FFFT!  FFT!

"—three too early!"  Mia covered her eyes, groaning.  "Are they dead?  Did you have to shoot them in the eyes?"

"Yes and yes," snapped Rowan, scrambling down from the ledge with one eye open for the rest of the Orc group.  No sign of them so the girls were free to do their job, as Mia was already doing.  Ewww…  "This was one of your weirdest ideas yet," Rowan grumbled as the two salvaged the Orc armor—or at least enough of it so that they wouldn't look human.  "And this stuff smells."

"Oh, deal with it.  Ideas are the only thing I can come up with around here."  Mia grinned, setting the stinky helmet on her head.  It was a true testament to her quirkiness on how she would refuse to wear boots but would willingly put on an Orc helmet.  "Let's go trick some Orc idiots."

Rowan had to sigh.  Mia's plan involved sending the Snaga Orc gang all the way to some other Orc army, or at least well out of the hobbits' path to Mount Doom.  The plan depended on the Orcs not wondering about two funny sounding Orcs and a lack of cynics in the gang.  Mia seemed certain that there would be no cynics within a fifty mile radius (unless Sauron or a wizard or an elf was closer than they thought) and that her plan would work.

For some reason, Rowan doubted it.

"Oh, FYI," said Mia, her voice a bit muffled, "let me do the talking."

"What?"

Mia gave her a dirty look—or so Rowan suspected.  The Orc helmets were evil looking enough, and it was somewhat difficult to see the face under them.  "Just let me do the talking," said Mia, in a raspy, evil voice that wasn't hers at all.  Rowan blinked.  "See?"

"Where—"

"Two words; Action figures."  Mia had to be grinning now.  "Let's do it."

"I seem to remember a time when you feared saying that phrase above anything else," Rowan grumbled as she followed Mia down to the Orc army, the armor clunking and dragging at her arms.

"Times change."

"No duh."

~*~*~*~

Darkness and the land of Mordor provided the perfect cover for a slightly rogue group of Orcs.  Why they had strayed from the main army—aside from the tip about the hobbits—was anyone's guess, but neither Rowan or Mia did any questioning.  As per request, Rowan was answering in grunts and Mia was using the talents left from years of playing action figure games with her cousins.

Of course, that talent did not necessarily come in handy when Snaga retorted, "We will not!" in response to Mia's suggestion that the Orcs just leave and meet the larger army that would be passing through soon.

"It is a suggestion that the Lord Saruman…or Sauron…himself would approve of," Mia said in a near growl.  Covering all the bases, yes, she was.

"And we should believe two lowly guards?"

"Would the hobbits dare come that way?  Why not that blasted Gap of Rohan?"

The Orcs glared.

All right, time for direct measures and a Seriously Evil voice.  (Why was she envisioning that in capital letters?)  Mia said in a deep tone, "Just leave us!"

Rowan looked at her like she was crazy.  She ignored that—and not just because she was used to it, because she wasn't acting crazy at this moment in time and it was a part of the plan.

"If the Dark Lord wishes for us to go," one Orc soldier began tentatively.  "Then maybe—"

"No!" Snaga snapped.

"It's a better idea!"

"No it isn't!"

"What, to leave this boring land with little loot?"

"Well, no, that's not the bad idea, but the bad idea is to—"

"To what?" Mia interjected.  "To take initiative?  Doesn't Lord Saruman want you to do that?  Wouldn't the Dark Lord approve?"

"No!" one of the other Orcs snapped.

Snaga threw a weapon in his direction.  Mia and Rowan leapt back.  "Silence!  I will keep order in this group!"

"Order?"

"Yes, order!"

"Then should we leave?  It's boring and the blasted little folk aren't going to—"

Now the argument was getting weird.  Rowan had, by this point, gotten that look of  'oh god we are done for now' and was ready to pull her sword.  Mia could see her hand inching towards it and wished that there were a way to just shut them up.

Maybe there was.  Mia interrupted again (Snaga looked ready to strangle her).  "Does the Eye not employ odd forms of extending his will?" she said, a bit desperately.  Please let them have seen the Eye of Sauron, please let them have seen the Eye of Sauron…  She and Rowan hadn't seen that—except in nightmares—but didn't doubt that it lurked just around the corner for them.

Now Snaga looked intrigued.  He turned to the rest of the band and muttered in the Orc language, which Mia didn't even pretend to understand.  Rowan was still sword-happy.  Relax, relax, the taller girl thought, just as the leader of the looters announced, "Fine, because of two persistent guards—"

"Urk!?" Rowan grunted in disbelief.

Mia resisted the urge to step on her foot.

"—that won't relent, we'll go off to the gates of Mordor, or to where the nearest part of the army awaits."  Whooo! Mia thought happily, nearly doing a little dance.  She restrained herself, thankfully.  "But you two meddlesome soldiers will stay behind and take care of the hobbits should they arrive, eh?"

"What about Shelob?"

"Deal with the spider as well."

A moment of surprised and gleeful silence passed.

"Go!" Snaga roared.

The girls ran back for the pass of Cirith Ungol, trying their hardest not to laugh.

~*~*~*~

"I can't believe that worked," whispered Rowan, shucking the stinking Orc helmet and the rest of the salvaged armor.  Mia just smiled at her.  I will not admit that she is right, thought Rowan resolutely.  Not until this is over…  A few moments of silence—well, not quite silence, since one of them would giggle about the Orc situation at the odd moment—passed before Rowan thought of something.  "Hey, shouldn't we make sure Gollum's okay?  I mean, what if Randy got to him…"

"Rowan, first off, don't worry so much," Mia cut her off, dusting off the front of her shirt.  Rowan couldn't see why she would bother doing that.  "For another thing, Randy got 'side-tracked' a few days ago, if I remember right.  And with Shelob no longer a problem, we're ahead of schedule.  That should make things a bit hard on Randy, especially because he doesn't know what we're doing and probably wants to make a dramatic entrance at Mount Doom."  That last part made sense, knowing Randy, Rowan had to admit.  "And lastly, it's Smeagol."

"Whatever," said Rowan dismissively, getting her bow at the ready.  The girls were keeping watch on the Orc group from a higher vantage point, and it looked as if they wouldn't have any problems.  "What do we do once we're at Mount Doom?"

Mia winced.  "Ah, ground zero.  I think we should just let things play out and make sure that Randy doesn't interfere."

"And make sure that he doesn't try to kill us before we interfere," said Rowan.

"Interfere with what?"

"His plans!"

"Oh."  Mia looked a bit sheepish.  "Hey, Rowan, should we let Frodo and Sam know we're here?"

"No!  We won't let them know until the Ring is destroyed," Rowan said sternly.  "Or…around that time, anyway."

"Why can't we tell them?" Mia asked, pouting a little.

"Because, Mia, it might make things go wrong.  Sam might think to relax, Frodo might go really mean and not even Gollum—don't say a word—could stop him, and so forth," Rowan said impatiently.  "And do you really want that?"

Mia shook her head no.

"I didn't think so."

"Oh, be quiet and it's Smeagol," replied Mia with a sigh.

"Shut up!"

Despite that less than polite statement, the argument was settled and the girls resumed their trek to Mount Doom.  Keeping an eye out for the stray Orc, Uruk-Hai, or Nazgul, since the days of darkness were getting more and more frequent.  Especially in Mordor.

To Be Continued in Chapter Thirteen, where everything bad happens all at once.  Please leave any form of commentary by clicking on that little 'review' option below.

Midnight – thank you very much.  We're glad you like.

Yavanna – thanks for the comment. *smile* Here's another long chapter…probably our longest yet, actually. *O_O* Next one hopefully coming soon…

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