Kristen woke with a start breathing heavily. "It was just a dream. A
really, really bad dream," she told herself and looked around. It was still
dark and it looked like everyone was asleep. She tried to go back to sleep,
but every time she did the terrible dream came back to her. After a while
she decided to pray. She prayed that God would guide and protect her and
her friends through whatever happens on this trip.
She sat there for a while doing nothing. Finally she decided to watch
a movie seeing as no one else was awake. She got her laptop and, not
wanting disturb anyone, climbed into a tree. She loved climbing trees. The
natural beauty of seeing as far as the eye could see. She understood why
the elves enjoyed being in trees, such peacefulness and wonder, especially
in these trees she found. There was some kind of magic in it. Back home
whenever she had a bad day she would climb into a tree with her CD player
and sit there for hours hoping that the next day would come and everything
could be forgotten.
Kristen decided to watch Star Wars Episode II. Along with The Lord of
the Rings and The Matrix it was her favorite movie. She was almost to the
part when Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme were to be executed when someone came
up to sit beside her. She was sitting on a very large branch so she knew
that it could hold at least three people, but she was still surprised and
was even more surprised when she saw who was sitting next to her. She was
so surprised she jumped and took the headphones she had been wearing off.
"Legolas!" she yelled. He looked at the expression on her face and
chuckled.
"I 'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I saw you come up here a
little over an hour ago and was curious to see what you were doing. What
are you doing?" Legolas asked.
"I was watching a movie on my laptop," she replied.
"What movie is that?" he asked. He had been the first to actually
grasp the fact that the girls were from a different world and the things in
that world were different from stuff here. He understood a lot of the
things they were explaining to him in an hour while it took everyone else
about two hours to actually grasp the concept of everything. He just
thought it was because he was so much older than everyone else.
"It's called Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones."
"Star Wars?" he asked confused. "What is that?"
"It's about these other planets and the things there that lead to the
destruction of the Republic. It's hard to explain, but maybe we'll have
time during this whole journey and I'll be able to let you watch this movie
and some of the others."
"Others, as in more?"
"Yes, there are six movies total. There are actually nine books in the
series, but the director and writer of them said that he wasn't going to
make the last three books into movies for reasons I will not explain
because it will just add more questions," she said with a smile.
"I understand," he replied and smiled back at her.
"You want to see something from my planet? That is something that
doesn't have anything to do with technology," she asked.
"How can you do that?" he asked becoming confused.
"We have these things called cameras. They're like an instant
portrait, only more lifelike. I can save the pictures onto my computer."
"I think it would be nice to see something like that," he said.
"There are a lot of them. You may see some pictures of you and the
rest of the Fellowship, but don't mind that," she said and started showing
him the pictures she had collected over the years. He was amazed at how
much different they all looked like as humans. There were so many pictures
they sat there for almost two hours looking at all of them with a simple
explanation of what was going on the picture. They were so caught up in the
pictures and sometimes even laughing at something Kristen had said or at
the picture that they didn't even notice that the others had woken up and
were frantic wondering what had happened to them. They were so high up in
the tree that the rest couldn't hear them laughing. All of a sudden they
heard some shouting from further out in the forest.
"Kristen! Legolas! Where are you?!" they heard from various members of
the group all from a different location.
"Sounds like the others are awake. I think they think we were captured
during the night," Legolas said. He started to climb down and Kristen
followed. When she reached the ground she felt short next to him, but
didn't let that faze her since she was getting used to the feeling. When
she looked around she saw that everyone had left except for Pippin.
"Where have you been!? Everyone thought the Dark Lord had come back
and captured you!" he said when he saw them. He called for the others to
come back and told them not to explain anything until everyone was back.
"Alright, where were you?" Sara asked after everyone was back.
"Let me see. Sara! You of all people should know!" Kristen practically
yelled.
"Why should I know?"
"I climb into them whenever I've had a bad day and elves love them!"
"Why would you be in a tree?" she asked after a few minutes.
"Because I had a bad dream so I went up there to watch a movie and I
guess Legolas followed me up," Kristen said. "I showed him some pictures of
home," she said after a minute and suddenly became sad. "You know what's
funny."
"What?" Emma asked curiously.
"I didn't think I'd really miss Caleb," Kristen said laughing a
little.
"I know what you mean. It seems I miss Ellie," Emma replied.
"Whose Caleb and Ellie?" Merry asked.
"Caleb is Kristen's younger brother and Ellie is Emma's younger
sister," Legolas said and everyone, except Kristen, looked at him in
surprise.
"How did you know that?" Emma asked.
"I showed him pictures from home," Kristen replied.
"Oh, pictures! Of course, I see," Emma said. "How stupid of me not to
put two and two together!"
"Speaking of pictures I forgot my laptop in the tree! I'll be back
down in a minute," Kristen said and began climbing up to where she had been
sitting. When she was half way to the ground she heard a noise come from
the tree beside the one she was in. When she looked over she saw the most
horrific looking creature she had ever seen, an orc. She screamed as it
jumped at her, but she easily jumped to the next branch to safety. When she
reached the ground everyone was looking at her waiting for an explanation
of the scream. She simply pointed to the tree as the orc jumped out and the
Fellowship immediately took out their weapons.
"Quickly now! There could still be danger!" Gandalf said after Legolas
shot the orc with an arrow. Everyone began to run with Gandalf in the lead.
