A/N: Sigh, life is depressing. Chicago's obviously going to win Best
Picture at the Oscars, Bush is being an idiot in going to war and I lost my
favorite pair of socks. If this chapter shows some degree of depression,
slump or gloom, blame it on Bush, Renee and the many crevices of my room.
:::
"Evelyn!" A nagging voice whispered.
"Urrghhhhhhhhhh," was my reply. I opened my eyes, and a lovely array of colors twirled in my vision. Hmm...a flash of blue, a snitch of green, and a bit of gold. Who was this colorful creature? Shrek? No...he looked more like Kermit the Frog. No, Shrek. Wait, it was definitely Kermit.
A hard pinch on my cheek brought me to my senses. Legolas. Duh. I scowled, and at the same moment a throbbing pain burst into my head. I groaned and put my hands to my head. I felt a piece of cloth there, but my hand also touched a warm liquid under. I had a huge gash on my head.
"Evelyn, get up!" Legolas whispered again, this time more urgently. "We must leave, now."
The world started spinning again, and I wanted to drop my eyelids, but Legolas' firm hands were already pulling me up. I wasn't even aware that he was so close, we were alone, and he was looking at me with a compassionate expression...
"Urg," I managed to groan again, standing up on my feet. The pain in my head, the blood on my hands, the stench around me...it was too much. I leaned over and hurled a great portion of breakfast. Legolas patiently waited while I retched my guts out.
"Finished?" he asked after a few minutes. I nodded weakly, wiping some digested bacon from the corner of my mouth. God, why was everything so dark and whirling around? I could barely make out his fair features in the dankness of the room.
"Watimisit?" I slurred out as he began walking and I trailed after him like a drunkard.
"I do not know," he replied pensively. I was impressed that he actually understood my jibberish. "It is dark, I am sure, but of the exact hour I cannot guess. You have been asleep for a long time, and I did not want to wake you, but I heard some noise earlier on and decided to move on."
Probably Gollum, I thought. The throbbing in my head wouldn't stop. I wanted to vomit again, but there wasn't anything left in my stomach to vomit. Stepping over a rotted helmet, I focused on not tripping over the debris. Ugh, stupid Elf with stupid good eyesight.
Legolas must've noticed my 'mortal disadvantages', because he reached over and took my hand in his to guide me.
Oh, migosh, I was holding hands with Legolas! I tried not to sweat too much from the excitement. Did I have hand mold? Did I clip my fingernails? Did I just pick my nose? I was going crazy.
"Where's the troll?" I asked, trying to conceal my hand-consciousness, my head clearing up despite the pain. "What happened, did you kill it?"
He gave a little shrug. "Just some right arrows in the right places," he said nonchalantly. I had to grin at that, the thoughts in my head weren't exactly angelic at the moment. "How is your head faring?" He asked, oblivious of my dirty thoughts.
"Well, um, there's an open wound, I'm losing liters of blood and on the verge of fainting. But otherwise, I'm feeling fine, and it's a beautiful day. Did I mention that I'm stuck in an underground hell, too?" I said. To my surprise, he actually laughed at my sarcasm. I'd never heard him laugh, and in the dark dank atmosphere, his soft lilting laughter was like lemonade on a hot day. Or a good picture of Usher's abs in a magazine.
"The Balrog gave you quite a nasty hit," he told me. "Hopefully, Strider or Gandalf will have some cures. The wound is not too deep, and I wrapped a bit of cloth around to block the bleeding."
"Mmmm." I said. "Thanks, I guess."
"Evelyn, why in the universe were you in there?" he asked, changing the subject.
I hid a smile. "It's a long story," I warned him.
"I have all the time in the world." He grinned.
Stupid immortal elves.
"Well, I got up and it was kind of dim and I stole-" I stopped myself. Just because I was probably bleeding to death and lost somewhere in MIDDLE-EARTH didn't mean I had to give my secret, right? "I stole a look around the room, and noticed you weren't there. And then I heard some pitiful moaning, and decided to follow it."
"Real smart," he said. "Just follow the voices."
"Hey," I shrugged, "I follow the ones in my head." (He gave me a long hard look after I said that.) "Anyway, it turned out to be Gollum, and he kind of attacked me, and Pippin knocked the corpse down the well, and-"
"What corpse do you speak of?" Legolas interrupted. Gee, what an avid listener.
"Um...nevermind. Pippin caused a really loud noise, and I guess it attracted some things, because the next thing we knew, Gollum and I were being chased by a Balrog and a gazillion Orcs-"
"I think it was only 6."
"Shut up. Anyway, you jumped in and saved me." I concluded. He nodded thoughtfully, his big adorable eyes glittering in the dark. "So that's my story. What's yours?"
"Mine?" he raised an eyebrow, but I wasn't going to be fooled.
"Yeah, you. Where were you when all this happened?" I asked, staring at his face for any detection of uneasiness. (And that wasn't the only reason I was staring at his face.)
"I was-" he started to say, when an arrow suddenly whizzed by us, barely grazing my shoulder. I stood still in terror as in a flash, Legolas grabbed his bow and an arrow was already notched between his slender fingers, and before I knew it, he released it. Silence, and then a soft clink.
"Ow!" a familiar voice grunted. "That blasted arrow hit my helmet!"
Legolas and I were flabbergasted as a light flooded the room from a familiar staff. Gandalf's staff. And, lo, before us stood the Fellowship. Aragorn's bow was still raised, and his face flooded with guilt as he saw us, Gimli was turning violet, a dent in his helmet, Gandalf was smilling, and the hobbits began roaring in laughter. Boromir didn't look too happy to see me.
I turned to Legolas, mouth open, and he looked at me for a brief minute before grabbing my hand, breaking into a wide grin and running toward the Fellowship.
~
"Aragorn, you're an idiot," I announced 10 minutes after the Fellowship's little reunion. We had begun walking again, our spirits all lifted a notch. "Are you going to shoot Arwen when you get married, too?"
"Shut up," he muttered, but he was grinning. "I heard voices and I impulsively shot at it." Yeah, he definitely DID hear some voices...what a lunatic.
"So," Gandalf said calmly, "Where in the devil's road were you two?" I looked at Legolas, and he nodded at me.
"Well," I said, "I woke up, and he was gone, and I heard something and decided to follow it. I dunno...it was like, the voice was Brad Pitt and I was a straight 16-year old girl-I just HAD to follow it. Anyway, I was walking along, listening to the lovely birds sing, when Gollum jumped on me."
"Gollum?" Frodo said curiously, and Gandalf narrowed his eyes. "Gollum, the one who had the Ring before Bilbo?"
"Yeah, that dude," I replied. "Anyway, we had a catfight, and he kind of won, and he was after this cheap ring I wore around my neck, thinking I was Frodo. I was highly insulted, so I got kinda mad, but then again, he was kinda mad too when he found it wasn't the real thing, so he began chasing after me."
Frodo blinked. "He thought you were me?"
"Yeah."
"Ugh," we both went at the same time.
"So, anyway, he was foaming at the mouth and my feet were getting pretty darn exhausted when I heard banging, and that was Pippin, so I panicked because that was when the cave troll and the orcs were supposed to come-"
"What?" a befuddled Merry asked. "How do you know all this?"
"Merry," Gandalf said sternly. "Let Evelyn continue."
"I ran back, forgetting Gollum, and he must've thought I was angry, because he started running away from ME," I said. Aragorn and Sam laughed. "And then, I heard the cave troll behind me, along with a million Orcs-"
"Six," Legolas interrupted.
"It was not six!!!" I glared at him. He glared back.
:::
Now, this brings us to a story from my childhood. See, as a kid I'd always been good at staring contests. I would strain to keep my eyes open until they watered and turned red, and then my opponent would get kind of freaked out, blink, and I would win. When I was seven, however, my daddy had bought a fish. I didn't KNOW that fish didn't blink, so I naturally challenged it to a staring contest (don't ask). Anyway, I had been staring for like, four minutes straight when my mom saw me and by that time, my eyes were practically withering. My mom rushed me to the Emergency Room, and the stupid doctor made me keep my eyes shut for like, 4 hours and the entire time, lectured me about fish. Ever since that episode, I had stopped staring at people. Back to the story.
:::
He won the glaring-contest.
"Stupid fish," I muttered under my breath. Then, more loudly, "Fine, it was around six. I managed to fend myself off very well, but there were just too many, and found myself ready to be stabbed, when an arrow aimed at the Orc's chest saved me." Legolas smiled. "Legolas came in outta nowhere and started kicking butt, until the cave troll whacked me on the side of my head and I had a nice nap while the hot guy killed everyone."
"You had a wound?" Gandalf said, worriedly. We had approached the millions of staircases that would've made M. E. Escher dizzy. Gandalf made us file into a single line. I was third, behind Frodo and in front of Aragorn. "We must treat it as soon as we exit this place," Gandalf said.
"Yeah," I said. "It kind of hurt at the beginning, but I can't really feel it now."
"Probably knocked out all your brain cells," Aragorn muttered behind me.
"I heard that," I shot back, careful not to slip. Unfortunately, there was barely a source of light, because there weren't any Balrogs chasing us. All Gandalf risked was a small glow from his staff, and everyone was looking down, trying to put their feet in the right places. I kept on talking, to fill the silence.
"I awoke later, and Legolas and I began walking when some moron (I glared at Aragorn) shot at us. So, naturally, Leggie shot back-"
"Please don't call me that," Legolas said.
"As I was saying, naturally, LEGGIE (I could hear Legolas sigh in back of me, and smiled) shot back and hit Gimli."
"My head still hurts from that, and you ruined my hemet!" Gimli whined.
"Then it must've been a pretty crappy helmet," I retorted. "What was it made of, aluminum?"
"No!"
"Uh huh."
"It was not!"
"Suurrrreee."
I was driving him crazy, and it was fun. What wasn't fun was when Gandalf stopped, and Frodo crashed into him, and I crashed into Frodo, and Aragorn crushed into me, and his greasy dirty wet slimy oily hair got onto ME. I groaned as I saw the break in the stairs. We'd reached this place THIS soon?
An idea sprang into my head.
Naturally agile and of course, seizing the chance to show off, Legolas jumped ahead and landed neatly on the other side.
"Gandalf!" he said, beckoning. God, this was scary, it was JUST like what happened in the movie. Gandalf braced himself and jumped, teetering slightly as Legolas helped him steady himself. Aragorn tossed the hobbits over, and Gimli got his beard pulled. However, the rock wasn't breaking, so it wasn't exactly the same scenario. Pretty soon, after Aragorn jumped across, I was the only one.
"Hi, guys!" I said, waving. "Aloha from Hawaii! How are you doing?"
"Evelyn, quit fooling around and get your behind over here!" Gandalf said.
"I can't."
"What?"
"I CAN'T," I said, quivering my lip. Dang, I deserved an Oscar for this.
"Why ever not?"
"Because."
"Because WHAT?"
"Because I can't jump that far, that's what!" I covered my eyes and faked a sob. Here comes the next Halle Berry!
"We'll catch you."
"Who?"
Gandalf shrugged. "Aragorn?"
"NO!!!!!!! My hair's oily enough!"
"How about Boromir?"
"I'd rather have a makeout session with Saruman."
"Legolas?"
I pretended to contemplate this. "Okay," I said reluctantly, and leapt.
In reality, I could've jumped over very easily. But hey, a girl's gotta grab her chances. Legolas caught me in his arms, and for a second, I was floating in heaven...his firm hands around me, his blue eyes looking into my own...
And then he put me down. Ugh.
Well, I thought as we continued down, at least my plan had gone well. I had tricked Legolas and everyone else.
Go me!
:::
A/N: Spell racecar backward. What's a word that starts with F and ends with UCK? Firetruck! Ha, just wanted to share that with the rest of the world.
:::
"Evelyn!" A nagging voice whispered.
"Urrghhhhhhhhhh," was my reply. I opened my eyes, and a lovely array of colors twirled in my vision. Hmm...a flash of blue, a snitch of green, and a bit of gold. Who was this colorful creature? Shrek? No...he looked more like Kermit the Frog. No, Shrek. Wait, it was definitely Kermit.
A hard pinch on my cheek brought me to my senses. Legolas. Duh. I scowled, and at the same moment a throbbing pain burst into my head. I groaned and put my hands to my head. I felt a piece of cloth there, but my hand also touched a warm liquid under. I had a huge gash on my head.
"Evelyn, get up!" Legolas whispered again, this time more urgently. "We must leave, now."
The world started spinning again, and I wanted to drop my eyelids, but Legolas' firm hands were already pulling me up. I wasn't even aware that he was so close, we were alone, and he was looking at me with a compassionate expression...
"Urg," I managed to groan again, standing up on my feet. The pain in my head, the blood on my hands, the stench around me...it was too much. I leaned over and hurled a great portion of breakfast. Legolas patiently waited while I retched my guts out.
"Finished?" he asked after a few minutes. I nodded weakly, wiping some digested bacon from the corner of my mouth. God, why was everything so dark and whirling around? I could barely make out his fair features in the dankness of the room.
"Watimisit?" I slurred out as he began walking and I trailed after him like a drunkard.
"I do not know," he replied pensively. I was impressed that he actually understood my jibberish. "It is dark, I am sure, but of the exact hour I cannot guess. You have been asleep for a long time, and I did not want to wake you, but I heard some noise earlier on and decided to move on."
Probably Gollum, I thought. The throbbing in my head wouldn't stop. I wanted to vomit again, but there wasn't anything left in my stomach to vomit. Stepping over a rotted helmet, I focused on not tripping over the debris. Ugh, stupid Elf with stupid good eyesight.
Legolas must've noticed my 'mortal disadvantages', because he reached over and took my hand in his to guide me.
Oh, migosh, I was holding hands with Legolas! I tried not to sweat too much from the excitement. Did I have hand mold? Did I clip my fingernails? Did I just pick my nose? I was going crazy.
"Where's the troll?" I asked, trying to conceal my hand-consciousness, my head clearing up despite the pain. "What happened, did you kill it?"
He gave a little shrug. "Just some right arrows in the right places," he said nonchalantly. I had to grin at that, the thoughts in my head weren't exactly angelic at the moment. "How is your head faring?" He asked, oblivious of my dirty thoughts.
"Well, um, there's an open wound, I'm losing liters of blood and on the verge of fainting. But otherwise, I'm feeling fine, and it's a beautiful day. Did I mention that I'm stuck in an underground hell, too?" I said. To my surprise, he actually laughed at my sarcasm. I'd never heard him laugh, and in the dark dank atmosphere, his soft lilting laughter was like lemonade on a hot day. Or a good picture of Usher's abs in a magazine.
"The Balrog gave you quite a nasty hit," he told me. "Hopefully, Strider or Gandalf will have some cures. The wound is not too deep, and I wrapped a bit of cloth around to block the bleeding."
"Mmmm." I said. "Thanks, I guess."
"Evelyn, why in the universe were you in there?" he asked, changing the subject.
I hid a smile. "It's a long story," I warned him.
"I have all the time in the world." He grinned.
Stupid immortal elves.
"Well, I got up and it was kind of dim and I stole-" I stopped myself. Just because I was probably bleeding to death and lost somewhere in MIDDLE-EARTH didn't mean I had to give my secret, right? "I stole a look around the room, and noticed you weren't there. And then I heard some pitiful moaning, and decided to follow it."
"Real smart," he said. "Just follow the voices."
"Hey," I shrugged, "I follow the ones in my head." (He gave me a long hard look after I said that.) "Anyway, it turned out to be Gollum, and he kind of attacked me, and Pippin knocked the corpse down the well, and-"
"What corpse do you speak of?" Legolas interrupted. Gee, what an avid listener.
"Um...nevermind. Pippin caused a really loud noise, and I guess it attracted some things, because the next thing we knew, Gollum and I were being chased by a Balrog and a gazillion Orcs-"
"I think it was only 6."
"Shut up. Anyway, you jumped in and saved me." I concluded. He nodded thoughtfully, his big adorable eyes glittering in the dark. "So that's my story. What's yours?"
"Mine?" he raised an eyebrow, but I wasn't going to be fooled.
"Yeah, you. Where were you when all this happened?" I asked, staring at his face for any detection of uneasiness. (And that wasn't the only reason I was staring at his face.)
"I was-" he started to say, when an arrow suddenly whizzed by us, barely grazing my shoulder. I stood still in terror as in a flash, Legolas grabbed his bow and an arrow was already notched between his slender fingers, and before I knew it, he released it. Silence, and then a soft clink.
"Ow!" a familiar voice grunted. "That blasted arrow hit my helmet!"
Legolas and I were flabbergasted as a light flooded the room from a familiar staff. Gandalf's staff. And, lo, before us stood the Fellowship. Aragorn's bow was still raised, and his face flooded with guilt as he saw us, Gimli was turning violet, a dent in his helmet, Gandalf was smilling, and the hobbits began roaring in laughter. Boromir didn't look too happy to see me.
I turned to Legolas, mouth open, and he looked at me for a brief minute before grabbing my hand, breaking into a wide grin and running toward the Fellowship.
~
"Aragorn, you're an idiot," I announced 10 minutes after the Fellowship's little reunion. We had begun walking again, our spirits all lifted a notch. "Are you going to shoot Arwen when you get married, too?"
"Shut up," he muttered, but he was grinning. "I heard voices and I impulsively shot at it." Yeah, he definitely DID hear some voices...what a lunatic.
"So," Gandalf said calmly, "Where in the devil's road were you two?" I looked at Legolas, and he nodded at me.
"Well," I said, "I woke up, and he was gone, and I heard something and decided to follow it. I dunno...it was like, the voice was Brad Pitt and I was a straight 16-year old girl-I just HAD to follow it. Anyway, I was walking along, listening to the lovely birds sing, when Gollum jumped on me."
"Gollum?" Frodo said curiously, and Gandalf narrowed his eyes. "Gollum, the one who had the Ring before Bilbo?"
"Yeah, that dude," I replied. "Anyway, we had a catfight, and he kind of won, and he was after this cheap ring I wore around my neck, thinking I was Frodo. I was highly insulted, so I got kinda mad, but then again, he was kinda mad too when he found it wasn't the real thing, so he began chasing after me."
Frodo blinked. "He thought you were me?"
"Yeah."
"Ugh," we both went at the same time.
"So, anyway, he was foaming at the mouth and my feet were getting pretty darn exhausted when I heard banging, and that was Pippin, so I panicked because that was when the cave troll and the orcs were supposed to come-"
"What?" a befuddled Merry asked. "How do you know all this?"
"Merry," Gandalf said sternly. "Let Evelyn continue."
"I ran back, forgetting Gollum, and he must've thought I was angry, because he started running away from ME," I said. Aragorn and Sam laughed. "And then, I heard the cave troll behind me, along with a million Orcs-"
"Six," Legolas interrupted.
"It was not six!!!" I glared at him. He glared back.
:::
Now, this brings us to a story from my childhood. See, as a kid I'd always been good at staring contests. I would strain to keep my eyes open until they watered and turned red, and then my opponent would get kind of freaked out, blink, and I would win. When I was seven, however, my daddy had bought a fish. I didn't KNOW that fish didn't blink, so I naturally challenged it to a staring contest (don't ask). Anyway, I had been staring for like, four minutes straight when my mom saw me and by that time, my eyes were practically withering. My mom rushed me to the Emergency Room, and the stupid doctor made me keep my eyes shut for like, 4 hours and the entire time, lectured me about fish. Ever since that episode, I had stopped staring at people. Back to the story.
:::
He won the glaring-contest.
"Stupid fish," I muttered under my breath. Then, more loudly, "Fine, it was around six. I managed to fend myself off very well, but there were just too many, and found myself ready to be stabbed, when an arrow aimed at the Orc's chest saved me." Legolas smiled. "Legolas came in outta nowhere and started kicking butt, until the cave troll whacked me on the side of my head and I had a nice nap while the hot guy killed everyone."
"You had a wound?" Gandalf said, worriedly. We had approached the millions of staircases that would've made M. E. Escher dizzy. Gandalf made us file into a single line. I was third, behind Frodo and in front of Aragorn. "We must treat it as soon as we exit this place," Gandalf said.
"Yeah," I said. "It kind of hurt at the beginning, but I can't really feel it now."
"Probably knocked out all your brain cells," Aragorn muttered behind me.
"I heard that," I shot back, careful not to slip. Unfortunately, there was barely a source of light, because there weren't any Balrogs chasing us. All Gandalf risked was a small glow from his staff, and everyone was looking down, trying to put their feet in the right places. I kept on talking, to fill the silence.
"I awoke later, and Legolas and I began walking when some moron (I glared at Aragorn) shot at us. So, naturally, Leggie shot back-"
"Please don't call me that," Legolas said.
"As I was saying, naturally, LEGGIE (I could hear Legolas sigh in back of me, and smiled) shot back and hit Gimli."
"My head still hurts from that, and you ruined my hemet!" Gimli whined.
"Then it must've been a pretty crappy helmet," I retorted. "What was it made of, aluminum?"
"No!"
"Uh huh."
"It was not!"
"Suurrrreee."
I was driving him crazy, and it was fun. What wasn't fun was when Gandalf stopped, and Frodo crashed into him, and I crashed into Frodo, and Aragorn crushed into me, and his greasy dirty wet slimy oily hair got onto ME. I groaned as I saw the break in the stairs. We'd reached this place THIS soon?
An idea sprang into my head.
Naturally agile and of course, seizing the chance to show off, Legolas jumped ahead and landed neatly on the other side.
"Gandalf!" he said, beckoning. God, this was scary, it was JUST like what happened in the movie. Gandalf braced himself and jumped, teetering slightly as Legolas helped him steady himself. Aragorn tossed the hobbits over, and Gimli got his beard pulled. However, the rock wasn't breaking, so it wasn't exactly the same scenario. Pretty soon, after Aragorn jumped across, I was the only one.
"Hi, guys!" I said, waving. "Aloha from Hawaii! How are you doing?"
"Evelyn, quit fooling around and get your behind over here!" Gandalf said.
"I can't."
"What?"
"I CAN'T," I said, quivering my lip. Dang, I deserved an Oscar for this.
"Why ever not?"
"Because."
"Because WHAT?"
"Because I can't jump that far, that's what!" I covered my eyes and faked a sob. Here comes the next Halle Berry!
"We'll catch you."
"Who?"
Gandalf shrugged. "Aragorn?"
"NO!!!!!!! My hair's oily enough!"
"How about Boromir?"
"I'd rather have a makeout session with Saruman."
"Legolas?"
I pretended to contemplate this. "Okay," I said reluctantly, and leapt.
In reality, I could've jumped over very easily. But hey, a girl's gotta grab her chances. Legolas caught me in his arms, and for a second, I was floating in heaven...his firm hands around me, his blue eyes looking into my own...
And then he put me down. Ugh.
Well, I thought as we continued down, at least my plan had gone well. I had tricked Legolas and everyone else.
Go me!
:::
A/N: Spell racecar backward. What's a word that starts with F and ends with UCK? Firetruck! Ha, just wanted to share that with the rest of the world.