Author's note: Happy end of the month of April. Or beginning of May,
depending on whenever the frick I update this story. Or it could be after
doomsday (aka the AP European History exam on May 9) as you read this, who
knows? Well, if it's before Doomsday, I'm worried out of my wits. If after,
I'm relieved that its all over, for better or for worse. (Addition of July
17, 2003: I got a 3! I passed! I PASSED! I didn't waste 50 dollars! Yes,
July, talk about way past Doomsday, I actually have my score!) Sorry if I
screwed up Elrond's character, I promise I tried.. I usually do my writing
at 1AM though, so what can I say? Just to point out one thing you should
know.. Libby was a fan of the LotR books and particularly speculated about
Weathertop most, hence her and April's being dumped onto Weathertop.
Disclaimer: Aargh, I hate disclaimers! *stabs* Anyhoo, I'm afraid I don't own Lord of the Rings, as I am certainly not the god JRR Tolkien.
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"Please hurry up, I really need to bring you two to Elrond," Aragorn said impatiently. Libby and April had stopped dead when they saw a looking glass, and were now scrutinizing themselves intently in them. Libby had removed what she called her sweatshirt and tired it around her waist by its arms. She was now raising both arms, and muttering about her collarbone, while April kept poking her stomach for some odd reason.
"It doesn't jiggle as much as it used to. it still jiggles, but not as much." April poked her stomach again, and the flab lingering on it jumped slightly, then became still.
"Duuude- I have like a double collarbone.. Or is that a tendon?" There was another body component that protruded along with her collarbone when she raised her arms. Lowering them, Libby added, "And the bottom of my ribs was definitely not visible before. Nor did I have that line down my stomach. Gawd, if I was about ten or twenty pounds thinner than now I'll actually look like I did in sixth grade!"
April laughed. "I remember you then. you definitely were a scrawny little thing!" Though she would never say so to Libby, the blonde had definitely filled out a lot from fifth and sixth grades. How many pounds did Libby say she had gained since the end of sixth grade? Around forty or forty-five? And sixty or sixty-five from the summer before Libby was in fifth grade? April knew that she shouldn't be thinking that though- her height had stagnated at 5'1", which she had reached in fourth grade, while her weight continued to climb: 90, 100, 110, 120, reaching its peak at 135. Now it seemed to enjoy jumping between 120 and 130, though April believed she had dropped under 120 for the first time since the end of seventh or the beginning of eighth grade.
"I bet I weigh about 140.. Perhaps even less! I wouldn't be surprised if I did walk off twenty-five pounds. Woohoo, this is great!" Libby said enthusiastically. She left the thoughts of When have I ever kept weight off? unsaid.
"Come ON, you two," Aragorn urged, beginning to feel rather annoyed. Worry about Frodo was stretching his nerves to the breaking point, and his temper was beginning to resemble that of Gandalf's on a good day, that of Libby's on an average day. "You two are taking far to long at that mirror.. You can assess changes in your appearances later if they are so important! Elrond told me to fetch you two at least fifteen minutes ago!" Looking abashed, the two teenagers finally complied with the Ranger's impatient command. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aragorn ushered the blonde and the black-haired girl into the most elaborate room the teenagers had ever encountered in their lives. Libby gasped, this made the mansion she had spent a night in on a field trip in sixth grade in Calmest State Park look positively drab indeed. April, who had spent a night in a five-star hotel with her well-to-do grandmother while visiting her in Florida over spring break in eighth grade, felt the same as her friend. "Damn." the black-haired teen murmured underneath her breath, clearly impressed by the four-poster bed that looked big enough to hold three or four obese people, with luxurious silken hangings and satin sheets. The headboard and footboard both were decorated with elaborate wood- carvings of what appeared to be scenes of a majestic forest. Several swords were displayed on the walls, encrusted with jewels that appeared to be diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. There were a dozen bookcases made of perfectly polished wood, filled to capacity with books of varying ages. There were pictures of the sky, the sea, and woods on the walls, contained within very fine frames. Naturally, no glass protected the forest; as this place seemed relic of ancient times. There were several chairs with a velvety covering over the wooden frame and feather cushions. The room was immaculate.
"Lord Elrond's sleeping quarters," Aragorn said, indicating the room. Wish my room looked like this, April thought, thinking of her room at home, and her bed that was really a mattress, pillow, and sheets- almost like what one would usually give to a houseguest. Her bedroom was the direct opposite of Elrond's room- a literal disaster area. In April's room, magazines, graphic novels, and CDs were strewn all over the place. Her blankets were usually in a heap in the corner, along with clothes that had been worn whenever she was too lazy to put them in her mother's hamper. April's small television sat on a low table, and her stereo was next to the TV. The birdcage containing her two pet birds was kept in the center of the living room. She had not yet met anyone with more of a mess for a bedroom than herself. As Libby had jokingly said when she had first seen April's room, "My mom would kill me if I kept my room like this!"
"Hey, April, this resembles your room a little bit!" Libby joked, giving her friend a poke on the shoulder. April shoved Libby in retort, and both girls laughed. "I mean, the likeness concerning tidiness is breathtaking!"
"Aw, shut up Libs," April said with a mock glower at her friend. Libby raised her left eyebrow and lowered her right. Aragorn shook his head, these two were certainly fond of joking around with each other. Elrond was apt to come soon enough, he knew the elf-lord was off tending Frodo at the moment.
Would that the Ring-bearer would awake! Every effort to call back the hapless creature from the heavy darkness he had descended into proved fruitless, and he was lingering on the brink of the world of shadow. If strayed but another inch, Frodo's soul would be whisked off to Mordor as a wraith and his body would be left with more of a void than he would if he died of natural causes. He showed no signs that he lived yet save for the ceaseless drabble and the weak, fluttering pulse present in his neck and right wrist. The pulse in his left wrist was absent, as Elrond had said gravely, signaling that the wound had deleted all life from Frodo's left arm and side. The treacherous Ring that caused all of this trouble still hung about the Ring-bearer's neck on a chain, glittering sinisterly, yet enticingly, as it had always done. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About ten minutes later, Elrond entered his bedchamber to find Libby and April still there, seated on chairs while Aragorn stood in the floor space between them. The Elf felt all but used up from the futile ventures to revive the small hobbit, and he fervently hoped that this hobbit would not be one of the rare exceptions of patients that he failed. He was, however, building on a seed of a theory that he had formulated when the moribund Halfling had first been brought in. Frodo Baggins' condition was continuing to deteriorate despite Elrond's best efforts to heal him, and his ragged breathing was beginning to bear a resemblance to a death rattle. He would confide in Aragorn later, but for now he had these two girls to deal with, and questions to answer.
The Elf-lord pulled a chair over to face the girls and sank into it, trying not to allow them to see his exhaustion. Both girls were filthy, having not found the opportunity to bathe, and their skin was streaked with remnants of mud that had not washed away when crossing the Bruinen. The taller one's wavy-to-curly hair was matted and contained so much grime it looked almost brown, severely mismatching her golden eyebrows. The black hair of the other girl was completely devoid of body, and was obviously knotted at the bottom as it rested limply atop the shoulders. Both had the slightly unhealthy look of people who had lost a great deal of body mass in a short space of time, the taller girl's collarbone protruding above the neck of her shirt, indenting into her shoulders in an extremely concave manner. The other was not quite so skeletally thin, but her clothes were hanging extremely loosely about her. To add to their decrepit appearance, Libby was swaying slightly in the chair as if she'd fall asleep on the spot, while April had slumped backwards so much that her bottom was almost at the edge of the seat.
"You are Liberty Artlong, right?" Elrond asked, fixating his gaze upon the taller blonde first. Elrond had decided to question her first, as Aragorn had said she was older and more outspoken than her comrade. Something flickered in the girl's expression when Elrond asked his first out of many questions.
"I would prefer to be called Libby, I have hated my name for about half my lifetime, maybe even longer."
"Do you?" Elrond mused thoughtfully, gazing at the girl, who looked like she was a very young member of the race of Men. It was his custom to call others by their proper names, but Libby had specifically asked him to use a nickname. He would revert to calling her Liberty later, but for now he wanted to make her more relaxed. "Why do you despise your name as you do, Libby?"
Libby's eyebrows flew up slightly; she never knew how to answer that particular question whenever it was asked, which was often. "I dunno. I just- do. I can't remember ever liking my name."
"I see," said Elrond, sounding skeptical. He scrutinized the blonde closely, looking her directly in the face, and decided that she was being honest, and that disliking her given name was just a certainty of her character. Still wishing to be conversational, he then asked, "How old are you, Libby? And you, April?"
"We're both sixteen, although I just turned sixteen a month or two ago and Libby will turn seventeen in about three months. At least, I think she's turning seventeen, I don't think she's seventeen yet because it was May where we live and her birthday's in September- I am highly confused, though." April had decided to add her own input to the conversation, although her voice did sound somewhat incoherent. "I am confused about how we ended up here."
"Where do you two hail from?" Elrond asked, still surveying the girls with his dark blue eyes. April's brown eyes closed and Libby reached over to give her a smack on the shoulder to arouse her, reaching past Aragorn.
"River City," April replied, after groaning slightly and stifling a yawn.
"River City." Elrond's eyebrows furrowed, he had never heard of the place although it did sound a suitable name for a location in Middle- Earth. "Where would River City be located?" Perhaps it was in the far-off East of which he knew little and where customs were rumored to be strange. The garb of these two strange girls sitting before him was definitely unusual.
"Long Island," responded April, only to be asked yet another question concerning the location.
"New York," the blonde, Liberty, replied, with a tone sounding somewhat impertinent as if he should have known. Elrond decided to ignore the slight impudence of the young girl and instead posed another query, about where New York was.
"United States, North America, Earth, the universe." Liberty answered, stringing less and less specific generalizations about the area of which she and April were denizens into her sentence.
"Liberty, I am afraid I am unfamiliar with the place of your inhabitance," Elrond said. Libby realized that she had been somewhat rude to the Elf, and decided this would not be a fitting time to remind him about her opinion of being called Liberty.
"It feels as if we were transported through time and space," April pondered audibly. A pair of blue eyes, gray eyes, and bluish-gray eyes all turned to look at her, and April blushed to the roots of her black hair.
"April!" Libby said something. "Why do I suddenly feel like you've been hiding something from me? I mean the time when we first ran into the group, on Weathertop, you acted almost like you didn't care when Strider jumped out and held his sword practically at our throats!"
Before Libby could add more examples to strange behaviors she had observed in her friend, Elrond interceded with a question about how they'd gotten to Weathertop and what business brought them there in the first place.
"We weren't exactly expecting landing on the top of a hill!" Libby said. "This is gonna sound totally weird, you'll like think we've like gone off the deep end, but a flash of light brought us there! A bunch of colors, then we were there!"
"Please elaborate," said Elrond when Liberty did not get any more specific about the flash of light, and she had not mentioned from where the colors had supposedly transported her. "Where were you before you got to Weathertop if you are speaking the truth?" Their story was observed but Elrond kept endeavoring to maintain eye contact with whoever was speaking at the moment, and neither Liberty nor April were showing any signs of having told a falsehood.
"We were on the train tracks, the bridge crossing over my street. I guess you don't know what trains are, they're like a metal horse powered by steam, I can't really explain them," said April. "Well, we were trying to pull a crystal imbedded in the wood of the tracks out."
"What crystal?" Libby asked, sounding extremely disorientated.
"You still don't remember? Purple crystal, stuck pretty deep in the wood, opaque but slightly see-through." Libby's eyes rounded, and April knew that she had just jogged her friend's memory, as she knew she would if she specifically described it. She was not surprised by Libby's confusion, she had been forewarned of this in her dream.
Libby gave her friend a look, "It was stuck deep, but April here seemed to want it, I guess for one of her hobbies, but it was stuck hard, so we both decided to pull at the same time to get it out. Well, like, we counted to three and pulled, and then suddenly, I don't know if you felt it April, but I felt like my entire body had been hit really hard by something."
"I felt it too," said April. She was going to explain her side and what she knew, but she decided she wanted to let Libby talk, so she could clarify exactly what happened. She wasn't sure this was exactly the proper moment to let Libby in on the secret but intuition told her Elrond was apt to question her about strange behavior patterns of hers Libby had noticed.
"Well, after we felt like the explosive force hit us, I felt myself flying and I saw the colors show up," said Libby. "I think very color in existence showed up swirling around us. and then we suddenly hit the ground, and everything went first dark then completely switched to a hilly landscape. the Weather Hills, did you say they're called?" Aragorn nodded. "So I'm not mistaken. April, does what I have described tally with what you saw?" The black-haired teenager muttered something akin to yes.
Elrond felt that one of these girls, seemingly April, was concealing something. Judging by the fact that Liberty was secreting no air of secrecy, it appeared that whatever was concealed was unbeknownst to even her dearest friend. Liberty was merely describing what she saw, and she did not seem to be hiding anything. Elrond decided to propound another slightly tedious question for Liberty. "How did you two come across Aragorn, Frodo Baggins, and their companions?"
"Um, I guess the best way to explain it is we like accidentally ran into each other, er, I mean came upon each other." Liberty had realized by now that idioms customary to Americans would be likely to confuse the inhabitants of this alternate universe, and was now using more elaborate dialect she knew, though keeping it simple enough for April to understand.
"We heard voices, the both of us," said April. Sticking to a habit she had learned while institutionalized, she made sure that Elrond knew that both Libby and herself had heard these said voices so that she would not be judged to be deluded. "One voice that was deep like adults, others on the higher side, though not quite feminine, you know? I heard something about a Gandalf, whoever that may be, caution, a ring. Then Libby sneezed."
"Hey, my nose itched, okay?" Liberty interrupted defensively. "And of course it had to be my loud sneeze, although Strider and the hobbits are all right, aren't they?"
"Even if Strider did scare the hell out of us," April butted in. "He like slammed us into a rock and then pulled his sword on us though I guess now that it was because he thought we were possibly on the side of, I notice you guys call them the Enemy so I'll just say that. "
"So you were scared? You looked dazed to me, you were acting really weird on the tracks and when Strider scared us, I thought it was the meds," Libby divulged.
April gave a slightly grim smile. "No, not the meds, though they really did screw around with me, didn't they? I am doing okay without them now, thank you, even if I do have a chemical imbalance as they put it with their scientific jargon."
Elrond converted his attention to April now, thinking that perhaps she was finally deciding to disclose what she was concealing. "Can you explain what you mean by meds and a chemical imbalance?"
April cringed, not too pleased to have to reveal her past few months to Elrond and Aragorn. Wouldn't they choose not to trust her once she admitted she had been engulfed in madness and therefore hospitalized in a nuthouse for several weeks? She had gotten lucky with Libby, Libby did not treat her much differently, but surely these two would lock her up or something, consider her to be dangerous?
Noting her friend's discomfort, Libby jumped to her feet, no longer looking lackluster, and squeezed into April's chair, draping a consoling arm about her shoulders, considerably bonier than they'd been back in River City. Heartened by her friend's empathy, April took a shuddering breath and told the whole story of how she had been a cutter, how she'd tried to kill herself, how she had experienced hallucination, how she had finally ended up in a mental hospital, in a straitjacket at her worst moment, how the medicine to straighten out the so-called chemical imbalance made her violently ill and at times gave her quite the temper. The whole time, she was gripping Libby's wrist to reassure herself. All over an Ouija board, all because skeptics had written her off as crazy. But what would Elrond and Strider think? She feared being condemned to a life of confinement once more- a situation which would drive her to being suicidal just as it had back in the institution she had been in November and December last year- they had refused to put anything remotely sharp in her small room. The outward scars were not something April was overly proud of, and those who cut as a part of a group trend sickened her.
"Look at me," said Elrond sounding grave. Very reluctantly, she raised her dark eyes to meet Elrond's, and Libby felt the grip on her wrist tighten. Elrond unblinkingly held April's gaze for a long moment, as if trying to use them as windows to see what she was like inside. She seemed honest, just heavily downtrodden, and he suspected that Liberty might have somehow kept her from taking her own life, and that the fair-haired girl seemed to be some sort of binding holding April from harming herself.
"Elrond, do you have any clue what I felt and saw?" Libby asked. She had hitherto given the transition to this place no thought, but now she was beginning to wonder what it had been.
"I cannot think what the explosive force you felt was, it could have been numerous things," the Elf-lord replied. "The colors was probably shock caused by what you felt, I surmise."
April suddenly muttered something unintelligible under her breath that Liberty caught, her ear being barely four inches from her friend's head. "What was that April?" She strongly suspected that her dark-haired friend knew something and had possibly said what.
"Elrond, I think it was a train," April said. "I don't think you would know what I'm talking about, but Libby would."
"I fear I do not know what this train you speak of, the only kind I know of is that trailing from the garments of a woman who is being joined in matrimony," Elrond said. Liberty's reaction was very curious at the expression that had suddenly come over Liberty's face; her mouth fell open as if in surprise and her eyes widened. She seemed to muttering something soundlessly.
"But how.- But that means- How? That's impossible, April. we get hungry and thirsty and tired, how can it be? We are capable of feeling pain, I think you're probably even more sore than I from the walking, you haven't been in track!" she spluttered when she was capable of working her vocal cords work. "April, can you please explain what you are talking about? What the hell is going on?" the blonde squeezed out of her friend's grip and stood up abruptly to face her. "Tell me!"
"Libby, sit down and let April answer you," Aragorn said, gently but imperiously. When she complied, Aragorn said, "April, go ahead and explain, no matter how absurd your tale is, we have to know everything important about you, and then you two can rejoin Merry and Pippin."
"Where is Sam?" asked April, suddenly realized she had not seen much of the sturdy hobbit that seemed the most worried about Frodo out of the three.
"At Frodo's bedside. His loyalty to Frodo impresses me, I have hardly ever seen such a friendship," Elrond said. "Now, April, if you will cease changing the subject, please clarify what happened and what you have hidden even from your friend."
April cringed; Libby would definitely feel let down when Elrond put it that way. When she glanced over at her friend's face, however, Libby's expression was incomprehensible, it seemed even she couldn't figure out how she felt. She was probably stunned from hearing that it had been a train that she had felt hit her, sad that she would not be able to see any of her other close friends back in River City again, angry that April had not warned her, though the anger would be nothing compared to how she would feel when April confessed that she had known before that fateful May day yet had not told her the crucial information.
Now she thought of it, it had been a mistake not to tell Libby, seeing as how she was slightly at odds with some of her other friends and could have made amends. Plus, April now realized that Libby would have wanted to somehow let her other friends know somehow that they had made her life good or that they had always been her first priority. Libby could have started slacking on schoolwork as it no longer mattered; she would never have gotten to college. She could have cut classes if she desired for final fun times, crept out of school for lunch, worked all the harder in track so she could have clinched a placing spot in counties, whatever. Instead, April had chosen to keep it to herself instead telling Libby about the dream and everything. The two reasons she had not told Libby were that she did not want to upset her best friend, and that she feared Libby's doubt.
"I should've told you," April admitted, looking down at her lap."
"That's right, you should have," said Libby; why had April suddenly started concealing important things from her? It would have been nice to have been forewarned what was going to happen. She admitted to herself she might have thought that April was going deluded again, but nonetheless she should have been warned.
"I'm sorry, Libby. Elrond, do you want to know m dream?" The Elf-lord nodded. "Go ahead April."
April coughed and fidgeted in her chair, as if gathering her courage once more. She licked her lips, which felt dry, then cleared her throat. "Ahem. AHEM." She only began when Libby shot her an impatient scowl. "I don't remember the whole thing down to the nitty-gritty, but it was so vivid that I knew it was literal. Libby here has had rather vivid dreams of hers come partially true in some form, but she did not have specifics in hers such as dates and other events of the day. Libby, were you writing notes all period that last day of math?"
Libby rolled her eyes. "I always write my version of notes all period! I'm not convinced."
"Tia was absent that day, I think.. I saw things for both me and you, I don't remember everything, but what I saw for myself happened. My DVD player refusing to play "Prince of Egypt", getting a detailed e-mail from some prick about his dick, being praised for progress in math by my tutor. But you.. Did you talk to a girl named Liz online?"
"I think I groaned about Tia being absent, I'm not sure. and it's kind of obvious to tell Liz's name because of her screen name! I'm still not convinced."
"Liberty, my heart is telling me that April is being truthful," Aragorn said. "Please just let her talk and contain your wrath for now. " Libby scowled and shot April another glare, then started taking deep breaths as April started talking again. Inhale. exhale."
April was starting to feel distraught; Libby was clearly furious! And that was before she realized just how forewarned April had been. Se tried to call back other memories, and then began talking very rapidly. "You didn't want to talk to some other guy online because you think he is a freak, right? This guy has liked you and a lot of your other friends, and he actually dated one, which the rest of you didn't like."
Libby opened her mouth, then shut it again. She tried to remember ever having mentioned this to April, but could not think of a single occasion. "How did you know- I definitely never told you about that!"
"Now do you believe me?" April implored quietly so that only the fair- haired girl could hear. Libby didn't trouble to reply to that and when she did speak hr voice was shaking. "So, about the fact that we're apparently dead which I STILL don't get, we sure don't seem like spirits or ghosts or anything, tell us about that. Hmm, I sure as hell feel like I'm alive!"
"You are alive, I'm alive, we're both alive and dead, I know that sounds."
"CRAZY, MAYBE?" Libby's temper was starting to flare again. This was the first time she had ever been truly angry with April. It took every ounce of strength to prevent herself from saying something cruel. Using crazy as a description of how April sounded was in bad taste as it was. "How the hell can someone be both alive and dead! I've heard of the undead, but alive and dead at once? Impossible!"
"What I mean is we're alive here, dead in River City. I bet we're in the papers and stuff."
"I'm honored," Libby spat sarcastically. "I'd rather be in News Review for something good like placing in counties, but no no NO, I either show in an article on something bad or about something I don't care about all that much like a tree-planting or winning some dumb academic award. Not to mention what my mom must be feeling. whoopdidoo, though, two and three- quarters of a year longer living than what could have been, so much borrowed time, wow, Why didn't the damn van go over the cliff, what's the difference between dying at thirteen or sixteen?"
"Wouldn't the others have also died? And that would have been a much earlier time when I started getting depressed, the summer before seventh grade rather than after eighth grade was almost over."
"Everything happens for a reason, Liberty," Elrond said, to a haughty eye roll from the teen. The blonde would not be appeased. She knew she was useless here, and what reason was there for the camp incident anyway? Why didn't the van get hit by a truck like her classmate's car had been , why wasn't there oncoming traffic, why didn't they swerve just a few feet more? And exactly what was the reason for a six-year-old being robbed of his life? And what of Frodo's wound and his deteriorating condition now? He was dying! If everything happened for a reason as Elrond claimed, it sure as hell was not helping those of Frodo's side!
"Really, now? Do enlighten me," Libby hissed venomously.
"I do believe you're the reason April did not take her own life, I can tell she had contemplated suicide at one point." April flushed a dark puce. "You served as a sort of lifeline."
"Ha, she was more of one for me," Libby contradicted, remembering when she had been slightly unstable herself, though not to the extent April, or Sheila, had been. Her problem mostly extended to weight issues and bulimia, though she had cut before. She and April had been able to confide in one another about their dark secrets. What happened?
"We kept each other alive," April declared resolutely. "Who was the one person I willingly told that I've cut before, and who did not think any less of me? Who was with me the time of my first fight? Who waited for me after school when I was still a middle-schooler and did not consider herself too good for me because she was a big bad high schooler? Who got in her first fight because she waited for me since I forgot to tell her I had a Library Club meeting? You, Libby!"
Libby was speechless, but she felt as if her anger was dissolving despite herself. She knew she was April's best friend but she did not realize just important she had been. "I feel appreciated hearing that. Can you please tell how you knew we'd be hit by the train and why you set it up so we would be?"
"You misunderstand, I just knew we would both die May 23rd. I just did not know how, or if we would be together or not. I knew that neither one of us could escape. I saw so many possibilities. I saw us being in a fight with a gang and one of them pulling a gun, me being hit by a car, you being suddenly grabbed from behind and your jugular slit by the knife of a psychopath, my house collapsing, a fire in yours, the library blowing up and us being the only casualties because the bomb was concealed right by where we were sitting.I knew we'd die and at least we're together.
"But April.. Why were you so eager for the crystal?" The girls were becoming oblivious to the presence of Elrond and Aragorn, who were listening avidly and dissecting the words of the girls.
"Because I have known of it before. you know how I talked to a witch in that herbal store? How I'm Wiccan?" Libby nodded yes. "She told of a really rare crystal hat could transport someone wherever they wished should they die while holding it. usually the place they think about most. However, they also forget the significance of the place.. You knew about Weathertop, you just forgot, the memory was forced from you."
"So I think about where we are now most? I'm officially confused. I don't even know what the hell this place is! Well, besides that this area is named Rivendell. but I have never heard of Weathertop, or at least I hadn't."
"I wouldn't bet on that," said April. "So, we were hit by the train.. If you ever see us on that day with the crystal and then our bodies or something don't be surprised, I bet at least one of us will have dreams on that or on reactions of others."
"So we are dead.. But why are we alive?"
"Because we're alive here," April answered. "This is basically a second chance at life, only we remember our past lives and we're sixteen instead of babies the age we were in River City. You're going on seventeen and I just turned sixteen. Our birthdays are meaningless here. unless we feel like translating the day or something. I now seem to have been born at the end of July to the beginning of September somewhere, while you your birthday here's in February if I'm guessing correctly. We can die again."
"Aww geez and to think I was hoping I was now immune to death here!" Libby joked. April chuckled at her friend's black humor. Aragorn frowned, that particular statement worried him.
"Would you really desire immortality?" Aragorn asked, eying each of them in time.
"Eh, I don't know." April answered uncertainly at the same time Libby said with disbelief, "And watch everyone I know die while I'm stuck watching? And if I don't also get eternal youth and I'm going deaf and blind and unable to walk in the meantime.. No thanks, I prefer dying before I become totally handicapped." Aragorn felt slightly relieved, the Ring apparently hadn't gripped her in that respect yet. He was surprised how serious the two friends were being, they were sounding much older than their years for once with their words. rather than fooling around. He was so used to the two friends kidding around even in their darkest moments during the flight to the Ford that he had not even thought them capable of being curious. They were almost comic relief.
"Anyway. I saw in the dream the crystal and its location, and decided to use it as a ruse to keep us both on the train tracks.. I knew we'd die instantly when we were it by the train. Do you have any weird bruises? I have one on my right hip, that's what was struck first. I'm guessing that means you'd have a bruise on your left side that you don't know how you got?"
When April asked that, Libby pulled down the collar of her shirt on the left side to reveal an angry-looking bruise on the side of her left shoulder. "So that's where this thing came from. I don't remember being hit painfully enough there to produce this thing! It's fading though."
"So is mine."
"Now, you two, I suggest you take a bath, the other hobbits have already done so," said Aragorn. "I will lead you to your baths, and you can clean yourselves up. Then I suggest having another sleep, you two look like you are still tired enough to drop any moment."
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After having practically rubbed themselves raw with soap and they were cleaner than they had been in the past fortnight, the teenaged girls returned to their rooms to sleep. Libby had a very strange dream of her own in which she watched two teenaged girls, one blonde and one with shoulder- length black hair seeming intent on something imbedded in the train tracks, oblivious to a train of the LIRR jackknifing directly at them. The train honked its horn, but the two girl still seemed not to heed it. The wheels started screeching as the driver threw the brake an in effort not to strike the teens but to no avail. The driver honked his horn with a long blast and before the two girls could roll off the tracks out of harm's way, the train struck with them with an explosive force. The shorter girl, the one with black hair, was hit first in the right hip, knocking her directly onto the rail on the train driver's left where she flew underneath the wheels of the multi-ton train. The blonde, stuck in the shoulder, was sent flying up about twenty feet in the air, and over the rail of the bridge. She landed in a crumpled, motionless heap on the pavement of the street, and forced a car to have to slam on its brake suddenly. When the train finally screeched to a halt, a wheel was rested right on top of the girl with black hair's midriff, pining her to the track, while the blonde's broken body was in a rapidly increasing puddle of crimson, her hair going from golden-blonde to red.
Passengers were now pouring from the door of the train, stumbling down the slope of the gray rocks which were on the train tracks, looking sickened by the bodies of the two girls who had been stuck. Libby was confused. Who were these girls? Who was the tall, muscular girl with crimped golden hair and fair skin, damp from the rain, and who was the black-haired girl in gothic clothing? They only looked about sixteen and they had died.. Libby distinctly heard sentences such as "no pulse" for the girl with black hair and "she's not going to make it, she has lost way too much blood." for the blonde as they hooked her up to a heart monitor. In minutes, the monitor started whining as the green line went flat.
A skinny girl with curly black hair and glasses came running over followed closely by what looked like her mother. It was a girl who lived around the corner from the railroad trestle. "Oh my God! That's Liberty Artlong.. It can't be! I used to run cross country! And please tell me that's not.. Fuck, it is! It's April Neverton! No! Not Libby and April NO! I can't believe this is happening! Not them, Brieanna already died this year. NO!" When someone who looked like a police officer started questioning her, the girl said, "The Asian-American one lives just down this street. so close to home! And the other one lives around the corner from the aquarium if I remember correctly. Their names are April Neverton and Liberty Artlong."
Libby could not believe her ears. These girls were herself and April! But she was alive! Alive! How come she had just seen herself and her friend died? She woke with a start, covered with sweat. Distressed, she scrambled out of bed and positively ran to April's room. This couldn't be. She ran in to find April's face looking haggard.
"So you saw it too! We're dead! Holy fuck, we're DEAD! It's true then, I can't believe it actually happened.. Me underneath the wheels, and you in that pool of fruit punch." April and Libby had a twisted inside joke where they called blood fruit punch. The two girls threw their arms around each other and hugged for a long moment.
"Just as long as we're together." said Libby. "I just hope Frodo will be all right."
"So do I," said April. "So do I." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two days later it was October the twenty-fourth. At about ten o'clock, Libby, April, Merry, and Pippin had gathered. Sam suddenly joined them, looking haggard and weary. He had not gotten any sleep the previous night, and barely any the other long nights as Frodo suffered even in his sleep. He looked severely shaken.
"Sam! What is it?" Merry asked, sounding suddenly frightened. "Did Frodo." He knew Gandalf was staying by the bedside of the Ring-bearer, while Elrond had spent almost all his time after the talk with Libby and April tending the wounded hobbit. They were in the area where they usually ate their meals. Pippin stopped in the middle of chewing an apple, his mouth still sunk into it, to listen.
"Not yet. It's just what I had to watch.. Elrond actually cut Frodo's shoulder open and he bled a lot and it was horrible! He actually found a piece of knife in there and said that's why he was so sick! Then he actually had to sew my master's shoulder closed! And it seemed to hurt in his sleep, he was groaning and thrashing slightly!" Merry and Pippin looked horrified, Libby and April sympathetic.
"Yuck.. That's called surgery where we come from. But there's no such things as anesthesia here I'm guessing.. Too early in time. Poor Frodo! Is he going to be all right now?" Libby asked. Listening to the talk of no anesthesia made her think wistfully of Cara Czynski who had had a bad experience with a tooth extraction when her dentist missed a spot with the Novocain. She'd understand how Frodo was likely to feel.
"Elrond says there's a chance he could die from blood loss or infection but if he doesn't, he will be all right," Sam answered. "Frodo's strong though, he should be okay. He's made it this far, hasn't he? And that blasted scrap of metal is out of his shoulder now." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You're joking, right? I don't find that very funny, Mr. Gandalf!" The wizard had just joined them and asked Sam to come and see if Frodo was ready to come down and join the feast that was in preparation to celebrate his recovery. Merry and Pippin were ecstatic to hear their beloved cousin was on the road to recovery, while Libby and April were glad that, at last, he was taking a turn for the better.
"No, I am not, Samwise Gamgee," said Gandalf. "You will find him looking much healthier than you all probably remember by now."
"I'm sure glad to hear that, Mr. Gandalf!" said Sam, and he almost ran out of the room.
Author's note: So, I've FINALLY finished this chapter! Hey, guess what? Don't expect part 12 very soon, because I am MOVING! This is probably my last night online for a very long time. Goodbye, I will miss you all sorely!
Disclaimer: Aargh, I hate disclaimers! *stabs* Anyhoo, I'm afraid I don't own Lord of the Rings, as I am certainly not the god JRR Tolkien.
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"Please hurry up, I really need to bring you two to Elrond," Aragorn said impatiently. Libby and April had stopped dead when they saw a looking glass, and were now scrutinizing themselves intently in them. Libby had removed what she called her sweatshirt and tired it around her waist by its arms. She was now raising both arms, and muttering about her collarbone, while April kept poking her stomach for some odd reason.
"It doesn't jiggle as much as it used to. it still jiggles, but not as much." April poked her stomach again, and the flab lingering on it jumped slightly, then became still.
"Duuude- I have like a double collarbone.. Or is that a tendon?" There was another body component that protruded along with her collarbone when she raised her arms. Lowering them, Libby added, "And the bottom of my ribs was definitely not visible before. Nor did I have that line down my stomach. Gawd, if I was about ten or twenty pounds thinner than now I'll actually look like I did in sixth grade!"
April laughed. "I remember you then. you definitely were a scrawny little thing!" Though she would never say so to Libby, the blonde had definitely filled out a lot from fifth and sixth grades. How many pounds did Libby say she had gained since the end of sixth grade? Around forty or forty-five? And sixty or sixty-five from the summer before Libby was in fifth grade? April knew that she shouldn't be thinking that though- her height had stagnated at 5'1", which she had reached in fourth grade, while her weight continued to climb: 90, 100, 110, 120, reaching its peak at 135. Now it seemed to enjoy jumping between 120 and 130, though April believed she had dropped under 120 for the first time since the end of seventh or the beginning of eighth grade.
"I bet I weigh about 140.. Perhaps even less! I wouldn't be surprised if I did walk off twenty-five pounds. Woohoo, this is great!" Libby said enthusiastically. She left the thoughts of When have I ever kept weight off? unsaid.
"Come ON, you two," Aragorn urged, beginning to feel rather annoyed. Worry about Frodo was stretching his nerves to the breaking point, and his temper was beginning to resemble that of Gandalf's on a good day, that of Libby's on an average day. "You two are taking far to long at that mirror.. You can assess changes in your appearances later if they are so important! Elrond told me to fetch you two at least fifteen minutes ago!" Looking abashed, the two teenagers finally complied with the Ranger's impatient command. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aragorn ushered the blonde and the black-haired girl into the most elaborate room the teenagers had ever encountered in their lives. Libby gasped, this made the mansion she had spent a night in on a field trip in sixth grade in Calmest State Park look positively drab indeed. April, who had spent a night in a five-star hotel with her well-to-do grandmother while visiting her in Florida over spring break in eighth grade, felt the same as her friend. "Damn." the black-haired teen murmured underneath her breath, clearly impressed by the four-poster bed that looked big enough to hold three or four obese people, with luxurious silken hangings and satin sheets. The headboard and footboard both were decorated with elaborate wood- carvings of what appeared to be scenes of a majestic forest. Several swords were displayed on the walls, encrusted with jewels that appeared to be diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. There were a dozen bookcases made of perfectly polished wood, filled to capacity with books of varying ages. There were pictures of the sky, the sea, and woods on the walls, contained within very fine frames. Naturally, no glass protected the forest; as this place seemed relic of ancient times. There were several chairs with a velvety covering over the wooden frame and feather cushions. The room was immaculate.
"Lord Elrond's sleeping quarters," Aragorn said, indicating the room. Wish my room looked like this, April thought, thinking of her room at home, and her bed that was really a mattress, pillow, and sheets- almost like what one would usually give to a houseguest. Her bedroom was the direct opposite of Elrond's room- a literal disaster area. In April's room, magazines, graphic novels, and CDs were strewn all over the place. Her blankets were usually in a heap in the corner, along with clothes that had been worn whenever she was too lazy to put them in her mother's hamper. April's small television sat on a low table, and her stereo was next to the TV. The birdcage containing her two pet birds was kept in the center of the living room. She had not yet met anyone with more of a mess for a bedroom than herself. As Libby had jokingly said when she had first seen April's room, "My mom would kill me if I kept my room like this!"
"Hey, April, this resembles your room a little bit!" Libby joked, giving her friend a poke on the shoulder. April shoved Libby in retort, and both girls laughed. "I mean, the likeness concerning tidiness is breathtaking!"
"Aw, shut up Libs," April said with a mock glower at her friend. Libby raised her left eyebrow and lowered her right. Aragorn shook his head, these two were certainly fond of joking around with each other. Elrond was apt to come soon enough, he knew the elf-lord was off tending Frodo at the moment.
Would that the Ring-bearer would awake! Every effort to call back the hapless creature from the heavy darkness he had descended into proved fruitless, and he was lingering on the brink of the world of shadow. If strayed but another inch, Frodo's soul would be whisked off to Mordor as a wraith and his body would be left with more of a void than he would if he died of natural causes. He showed no signs that he lived yet save for the ceaseless drabble and the weak, fluttering pulse present in his neck and right wrist. The pulse in his left wrist was absent, as Elrond had said gravely, signaling that the wound had deleted all life from Frodo's left arm and side. The treacherous Ring that caused all of this trouble still hung about the Ring-bearer's neck on a chain, glittering sinisterly, yet enticingly, as it had always done. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About ten minutes later, Elrond entered his bedchamber to find Libby and April still there, seated on chairs while Aragorn stood in the floor space between them. The Elf felt all but used up from the futile ventures to revive the small hobbit, and he fervently hoped that this hobbit would not be one of the rare exceptions of patients that he failed. He was, however, building on a seed of a theory that he had formulated when the moribund Halfling had first been brought in. Frodo Baggins' condition was continuing to deteriorate despite Elrond's best efforts to heal him, and his ragged breathing was beginning to bear a resemblance to a death rattle. He would confide in Aragorn later, but for now he had these two girls to deal with, and questions to answer.
The Elf-lord pulled a chair over to face the girls and sank into it, trying not to allow them to see his exhaustion. Both girls were filthy, having not found the opportunity to bathe, and their skin was streaked with remnants of mud that had not washed away when crossing the Bruinen. The taller one's wavy-to-curly hair was matted and contained so much grime it looked almost brown, severely mismatching her golden eyebrows. The black hair of the other girl was completely devoid of body, and was obviously knotted at the bottom as it rested limply atop the shoulders. Both had the slightly unhealthy look of people who had lost a great deal of body mass in a short space of time, the taller girl's collarbone protruding above the neck of her shirt, indenting into her shoulders in an extremely concave manner. The other was not quite so skeletally thin, but her clothes were hanging extremely loosely about her. To add to their decrepit appearance, Libby was swaying slightly in the chair as if she'd fall asleep on the spot, while April had slumped backwards so much that her bottom was almost at the edge of the seat.
"You are Liberty Artlong, right?" Elrond asked, fixating his gaze upon the taller blonde first. Elrond had decided to question her first, as Aragorn had said she was older and more outspoken than her comrade. Something flickered in the girl's expression when Elrond asked his first out of many questions.
"I would prefer to be called Libby, I have hated my name for about half my lifetime, maybe even longer."
"Do you?" Elrond mused thoughtfully, gazing at the girl, who looked like she was a very young member of the race of Men. It was his custom to call others by their proper names, but Libby had specifically asked him to use a nickname. He would revert to calling her Liberty later, but for now he wanted to make her more relaxed. "Why do you despise your name as you do, Libby?"
Libby's eyebrows flew up slightly; she never knew how to answer that particular question whenever it was asked, which was often. "I dunno. I just- do. I can't remember ever liking my name."
"I see," said Elrond, sounding skeptical. He scrutinized the blonde closely, looking her directly in the face, and decided that she was being honest, and that disliking her given name was just a certainty of her character. Still wishing to be conversational, he then asked, "How old are you, Libby? And you, April?"
"We're both sixteen, although I just turned sixteen a month or two ago and Libby will turn seventeen in about three months. At least, I think she's turning seventeen, I don't think she's seventeen yet because it was May where we live and her birthday's in September- I am highly confused, though." April had decided to add her own input to the conversation, although her voice did sound somewhat incoherent. "I am confused about how we ended up here."
"Where do you two hail from?" Elrond asked, still surveying the girls with his dark blue eyes. April's brown eyes closed and Libby reached over to give her a smack on the shoulder to arouse her, reaching past Aragorn.
"River City," April replied, after groaning slightly and stifling a yawn.
"River City." Elrond's eyebrows furrowed, he had never heard of the place although it did sound a suitable name for a location in Middle- Earth. "Where would River City be located?" Perhaps it was in the far-off East of which he knew little and where customs were rumored to be strange. The garb of these two strange girls sitting before him was definitely unusual.
"Long Island," responded April, only to be asked yet another question concerning the location.
"New York," the blonde, Liberty, replied, with a tone sounding somewhat impertinent as if he should have known. Elrond decided to ignore the slight impudence of the young girl and instead posed another query, about where New York was.
"United States, North America, Earth, the universe." Liberty answered, stringing less and less specific generalizations about the area of which she and April were denizens into her sentence.
"Liberty, I am afraid I am unfamiliar with the place of your inhabitance," Elrond said. Libby realized that she had been somewhat rude to the Elf, and decided this would not be a fitting time to remind him about her opinion of being called Liberty.
"It feels as if we were transported through time and space," April pondered audibly. A pair of blue eyes, gray eyes, and bluish-gray eyes all turned to look at her, and April blushed to the roots of her black hair.
"April!" Libby said something. "Why do I suddenly feel like you've been hiding something from me? I mean the time when we first ran into the group, on Weathertop, you acted almost like you didn't care when Strider jumped out and held his sword practically at our throats!"
Before Libby could add more examples to strange behaviors she had observed in her friend, Elrond interceded with a question about how they'd gotten to Weathertop and what business brought them there in the first place.
"We weren't exactly expecting landing on the top of a hill!" Libby said. "This is gonna sound totally weird, you'll like think we've like gone off the deep end, but a flash of light brought us there! A bunch of colors, then we were there!"
"Please elaborate," said Elrond when Liberty did not get any more specific about the flash of light, and she had not mentioned from where the colors had supposedly transported her. "Where were you before you got to Weathertop if you are speaking the truth?" Their story was observed but Elrond kept endeavoring to maintain eye contact with whoever was speaking at the moment, and neither Liberty nor April were showing any signs of having told a falsehood.
"We were on the train tracks, the bridge crossing over my street. I guess you don't know what trains are, they're like a metal horse powered by steam, I can't really explain them," said April. "Well, we were trying to pull a crystal imbedded in the wood of the tracks out."
"What crystal?" Libby asked, sounding extremely disorientated.
"You still don't remember? Purple crystal, stuck pretty deep in the wood, opaque but slightly see-through." Libby's eyes rounded, and April knew that she had just jogged her friend's memory, as she knew she would if she specifically described it. She was not surprised by Libby's confusion, she had been forewarned of this in her dream.
Libby gave her friend a look, "It was stuck deep, but April here seemed to want it, I guess for one of her hobbies, but it was stuck hard, so we both decided to pull at the same time to get it out. Well, like, we counted to three and pulled, and then suddenly, I don't know if you felt it April, but I felt like my entire body had been hit really hard by something."
"I felt it too," said April. She was going to explain her side and what she knew, but she decided she wanted to let Libby talk, so she could clarify exactly what happened. She wasn't sure this was exactly the proper moment to let Libby in on the secret but intuition told her Elrond was apt to question her about strange behavior patterns of hers Libby had noticed.
"Well, after we felt like the explosive force hit us, I felt myself flying and I saw the colors show up," said Libby. "I think very color in existence showed up swirling around us. and then we suddenly hit the ground, and everything went first dark then completely switched to a hilly landscape. the Weather Hills, did you say they're called?" Aragorn nodded. "So I'm not mistaken. April, does what I have described tally with what you saw?" The black-haired teenager muttered something akin to yes.
Elrond felt that one of these girls, seemingly April, was concealing something. Judging by the fact that Liberty was secreting no air of secrecy, it appeared that whatever was concealed was unbeknownst to even her dearest friend. Liberty was merely describing what she saw, and she did not seem to be hiding anything. Elrond decided to propound another slightly tedious question for Liberty. "How did you two come across Aragorn, Frodo Baggins, and their companions?"
"Um, I guess the best way to explain it is we like accidentally ran into each other, er, I mean came upon each other." Liberty had realized by now that idioms customary to Americans would be likely to confuse the inhabitants of this alternate universe, and was now using more elaborate dialect she knew, though keeping it simple enough for April to understand.
"We heard voices, the both of us," said April. Sticking to a habit she had learned while institutionalized, she made sure that Elrond knew that both Libby and herself had heard these said voices so that she would not be judged to be deluded. "One voice that was deep like adults, others on the higher side, though not quite feminine, you know? I heard something about a Gandalf, whoever that may be, caution, a ring. Then Libby sneezed."
"Hey, my nose itched, okay?" Liberty interrupted defensively. "And of course it had to be my loud sneeze, although Strider and the hobbits are all right, aren't they?"
"Even if Strider did scare the hell out of us," April butted in. "He like slammed us into a rock and then pulled his sword on us though I guess now that it was because he thought we were possibly on the side of, I notice you guys call them the Enemy so I'll just say that. "
"So you were scared? You looked dazed to me, you were acting really weird on the tracks and when Strider scared us, I thought it was the meds," Libby divulged.
April gave a slightly grim smile. "No, not the meds, though they really did screw around with me, didn't they? I am doing okay without them now, thank you, even if I do have a chemical imbalance as they put it with their scientific jargon."
Elrond converted his attention to April now, thinking that perhaps she was finally deciding to disclose what she was concealing. "Can you explain what you mean by meds and a chemical imbalance?"
April cringed, not too pleased to have to reveal her past few months to Elrond and Aragorn. Wouldn't they choose not to trust her once she admitted she had been engulfed in madness and therefore hospitalized in a nuthouse for several weeks? She had gotten lucky with Libby, Libby did not treat her much differently, but surely these two would lock her up or something, consider her to be dangerous?
Noting her friend's discomfort, Libby jumped to her feet, no longer looking lackluster, and squeezed into April's chair, draping a consoling arm about her shoulders, considerably bonier than they'd been back in River City. Heartened by her friend's empathy, April took a shuddering breath and told the whole story of how she had been a cutter, how she'd tried to kill herself, how she had experienced hallucination, how she had finally ended up in a mental hospital, in a straitjacket at her worst moment, how the medicine to straighten out the so-called chemical imbalance made her violently ill and at times gave her quite the temper. The whole time, she was gripping Libby's wrist to reassure herself. All over an Ouija board, all because skeptics had written her off as crazy. But what would Elrond and Strider think? She feared being condemned to a life of confinement once more- a situation which would drive her to being suicidal just as it had back in the institution she had been in November and December last year- they had refused to put anything remotely sharp in her small room. The outward scars were not something April was overly proud of, and those who cut as a part of a group trend sickened her.
"Look at me," said Elrond sounding grave. Very reluctantly, she raised her dark eyes to meet Elrond's, and Libby felt the grip on her wrist tighten. Elrond unblinkingly held April's gaze for a long moment, as if trying to use them as windows to see what she was like inside. She seemed honest, just heavily downtrodden, and he suspected that Liberty might have somehow kept her from taking her own life, and that the fair-haired girl seemed to be some sort of binding holding April from harming herself.
"Elrond, do you have any clue what I felt and saw?" Libby asked. She had hitherto given the transition to this place no thought, but now she was beginning to wonder what it had been.
"I cannot think what the explosive force you felt was, it could have been numerous things," the Elf-lord replied. "The colors was probably shock caused by what you felt, I surmise."
April suddenly muttered something unintelligible under her breath that Liberty caught, her ear being barely four inches from her friend's head. "What was that April?" She strongly suspected that her dark-haired friend knew something and had possibly said what.
"Elrond, I think it was a train," April said. "I don't think you would know what I'm talking about, but Libby would."
"I fear I do not know what this train you speak of, the only kind I know of is that trailing from the garments of a woman who is being joined in matrimony," Elrond said. Liberty's reaction was very curious at the expression that had suddenly come over Liberty's face; her mouth fell open as if in surprise and her eyes widened. She seemed to muttering something soundlessly.
"But how.- But that means- How? That's impossible, April. we get hungry and thirsty and tired, how can it be? We are capable of feeling pain, I think you're probably even more sore than I from the walking, you haven't been in track!" she spluttered when she was capable of working her vocal cords work. "April, can you please explain what you are talking about? What the hell is going on?" the blonde squeezed out of her friend's grip and stood up abruptly to face her. "Tell me!"
"Libby, sit down and let April answer you," Aragorn said, gently but imperiously. When she complied, Aragorn said, "April, go ahead and explain, no matter how absurd your tale is, we have to know everything important about you, and then you two can rejoin Merry and Pippin."
"Where is Sam?" asked April, suddenly realized she had not seen much of the sturdy hobbit that seemed the most worried about Frodo out of the three.
"At Frodo's bedside. His loyalty to Frodo impresses me, I have hardly ever seen such a friendship," Elrond said. "Now, April, if you will cease changing the subject, please clarify what happened and what you have hidden even from your friend."
April cringed; Libby would definitely feel let down when Elrond put it that way. When she glanced over at her friend's face, however, Libby's expression was incomprehensible, it seemed even she couldn't figure out how she felt. She was probably stunned from hearing that it had been a train that she had felt hit her, sad that she would not be able to see any of her other close friends back in River City again, angry that April had not warned her, though the anger would be nothing compared to how she would feel when April confessed that she had known before that fateful May day yet had not told her the crucial information.
Now she thought of it, it had been a mistake not to tell Libby, seeing as how she was slightly at odds with some of her other friends and could have made amends. Plus, April now realized that Libby would have wanted to somehow let her other friends know somehow that they had made her life good or that they had always been her first priority. Libby could have started slacking on schoolwork as it no longer mattered; she would never have gotten to college. She could have cut classes if she desired for final fun times, crept out of school for lunch, worked all the harder in track so she could have clinched a placing spot in counties, whatever. Instead, April had chosen to keep it to herself instead telling Libby about the dream and everything. The two reasons she had not told Libby were that she did not want to upset her best friend, and that she feared Libby's doubt.
"I should've told you," April admitted, looking down at her lap."
"That's right, you should have," said Libby; why had April suddenly started concealing important things from her? It would have been nice to have been forewarned what was going to happen. She admitted to herself she might have thought that April was going deluded again, but nonetheless she should have been warned.
"I'm sorry, Libby. Elrond, do you want to know m dream?" The Elf-lord nodded. "Go ahead April."
April coughed and fidgeted in her chair, as if gathering her courage once more. She licked her lips, which felt dry, then cleared her throat. "Ahem. AHEM." She only began when Libby shot her an impatient scowl. "I don't remember the whole thing down to the nitty-gritty, but it was so vivid that I knew it was literal. Libby here has had rather vivid dreams of hers come partially true in some form, but she did not have specifics in hers such as dates and other events of the day. Libby, were you writing notes all period that last day of math?"
Libby rolled her eyes. "I always write my version of notes all period! I'm not convinced."
"Tia was absent that day, I think.. I saw things for both me and you, I don't remember everything, but what I saw for myself happened. My DVD player refusing to play "Prince of Egypt", getting a detailed e-mail from some prick about his dick, being praised for progress in math by my tutor. But you.. Did you talk to a girl named Liz online?"
"I think I groaned about Tia being absent, I'm not sure. and it's kind of obvious to tell Liz's name because of her screen name! I'm still not convinced."
"Liberty, my heart is telling me that April is being truthful," Aragorn said. "Please just let her talk and contain your wrath for now. " Libby scowled and shot April another glare, then started taking deep breaths as April started talking again. Inhale. exhale."
April was starting to feel distraught; Libby was clearly furious! And that was before she realized just how forewarned April had been. Se tried to call back other memories, and then began talking very rapidly. "You didn't want to talk to some other guy online because you think he is a freak, right? This guy has liked you and a lot of your other friends, and he actually dated one, which the rest of you didn't like."
Libby opened her mouth, then shut it again. She tried to remember ever having mentioned this to April, but could not think of a single occasion. "How did you know- I definitely never told you about that!"
"Now do you believe me?" April implored quietly so that only the fair- haired girl could hear. Libby didn't trouble to reply to that and when she did speak hr voice was shaking. "So, about the fact that we're apparently dead which I STILL don't get, we sure don't seem like spirits or ghosts or anything, tell us about that. Hmm, I sure as hell feel like I'm alive!"
"You are alive, I'm alive, we're both alive and dead, I know that sounds."
"CRAZY, MAYBE?" Libby's temper was starting to flare again. This was the first time she had ever been truly angry with April. It took every ounce of strength to prevent herself from saying something cruel. Using crazy as a description of how April sounded was in bad taste as it was. "How the hell can someone be both alive and dead! I've heard of the undead, but alive and dead at once? Impossible!"
"What I mean is we're alive here, dead in River City. I bet we're in the papers and stuff."
"I'm honored," Libby spat sarcastically. "I'd rather be in News Review for something good like placing in counties, but no no NO, I either show in an article on something bad or about something I don't care about all that much like a tree-planting or winning some dumb academic award. Not to mention what my mom must be feeling. whoopdidoo, though, two and three- quarters of a year longer living than what could have been, so much borrowed time, wow, Why didn't the damn van go over the cliff, what's the difference between dying at thirteen or sixteen?"
"Wouldn't the others have also died? And that would have been a much earlier time when I started getting depressed, the summer before seventh grade rather than after eighth grade was almost over."
"Everything happens for a reason, Liberty," Elrond said, to a haughty eye roll from the teen. The blonde would not be appeased. She knew she was useless here, and what reason was there for the camp incident anyway? Why didn't the van get hit by a truck like her classmate's car had been , why wasn't there oncoming traffic, why didn't they swerve just a few feet more? And exactly what was the reason for a six-year-old being robbed of his life? And what of Frodo's wound and his deteriorating condition now? He was dying! If everything happened for a reason as Elrond claimed, it sure as hell was not helping those of Frodo's side!
"Really, now? Do enlighten me," Libby hissed venomously.
"I do believe you're the reason April did not take her own life, I can tell she had contemplated suicide at one point." April flushed a dark puce. "You served as a sort of lifeline."
"Ha, she was more of one for me," Libby contradicted, remembering when she had been slightly unstable herself, though not to the extent April, or Sheila, had been. Her problem mostly extended to weight issues and bulimia, though she had cut before. She and April had been able to confide in one another about their dark secrets. What happened?
"We kept each other alive," April declared resolutely. "Who was the one person I willingly told that I've cut before, and who did not think any less of me? Who was with me the time of my first fight? Who waited for me after school when I was still a middle-schooler and did not consider herself too good for me because she was a big bad high schooler? Who got in her first fight because she waited for me since I forgot to tell her I had a Library Club meeting? You, Libby!"
Libby was speechless, but she felt as if her anger was dissolving despite herself. She knew she was April's best friend but she did not realize just important she had been. "I feel appreciated hearing that. Can you please tell how you knew we'd be hit by the train and why you set it up so we would be?"
"You misunderstand, I just knew we would both die May 23rd. I just did not know how, or if we would be together or not. I knew that neither one of us could escape. I saw so many possibilities. I saw us being in a fight with a gang and one of them pulling a gun, me being hit by a car, you being suddenly grabbed from behind and your jugular slit by the knife of a psychopath, my house collapsing, a fire in yours, the library blowing up and us being the only casualties because the bomb was concealed right by where we were sitting.I knew we'd die and at least we're together.
"But April.. Why were you so eager for the crystal?" The girls were becoming oblivious to the presence of Elrond and Aragorn, who were listening avidly and dissecting the words of the girls.
"Because I have known of it before. you know how I talked to a witch in that herbal store? How I'm Wiccan?" Libby nodded yes. "She told of a really rare crystal hat could transport someone wherever they wished should they die while holding it. usually the place they think about most. However, they also forget the significance of the place.. You knew about Weathertop, you just forgot, the memory was forced from you."
"So I think about where we are now most? I'm officially confused. I don't even know what the hell this place is! Well, besides that this area is named Rivendell. but I have never heard of Weathertop, or at least I hadn't."
"I wouldn't bet on that," said April. "So, we were hit by the train.. If you ever see us on that day with the crystal and then our bodies or something don't be surprised, I bet at least one of us will have dreams on that or on reactions of others."
"So we are dead.. But why are we alive?"
"Because we're alive here," April answered. "This is basically a second chance at life, only we remember our past lives and we're sixteen instead of babies the age we were in River City. You're going on seventeen and I just turned sixteen. Our birthdays are meaningless here. unless we feel like translating the day or something. I now seem to have been born at the end of July to the beginning of September somewhere, while you your birthday here's in February if I'm guessing correctly. We can die again."
"Aww geez and to think I was hoping I was now immune to death here!" Libby joked. April chuckled at her friend's black humor. Aragorn frowned, that particular statement worried him.
"Would you really desire immortality?" Aragorn asked, eying each of them in time.
"Eh, I don't know." April answered uncertainly at the same time Libby said with disbelief, "And watch everyone I know die while I'm stuck watching? And if I don't also get eternal youth and I'm going deaf and blind and unable to walk in the meantime.. No thanks, I prefer dying before I become totally handicapped." Aragorn felt slightly relieved, the Ring apparently hadn't gripped her in that respect yet. He was surprised how serious the two friends were being, they were sounding much older than their years for once with their words. rather than fooling around. He was so used to the two friends kidding around even in their darkest moments during the flight to the Ford that he had not even thought them capable of being curious. They were almost comic relief.
"Anyway. I saw in the dream the crystal and its location, and decided to use it as a ruse to keep us both on the train tracks.. I knew we'd die instantly when we were it by the train. Do you have any weird bruises? I have one on my right hip, that's what was struck first. I'm guessing that means you'd have a bruise on your left side that you don't know how you got?"
When April asked that, Libby pulled down the collar of her shirt on the left side to reveal an angry-looking bruise on the side of her left shoulder. "So that's where this thing came from. I don't remember being hit painfully enough there to produce this thing! It's fading though."
"So is mine."
"Now, you two, I suggest you take a bath, the other hobbits have already done so," said Aragorn. "I will lead you to your baths, and you can clean yourselves up. Then I suggest having another sleep, you two look like you are still tired enough to drop any moment."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
After having practically rubbed themselves raw with soap and they were cleaner than they had been in the past fortnight, the teenaged girls returned to their rooms to sleep. Libby had a very strange dream of her own in which she watched two teenaged girls, one blonde and one with shoulder- length black hair seeming intent on something imbedded in the train tracks, oblivious to a train of the LIRR jackknifing directly at them. The train honked its horn, but the two girl still seemed not to heed it. The wheels started screeching as the driver threw the brake an in effort not to strike the teens but to no avail. The driver honked his horn with a long blast and before the two girls could roll off the tracks out of harm's way, the train struck with them with an explosive force. The shorter girl, the one with black hair, was hit first in the right hip, knocking her directly onto the rail on the train driver's left where she flew underneath the wheels of the multi-ton train. The blonde, stuck in the shoulder, was sent flying up about twenty feet in the air, and over the rail of the bridge. She landed in a crumpled, motionless heap on the pavement of the street, and forced a car to have to slam on its brake suddenly. When the train finally screeched to a halt, a wheel was rested right on top of the girl with black hair's midriff, pining her to the track, while the blonde's broken body was in a rapidly increasing puddle of crimson, her hair going from golden-blonde to red.
Passengers were now pouring from the door of the train, stumbling down the slope of the gray rocks which were on the train tracks, looking sickened by the bodies of the two girls who had been stuck. Libby was confused. Who were these girls? Who was the tall, muscular girl with crimped golden hair and fair skin, damp from the rain, and who was the black-haired girl in gothic clothing? They only looked about sixteen and they had died.. Libby distinctly heard sentences such as "no pulse" for the girl with black hair and "she's not going to make it, she has lost way too much blood." for the blonde as they hooked her up to a heart monitor. In minutes, the monitor started whining as the green line went flat.
A skinny girl with curly black hair and glasses came running over followed closely by what looked like her mother. It was a girl who lived around the corner from the railroad trestle. "Oh my God! That's Liberty Artlong.. It can't be! I used to run cross country! And please tell me that's not.. Fuck, it is! It's April Neverton! No! Not Libby and April NO! I can't believe this is happening! Not them, Brieanna already died this year. NO!" When someone who looked like a police officer started questioning her, the girl said, "The Asian-American one lives just down this street. so close to home! And the other one lives around the corner from the aquarium if I remember correctly. Their names are April Neverton and Liberty Artlong."
Libby could not believe her ears. These girls were herself and April! But she was alive! Alive! How come she had just seen herself and her friend died? She woke with a start, covered with sweat. Distressed, she scrambled out of bed and positively ran to April's room. This couldn't be. She ran in to find April's face looking haggard.
"So you saw it too! We're dead! Holy fuck, we're DEAD! It's true then, I can't believe it actually happened.. Me underneath the wheels, and you in that pool of fruit punch." April and Libby had a twisted inside joke where they called blood fruit punch. The two girls threw their arms around each other and hugged for a long moment.
"Just as long as we're together." said Libby. "I just hope Frodo will be all right."
"So do I," said April. "So do I." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two days later it was October the twenty-fourth. At about ten o'clock, Libby, April, Merry, and Pippin had gathered. Sam suddenly joined them, looking haggard and weary. He had not gotten any sleep the previous night, and barely any the other long nights as Frodo suffered even in his sleep. He looked severely shaken.
"Sam! What is it?" Merry asked, sounding suddenly frightened. "Did Frodo." He knew Gandalf was staying by the bedside of the Ring-bearer, while Elrond had spent almost all his time after the talk with Libby and April tending the wounded hobbit. They were in the area where they usually ate their meals. Pippin stopped in the middle of chewing an apple, his mouth still sunk into it, to listen.
"Not yet. It's just what I had to watch.. Elrond actually cut Frodo's shoulder open and he bled a lot and it was horrible! He actually found a piece of knife in there and said that's why he was so sick! Then he actually had to sew my master's shoulder closed! And it seemed to hurt in his sleep, he was groaning and thrashing slightly!" Merry and Pippin looked horrified, Libby and April sympathetic.
"Yuck.. That's called surgery where we come from. But there's no such things as anesthesia here I'm guessing.. Too early in time. Poor Frodo! Is he going to be all right now?" Libby asked. Listening to the talk of no anesthesia made her think wistfully of Cara Czynski who had had a bad experience with a tooth extraction when her dentist missed a spot with the Novocain. She'd understand how Frodo was likely to feel.
"Elrond says there's a chance he could die from blood loss or infection but if he doesn't, he will be all right," Sam answered. "Frodo's strong though, he should be okay. He's made it this far, hasn't he? And that blasted scrap of metal is out of his shoulder now." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You're joking, right? I don't find that very funny, Mr. Gandalf!" The wizard had just joined them and asked Sam to come and see if Frodo was ready to come down and join the feast that was in preparation to celebrate his recovery. Merry and Pippin were ecstatic to hear their beloved cousin was on the road to recovery, while Libby and April were glad that, at last, he was taking a turn for the better.
"No, I am not, Samwise Gamgee," said Gandalf. "You will find him looking much healthier than you all probably remember by now."
"I'm sure glad to hear that, Mr. Gandalf!" said Sam, and he almost ran out of the room.
Author's note: So, I've FINALLY finished this chapter! Hey, guess what? Don't expect part 12 very soon, because I am MOVING! This is probably my last night online for a very long time. Goodbye, I will miss you all sorely!
