What Good This Deafness
by Leafy
Rating: PG-13 for scary imagery, violence, bad attitudes, and tense situations.
Author's Note: I'm in the process of writing a series of LOTR fanfics with titles that are also titles of some of the songs on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra album "Beethoven's Last Night". All of the stories are going to be linked. That's right, my first series! :o) Hope you like it!
This is the fourth story in the eighteen-story TSO Series I'm writing. It might be helpful to read the first three stories first--specifically the firtst one, "Overture", which is a short little poem--but you'll probably be able to make sense of this regardless. :o)
Disclaimer: I own nothing Tolkien or Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
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Hello everyone! Long time no see!
Sorry if I'm a little out of it right now. I'm very tired, and I have third-degree sunburn on my leg (OW!!). Still, can't really complain. I'm going to be back regularly, now. Hopefully, with faster updates (hope,hope,hope). Here's the first little chapter of "What Good This Deafness". I hope you all like it. :o)
And now, review responses:
Ellbee: Thank you for the wonderful review. I've just been rereading them, and they're so nice to see. I'm really glad you liked the story. I often want to try sitting down and reading one of my own stories all the way through. Truth be told, I rarely even do that with chapters, but I read the whole thing—in snippets. :o) Thanks again, hope you like this new story!
Tbiris: You've got that right about Narya. Things aren't going to get better any time soon…(Bob: Dun, dun, dun… Kiela: Please stop doing that, I'm trying to read.) Hehe, thanks for all the reviews. They've been great. Hope to hear from you with this story.
Mariana Nimeneth: Thanks for the review! My agent Bob has located me a space in Lalaland, would you believe? I'll put up the (web) address as soon as we settle in. :o) Thanks for all the great reviews, btw. I hope you like this story (and vice versa). :o)
LatestSin: Thanks for the review. It was very flattering. :o) Expect a lot of action in this one, because the next story is going to be a poem, and I'm not sure if I can do action the same way, in that one. :o) Thanks for the Fate review, too. I really like doing vignettes. And don't worry, I like to sleep late, too. BG
Lady Jaina: Why, thank you! :o) I like your stories too, btw.
Alklachion: Thank you for the reviewing compliments. ::blushes:: It was really nice of you. Sorry to have taken so long, but here I am now, and hopefully, with quicker updates. :o) Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy this story.
Anarril: First, let me apologize for not yet reviewing more of your stuff. I will do so very shortly, I promise. Secondly, I want to thank you for the great reviews you've given me, including on fictionpress.net. That was really nice of you! I'll review Shiela soon, I promise! (Me: Emblethor! Emblethor: ::carrying a load of books:: What? Me: Give me those, I'm going to the reading room. No one is to disturb me until I've finished reading Anarril's stuff, okay? Emblethor: Okay...::goes off to talk to Baxter:: ) Well anyway, hope you like this story.
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Chapter 1
'The Upshot'
"These rocks are slippery," Sam mumbled, shakily placing a foot on the boulder in front of him.
"I don't think it's the rocks," Frodo said softly just behind him. "I think there's air shooting up between them. There must be cave underneath us."
"A cave," Sam murmured, turning his head to look at Frodo, but turning back quickly as he skidded down into a shallow slope in the stones. "Well, at least they're fairly stationary."
Aragorn reached up, absently brushing the hair back from his brow, feeling the solitary hairs wave back on their own in the mild breeze as he walked up beside Gandalf.
"What's wrong?" he asked, looking at the wizard, taking in his distractedly concerned expression.
"Hmm?" Gandalf's eyebrows raised reflexively as he looked back at the man.
"What's the matter?" Aragorn repeated. "You seem troubled. This is the correct way, is it--,"
"Of course, yes," Gandalf bristled. "It's nothing that would be suitable to tell you now, I judge," his gaze returned to the ground before them.
Aragorn was silent as he kept up the pace. Aragorn knew that he wasn't going to know what was causing Gandalf's brows to knit so tight until the wizard was ready to tell him.
Just then, an odd howl rolled across the sky. Aragorn froze in his tracks, looking up at the grey dim sky. It was growing dark, but he could tell that there were no clouds in the sky. Could that have been thunder? How could there be rain now?
"Run!" Gandalf's unexpected bellow made Aragorn jump, and he barely had time to look from the wizard to the hobbits he'd commanded, before there was another noise, though this one was far louder, almost momentarily deafening. The rocks around Merry and Sam--and some of them as big as a wagon wheels--shot up with the sound, and the two hobbits were launched into the air with them, as an enormous gust of wind shot up from the ground. The sudden projectiles were thrown back, and the others were forced to scramble out of the way to keep from being struck by the rocks as they fell around them.
"Sam!" Frodo cried out from the ground, in utter dismay. He scrambled to his feet.
"Frodo--," Aragorn ran towards them just as another loud squall tore through the air. It hard to tell if Aragorn's feet left the ground or the ground left Aragorn's feet next, for they were no longer in proper contact, but there were large chunks of the boulders flying through the powerful updraft with him. Aragorn felt himself shot into the air in the terrible gale as if the rocks had been a slingshot, then falling just as fast, smacking into the stationary stones, the airborne ones coming to an unwelcome landing with him, knocking into his ribs and shoulders.
Aragorn rolled onto his side, gasping for breath, his ears ringing as more and more updrafts exploded from the earth.
"Gandalf," he cried, seeing the wizard fall to the ground close by. Was this what he'd been thinking he couldn't tell Aragorn? Why had he wanted to keep something like this to himself?
Gandalf looked at Aragorn, opening his mouth as if to speak, but the rocks beneath him destabilized, and he was forced to roll out of the way.
"Gandalf!" Frodo's higher voice could be heard behind Aragorn from the other side, and the halfling soon came into view, hurrying shakily towards him.
"Frodo, no!" Gandalf cried, holding out his hand from the ground, in warning.
The updraft the wizard had avoided wasn't finished. Just as Frodo faltered with Gandalf's action, the wind gave a renewed burst, throwing Frodo up but not back, then sending him falling, but not back down onto the ground. Aragorn brushed flecks of dirt and stone from his watering eyes with one hand as he saw Frodo's body knock clumsily against the side of the hole the updraft had made in the ground, before falling out of sight, into it.
Crying out in wordless alarm, Aragorn scrambled to his feet and ran to the hole's edge. Nothing was visible but the thin trails of dirt that were now able to fall downwards, as the wind had stopped in this hole. Aragorn leaned forward carefully, squinting to see better but trying not to fall in himself as the rocks behind him dislodged, and he was thrown head over heels into darkness.
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Frodo didn't yell when he realized that he was falling. True, he was scared out of his wits, but he didn't find himself wishing to yell now. Yelling never seemed to do any good, he was slowly finding out. He looked up, trying to determine which fast-shrinking grey patch above him was the night sky, and which other ones were rocks. He found the difference impossible to tell.
Suddenly, he felt a startling dig as collar of his cloak came up against his throat. With a gasp of surprise and alarm, he spotted a large, rocky protrusion sticking out over his head, and the mid-body of the fabric of his cloak snagged on it. There was a confusing sound, which Frodo realized was tearing, and he reached up, kicking out with his legs, snatching the rock's sides quickly. Pulling himself up a bit, he unhooked his disfigured cloak, trying to find a better position to be in.
Just then, another muffled explosion sounded over Frodo's head. The lumpy walls of Frodo's new environment shuddered, and a few rocks came pounding down the main route. Frodo looked worriedly up, trying to find which spot the rocks were falling from. He couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like the one in the center.
"I should try to get back up there," Frodo thought, looking down now, and placing his feet as securely as he could in the wall. Though it was probably safer for him down here, he knew his friends were still in trouble, and even if he couldn't stop what was happening, he wouldn't think of himself first. He lifted himself a few inches up, looking up to find the spot again, when there was another explosion, and what little light there was was blocked out. Frodo heard Aragorn's familiar cry, and reached out without thinking, completely letting go of the wall, and falling after the man's dark figure.
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Aragorn pulled himself up onto the bank completely, his hair dripping into his eyes. He hadn't expected to find water down here, though he imagined it wasn't particularly clean water, and he gauged that he was very far down. He looked up, seeing the long hole leading up to the dark blue night. He stood, looking away from it, to the other side of the bank. Perhaps Frodo had come out on that side. His eyes roved about in the dimness.
"Frodo…" he said softly, thinking that shouting might not be sound here. "Frodo…"
Just then, there was a rumbling noise like an updraft nearby but not there directly, and the light source above began to flicker. The rumbling continued and grew louder, and Aragorn stumbled back as the rocks came down, filling the center of the river and, consequently, the hole. He was now in total darkness.
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After he let go, Frodo barely had time to register his mistake, before something far more terrifying than the first fall happened. Frodo's whole body felt frozen as he was plunged into deep water.
If there was no light above water, there was truly none under the water. Frodo opened his eyes against the cold water, but it was as if the sea had turned black. He could see nothing, he could hear nothing. He felt nothing but the cold, and the skittering bubbles of his breath. Looking about blindly, Frodo thrust his arms back, pushing himself upwards.
Just as the faint shape of the far-off opening became visible again, Frodo both heard and felt an explosion that made the waters quake. Rocks came flying down again, striking the water, striking Frodo, pinning him beneath the surface.
***End of Part 1***
