What Good This Deafness

by Leafy

Rating: PG-13 for scary imagery, violence, bad attitudes, and tense situations.

Disclaimer: I own nothing Tolkien or Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

For additional writer's schtuff, see the first chapter. :o)

Thanks for the nice reviews, everyone!

Star-Stallion: Chocolate, mmm ::takes chocolate, hands over next chapter:: . Thanks. Sorry for scaring you! This chapter may be a little more low-key. :o) I hope you like it. Thanks for the great review!

Mariana Nimeneth: Good luck with Lenablin. Try feeding those bunnies some cliffie-carrots. That's what Groak does. He's trying to grow some in the garden. It's not easy though, he has to water them fifty-seven times a day. It's keeping him away from the stories, but Baxter's helping me out now. He's been especially agreeable lately because Emblethor is building him a stable. Thanks for the compliments on the last chapter, hope you like this new one. :o)

Anarril: It's alright, and I'm sorry I haven't reviewed on WoW yet. I've been busy too, but I'll review ASAP. The vignettes are sort of jumping around in time, so I can see how it might get confusing. Never fear though, I shall explain it all in the end. :o) And in regard to your comment about two groups missing each other—ya got that right! :o) Thanks for the nice review, hope you like this chapter.     

*****************************

Chapter 4

'Strange Findings'

Boromir sat up, clasping the back of his head in his hand. This ledge proved more stable than the rocks he had just been climbing, but it, too was a rock.

"Are you alright?" Gimli roared over the side of the mountain, and Boromir looked up to see him coming down the wall on one of the spaces that hadn't been marred by his own descent.

"Yes," Boromir replied stiffly as Gimli's feet hit to ground of the ledge and he came to his side.

"Now you see how very helpful you were to me," Gimli said, in an attempt to cheer Boromir from his fall and perhaps stir him to his feet.

Boromir made a sound of recognition, pressing his hand to the back of his head briefly and bringing it around in front of his face. Seeing no blood, he rose, the pounding in his head not ebbing or increasing with the motion. He turned around, looking past Gimli over the side of this rather small stony balcony, seeing the side of the mountain that could be approached from here looked almost like a ladder in comparison to what they'd been dealing with thus far. He approached it, looking down, feeling slightly dizzy. He looked back at the rock's side to steady himself.

"Suppose we should take this passage," he said vaguely, turning to the dwarf who looked back at him with muted interest.

"It does seem easiest," Gimli nodded, striding up beside him. "I'll go first this time, though," he made an impressive jump the few feet it was from the edge of this plateau to the edge of the next one, then jumped down the next.

"Come," he shouted up to Boromir. "The sooner we climb, the sooner we'll be on the ground."

"And how grateful I shall be for that," Boromir thought to himself, the dizziness gone but the headache remaining as he sprang off the ledge he stood on, his arms outstretched.

**********

"Gimli!" Legolas cried, lunging forward the impossible distance between himself and the dwarf as the latter--who had been standing just a few paces to his side a moment ago--was thrown back by a violent, rippling wind, over the lip of stone on the mountain's edge and out of sight.

Legolas grabbed hold of the wall, looking over, seeing Gimli lying facedown on a ledge a distance below. The Elf's grip tightened on the wall as he prepared to swing himself over. Just then, there was another howl and Legolas felt the stone pulled out from under him.

Gimli disappeared from his sight as the Elf was thrown high in the air by one of the most powerful winds he had ever felt, whipping his hair around his face, blowing his cloak out above his head. He floundered in the air for a desperate moment, then slammed back against the ground. He rose in one swift motion, and the instant he was on his feet, another updraft erupted under him, throwing him just as high in the air again, and in the same direction, towards the other side of the mountain. He looked down, seeing the side of the mountain rush past him, and the lush tops of the trees blooming fast.

**********

Legolas landed on a sturdy branch near the top of the tree, in a sitting position. He got to his feet on the branch, walking carefully to stand against the trunk. He climbed this easily, his head and hands surfacing just over the topmost leaves. Hurriedly, he looked up, peering at the surprisingly elevated mountain top--if that was in fact what it was. It was the location only that made him believe it, as the appearance had changed drastically. There was no sight or sound of the updrafts left, no rocks flying, no winds erupting. And Legolas could not see anyone on top of the mountain. In fact, as he pulled himself higher and looked all around, there seemed to be no one around at all. There were no birds, no animals, and certainly no other people. Legolas pulled himself up the rest of the way, so that he was standing lightly on the topmost branches, and continued to stare at the mountaintop. How could things have changed so drastically, so quickly? Though the mountain seemed quite high, he didn't feel as if he had fallen for a long time, and certainly not longer enough for everyone to collect themselves and move on from there. If that was where they still were…

Legolas ducked back beneath the surface, sliding easily down the trunk, landing flat on his feet on the ground. He turned, looking up through the copious foliage at the mountain peak rising close by. He'd just have to go investigate.

He began moving briskly through the trees towards the stone base when suddenly he became aware of faint footsteps coming from behind him. Legolas ducked silently down into a close hedge, looking out from between the branches. The footsteps began to draw closer. He leaned forward slightly until he was in a crouch. They seemed to be emanating from the direction of the mountain. Was it friend or foe? Reason dictated that it had to be the former, but he remained poised on the branch, taking no chances.

Sure enough, a hobbit's silhouette came into view several paces away, looking this way and that somewhat despairingly. He was all alone.

"Samwise!" Legolas called softly, sliding nimbly out of his hiding place to stand before him. The hobbit jumped as he looked into his face.

"How in Middle-Earth did you get here?" he exclaimed, sounding happy somewhere but on the surface completely shocked.

"Luck, I suppose," the Elf answered. "But how did you get here?"

"I fell," Sam said grimly, looking up in the direction Legolas had just been surveying. "I hit a ledge, but it broke, and I fell the rest of the way into a ditch. I'm alright now, though."

Legolas nodded, looking the grimy hobbit up and down. Other than being covered with dirt and looking rather depressed, he seemed fine.

"What led you this way?" asked Legolas, looking about him again vaguely. "There's no one and nothing here."

"Isn't there?" Sam said sadly, looking through the trees. "I looked up back at the mountain and there was no one there, either, so I thought perhaps they'd come this way."

"Perhaps they are still up on the mountain," Legolas spoke up quickly, noting the hobbit's despondency. "We only know the wind has stopped."

"Maybe," said Sam, looking back. "Only if we're sure that there is no one here."

**********

After about twenty minutes of wandering around the strange forest--on Sam's insistence--fruitlessly searching for the others, Legolas led the way back to the mountain, rising ever more voluminously in front of them.

The way up proved easy. They came to the base right where Sam had fallen into his ditch, which was deep but not long, and they walked around it to a series of ledges that stacked upwards. At the sight of these, Legolas now recalled his last memory of Gimli, lying incapacitated on one of them. In an effort to ensure the hobbit's safety, Legolas climbed next to Sam the whole way up, examining with his eyes every shelf he passed. He saw nothing of the dwarf, or any of the others.

Finally, just as Sam was noticing how sore and scratched his arms were, the end was in sight. Legolas put on speed, swinging over the top and bringing his hands down for Sam to pull himself up on. He hoisted the hobbit over the wall, placing him on the ground. Sam looked up in bewilderment at the gaping hole in the ground near the center of the place.

"Supposing they fell--?" he blurted, running to the edge of the closest one as Legolas ran up next to him.

"They didn't," said Legolas, though he wasn't wholly sure about it. "If you and I…and Gimli were thrown over the side of the mountain, that's most probably the way they went. And if you and I fared alright, perhaps they did as well," he added, seeing Sam's despondent gaze shift back the way they'd come.

Sam looked on for a moment, then craned his neck, looking up at the standing Elf again.

"What do you mean, Gimli?" he asked.

"I saw him," Legolas looked over the mountain. "He fell onto a ledge, and before I could do a thing, I myself was thrown over the side."

"He fell on a ledge?" replied Sam, easily connecting it with what they'd just climbed up. "Over which side, can you tell?"

Legolas approached the mountain's edge, looking over the side as he moved along it. Surely, he could spot the same ledge. Indeed, why he hadn't thought to look--

Legolas let out an involuntary cry of alarm.

"What is it?" Sam ran forward, forgetting about the hole in the ground, stepping on the edge of one and dislodging the stones, making it crumble in on itself.

Legolas ran forward, pulling Sam out of the way. Sam shook him off, embarrassed and feeling quite useless, also now in possession of a foot with a large scrape on the side.

"Are you alright?" Legolas said.

"Yes," Sam replied, walking past him.

"It's alright," Legolas persisted as he followed him to the mountain's edge, from whence he had just run.

"What did you see?" Sam said, looking down the rocky wall, looking down the rocky wall in the same instant, and breaking off in his breath in astonishment.

"This is where he fell," Legolas said, looking down at the mauled side of the mountain and the pile of rocks that had gathered on the nearest ledge below them.

"He's--he's not there now, though," said Sam faintly as Legolas climbed over the wall again. "Wait, you're going down there?"

"We can't leave him, if he's there," Legolas replied, though the pile on the ledge was not large enough to cover even a dwarf, he knew. "He, and then perhaps the others, may be close by."

Sam frowned, but climbed up on the wall so that he was sitting on it, his feet dangling over the edge.

"Down we go," he said to himself, turning around.

Legolas landed softly on the small spur, crouching and examining the rocks there. He could tell that this was indeed the ledge he's last seen Gimli on, though the one who had left these rocks and that rut in the mountain weren't him. This had been done by someone heavier, a man. Aragorn? No, the whole fall had obviously been causing by a step on a weak stone, Aragorn would have known to be careful for that. It had to be Boromir…

Legolas swiveled on his heels, leaning gingerly over the outcrop, peering at the series of ledges below. Had they been together? And which way had they gone?

***End of Part 4***