Random Orcs, or We Fell to Middle Earth
Chapter Twenty-Two: Edging Into Oblivion
by Galadriel Tolkien
We traveled through forest, and then dank lands. I began storing everything up, centering my reserves deep, so that I would have them at need.
There was nothing left of me, then. My entire being spilled out for war, death and destruction. So much pain and darkness slithered in, pushing for release. For surcease.
And there was nothing I could do about it. All my months in this land, the travels I'd been on. They had worn me to the bone.
I was nothing but destruction. Even the cleansing spells set to cascade through Minas Morgul were tainted with death. Sleep helped, except the dreams didn't.
They followed me, chasing worse and worse images around my nights. As if every dark future were all that was left. And they ALL wanted me to wake the fuck up and smell the death. All I'd done, all I would do would be as a grain of sand against a supernova.
Something had gone wrong, somewhere.
It infuriated me. I'd let good people get injured, or die horribly. If I had destroyed the Witch-King myself--hell, if I had gone after Sauron in the beginning... But that had never been Fate's plan. Or Destiny's, though I wasn't sure who was in charge now.
As much as I'd fought and kicked and screamed, I still followed a set plan, a predestined path.
And it was still going wrong.
My dreams of Frodo and Sam showed them in danger again and again. What if I had gone with them? I could have saved them from such pain and privation. The quest should have been mine, the pain mine to absorb.
Instead, I fought armies and marched to the death of a world.
The armies of the men of the West marched on Mordor, bound for the plain in front of the gates in the Morannon. A plain they would never survive. Not unless everything went right. And my dreams were saying everything was fucked in the head.
"My lady?"
I jerked, Aragorn's voice startling me out of my increasingly depressing thoughts. I turned to him, away from the bleak view to the north. "Yes?"
He nodded, as if my pre-occupation had confirmed something. "You worry we will fail."
I looked away, eyes filling with images of the land around us burning. He waited, patient as the rock that held his people together. I sighed. "Yes."
"Many will not survive the coming battle."
"No. They won't."
"We may fail in our last hour and lose the war to save the world from an evil that has festered."
"Sauron has waited beyond comprehension for events to fall out in his favour," I said softly. "This turn of the wheel has become dark."
He nodded again. "You believe it will all go his way."
"I--" I stopped, mouth open. If I answered truly, I was giving in. Fate would triumph, smug in its mastery over this world. And me. I had dangled on its hook for far too long. There would be an ending. Anger flashed through me--at myself. I had bought it all, hook, line and sinker. "No."
Aragorn half-smiled at me. "Good."
I blinked. Recognising that he was treating me as one of his troops. I had needed something and he'd come over to help. "Thank you." I was really not used to being on the receiving end of that sort of thing.
He handed me an apple. "We'll be starting our march again shortly. Rest."
I watched him go, then, impressed despite myself. Aragorn was more than he had ever been. He was the King in deed as well as lineage.
::Oooh. Apple.::
Snorting, I glared towards where Alayna was tethered with the other mounts. ::Mine. Bitch.::
::What?::
::You could have *said* something.::
::But it's so fun to watch you squirm.::
I hehed. And bit into the apple. Juice spurted and tried to drip down my fingers. I caught it and licked the sweet liquid from my fingers.
--
We camped that night in a fairly sheltered section of the road, the army spreading out for nigh on a league to both ends. I curled by myself by one of the fires for a time. But I couldn't sleep. It wasn't a feeling of dread or even worry. But I was cold and suddenly lonely, aching for the comfort of another body. So I stood and made my way away from the warmth of my fire. I searched for a short time until I came upon Gandalf, standing at the northernmost edge of the camp, eyes watching the dark.
He was cold, and so I went to him, wrapping my arms around him from behind, vaguely irritated that the folds of his white garments were in my way. Under my hands his body went from marble to skin, and I smiled.
A soft chuckle rumbled through his chest and I butted my head at his shoulder, then relaxed. "No rest for the wicked?" He was mocking the both of us, I thought.
"Lonely," I replied.
"Ah."
For a time we stood there, he gazing out into the dark, eyes searching the shadows. I with my cheek against his back. We breathed in and out as one, content in our nearness. Until my knees began to protest the long standing.
"Come to bed, old man."
He turned in my arms, and I was struck by the utter exhaustion in his face. "Yes."
I kissed him, then stepped back. "The world will keep for a night, my love."
A sardonic eyebrow was raised at me, "Are we both so arrogant?"
"Probably."
He followed me, then, offering no more resistance. We lay by the fire, curling around each other like tired kittens, our cloaks sheltering us. I gave a contented sigh and fell down into the darkness of sleep.
And dreamt.
The camp again, the stars above it shimmering with a cold white light. I walked past the too-still bodies of my comrades and the troops of this army of madmen. Gandalf was standing where I'd found him before, back to me, white cape flowing gently in a cold wind.
Instinct tugged at me and I shrugged it off, wrapping my arms around him from behind again.
He said nothing, and I sighed. "Come to bed, old man."
The marble remained unmoving, and something made me look closer at the threads of his cloak. They were the colours of the rainbow, and my startled gasp made him laugh with madness.
I jerked away, but it was too late, and Saruman gazed at me, his hands closing around my throat. "Come now, Lady Rainbow, surely you appreciate all I have done for you."
"No." I tried to say it, but there was no breath left, nothing but a sick sense of urgency. I struggled, clawing at the hands and fingers locked around my throat. The world began spiraling, and my knees buckled. Dizzy, I fell, my knees impacting the earth with a suddenness that jerked us apart.
I smashed out towards wakefulness and came to with a gasp, sitting up and scrambling out of my warm coccoon. Gandalf was too far asleep to notice my movements and I pulled on my boots, instinctively grabbing my sword belt as I ran from our cozy spot to the edge of the camp.
There I lost the contents of my dinner, the utter horror and dread filling me with sickness. That I could have thought for an instant-- Saruman. I retched again, feeling tainted to have touched him, even if only in my dreams.
"My lady?"
Controlling myself, I straightened, staring up at the guardsman who was hovering near me, uncertain. "I'm fine. Just... Dinner didn't agree with me."
"Ah." But he looked uncertain.
I stood and buckled my swordbelt on, "I'll stay here with you for a time, just to make certain it's settled."
He nodded, apparently remembering sisters or a mother who had had a similar problem at some point. Perhaps the rumour would go around that I was pregnant. I was amused at the thought, but wouldn't mind.
We watched the night in silence, both lost in our thoughts. Eventually, the guard changed, and I continued to stare out, as Gandalf had.
I was watching the western flank, eyes seeing nothing, mind drifting. I would not be able to sleep again, and wasn't sure I wanted to. Dreams, nightmares... Nothing would be restful.
"My lady?"
The hesitant tones of the guard pulled me from myself and I looked at him, "Yes?"
He coughed, "I do not wish, that is--we will fall, won't we."
Not a question. I considered it, "Possibly. I believe... I think, that many will fall, many will die. But... To not fight against such evil as this land holds, that would be wrong. For your children and their children after them, I suspect we are doing the only thing we can."
Would that it would be enough.
But he nodded, as if what I had said confirmed something in his mind. "Exactly so, my lady. Exactly."
I turned abruptly, not wishing to garner another hero-worshipper. And something flickered in the corner of my eye, I was facing back, sword in my hand, breath freezing in my throat.
There was nothing there.
"My lady?"
The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I stiffened. "Wake the camp. Now."
"I don't--"
He never had a chance, the sword swinging silently from the darkness, slicing him in half even as I reacted, throat tearing as I screamed, "To arms, men of Gondor, to arms!"
Gandalf was awake an instant later. ::What--::
::Light. Now.:: I didn't have time for more, hands and arms already wet with the blood of whatever was attacking us as I fought to keep the camp from dissolving into the total chaos of slaughter.
Brilliant light, brighter than the sun shattered the night, and I could see our attackers fully for the first time.
They were beasts out of a nightmare, twisted, mishapen things that had no business even existing much less breathing my air and befouling this plane of existence. With a cry that was more curse, I threw myself at them, sword and knife making quick work, slicing, tearing, kicking, and then I was out the other side of them. For a moment, I paused.
Something about these creatures was familiar, they were patchworks. A piece of this, a piece of that, as if some deranged scientist had melded lions to giraffes, then patched on a bit of rhinocerous, and a lot of lizard. And opposable thumbs. The hands were almost delicate, but strong in a sinewy way.
I shoved that to the side, and turned back, cleaving deeply, nearly slipping on the viscera beneath my feet. The men of Gondor fought as well, brave despite their rude awakening and the strangeness of their foes.
And suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, it was over, the last few of the creatures screaming as they died, their cries causing my skin to crawl as I drove the blade of my sword home for the last time.
The adrenaline surge that had sustained me until then began fading and I staggered as I stepped back into camp.
"Marya!" Pippin was there, concern in his eyes. "You're hurt!"
"No." I tried to smile, "Just tired, my friend."
Aragorn came towards us, "My lady, many thanks. Without your alarm, they would have had us."
And without my dragging Gandalf to bed, he would have been awake to deal with them. I remembered the young guardsman and felt suddenly sickened. He had died because I was lonely. Something in my eyes must have caught Gandalf's attention, because he touched my arm. "This is not your fault."
"Isn't it?" Bitterness tinged my tone, and I fought it, suddenly tired of feeling sorry for myself.
"No."
"Lord Gandalf, does this mean the Dark Lord has found us?" It was one of the other commanders, Prince Imrahil, possibly, I thought.
"I do not--"
"No." I interrupted him. "It doesn't." I moved, kneeling over the body of one of the creatures, and came up with a small medallion.
"Saruman." Aragorn hissed.
"Yes." I waved a hand, "He was taken with experimentation, I see. First the Uruk-Hai, now these." I studied them, feeling sad. "This was probably his last-ditch attempt to put himself back in you-know-who's graces."
"But," said Lord Feanor; a tall man, his dark hair plaited neatly from his face, his beard diagonally sliced as if someone had tried to shave him with an axe. "Does this not mean that the Dark Lord knows our whereabouts?"
I laughed, the sound not even remotely amused. "I suspect *he's* known where we are since before we left Minas Tirith. Don't fool yourself, gentlemen. Dr. Evil won't kill us until he's good and ready. Sitting ducks on the Dagorlad are much preferable to moving ferrets under his mountains."
Chapter Twenty-Two: Edging Into Oblivion
by Galadriel Tolkien
We traveled through forest, and then dank lands. I began storing everything up, centering my reserves deep, so that I would have them at need.
There was nothing left of me, then. My entire being spilled out for war, death and destruction. So much pain and darkness slithered in, pushing for release. For surcease.
And there was nothing I could do about it. All my months in this land, the travels I'd been on. They had worn me to the bone.
I was nothing but destruction. Even the cleansing spells set to cascade through Minas Morgul were tainted with death. Sleep helped, except the dreams didn't.
They followed me, chasing worse and worse images around my nights. As if every dark future were all that was left. And they ALL wanted me to wake the fuck up and smell the death. All I'd done, all I would do would be as a grain of sand against a supernova.
Something had gone wrong, somewhere.
It infuriated me. I'd let good people get injured, or die horribly. If I had destroyed the Witch-King myself--hell, if I had gone after Sauron in the beginning... But that had never been Fate's plan. Or Destiny's, though I wasn't sure who was in charge now.
As much as I'd fought and kicked and screamed, I still followed a set plan, a predestined path.
And it was still going wrong.
My dreams of Frodo and Sam showed them in danger again and again. What if I had gone with them? I could have saved them from such pain and privation. The quest should have been mine, the pain mine to absorb.
Instead, I fought armies and marched to the death of a world.
The armies of the men of the West marched on Mordor, bound for the plain in front of the gates in the Morannon. A plain they would never survive. Not unless everything went right. And my dreams were saying everything was fucked in the head.
"My lady?"
I jerked, Aragorn's voice startling me out of my increasingly depressing thoughts. I turned to him, away from the bleak view to the north. "Yes?"
He nodded, as if my pre-occupation had confirmed something. "You worry we will fail."
I looked away, eyes filling with images of the land around us burning. He waited, patient as the rock that held his people together. I sighed. "Yes."
"Many will not survive the coming battle."
"No. They won't."
"We may fail in our last hour and lose the war to save the world from an evil that has festered."
"Sauron has waited beyond comprehension for events to fall out in his favour," I said softly. "This turn of the wheel has become dark."
He nodded again. "You believe it will all go his way."
"I--" I stopped, mouth open. If I answered truly, I was giving in. Fate would triumph, smug in its mastery over this world. And me. I had dangled on its hook for far too long. There would be an ending. Anger flashed through me--at myself. I had bought it all, hook, line and sinker. "No."
Aragorn half-smiled at me. "Good."
I blinked. Recognising that he was treating me as one of his troops. I had needed something and he'd come over to help. "Thank you." I was really not used to being on the receiving end of that sort of thing.
He handed me an apple. "We'll be starting our march again shortly. Rest."
I watched him go, then, impressed despite myself. Aragorn was more than he had ever been. He was the King in deed as well as lineage.
::Oooh. Apple.::
Snorting, I glared towards where Alayna was tethered with the other mounts. ::Mine. Bitch.::
::What?::
::You could have *said* something.::
::But it's so fun to watch you squirm.::
I hehed. And bit into the apple. Juice spurted and tried to drip down my fingers. I caught it and licked the sweet liquid from my fingers.
--
We camped that night in a fairly sheltered section of the road, the army spreading out for nigh on a league to both ends. I curled by myself by one of the fires for a time. But I couldn't sleep. It wasn't a feeling of dread or even worry. But I was cold and suddenly lonely, aching for the comfort of another body. So I stood and made my way away from the warmth of my fire. I searched for a short time until I came upon Gandalf, standing at the northernmost edge of the camp, eyes watching the dark.
He was cold, and so I went to him, wrapping my arms around him from behind, vaguely irritated that the folds of his white garments were in my way. Under my hands his body went from marble to skin, and I smiled.
A soft chuckle rumbled through his chest and I butted my head at his shoulder, then relaxed. "No rest for the wicked?" He was mocking the both of us, I thought.
"Lonely," I replied.
"Ah."
For a time we stood there, he gazing out into the dark, eyes searching the shadows. I with my cheek against his back. We breathed in and out as one, content in our nearness. Until my knees began to protest the long standing.
"Come to bed, old man."
He turned in my arms, and I was struck by the utter exhaustion in his face. "Yes."
I kissed him, then stepped back. "The world will keep for a night, my love."
A sardonic eyebrow was raised at me, "Are we both so arrogant?"
"Probably."
He followed me, then, offering no more resistance. We lay by the fire, curling around each other like tired kittens, our cloaks sheltering us. I gave a contented sigh and fell down into the darkness of sleep.
And dreamt.
The camp again, the stars above it shimmering with a cold white light. I walked past the too-still bodies of my comrades and the troops of this army of madmen. Gandalf was standing where I'd found him before, back to me, white cape flowing gently in a cold wind.
Instinct tugged at me and I shrugged it off, wrapping my arms around him from behind again.
He said nothing, and I sighed. "Come to bed, old man."
The marble remained unmoving, and something made me look closer at the threads of his cloak. They were the colours of the rainbow, and my startled gasp made him laugh with madness.
I jerked away, but it was too late, and Saruman gazed at me, his hands closing around my throat. "Come now, Lady Rainbow, surely you appreciate all I have done for you."
"No." I tried to say it, but there was no breath left, nothing but a sick sense of urgency. I struggled, clawing at the hands and fingers locked around my throat. The world began spiraling, and my knees buckled. Dizzy, I fell, my knees impacting the earth with a suddenness that jerked us apart.
I smashed out towards wakefulness and came to with a gasp, sitting up and scrambling out of my warm coccoon. Gandalf was too far asleep to notice my movements and I pulled on my boots, instinctively grabbing my sword belt as I ran from our cozy spot to the edge of the camp.
There I lost the contents of my dinner, the utter horror and dread filling me with sickness. That I could have thought for an instant-- Saruman. I retched again, feeling tainted to have touched him, even if only in my dreams.
"My lady?"
Controlling myself, I straightened, staring up at the guardsman who was hovering near me, uncertain. "I'm fine. Just... Dinner didn't agree with me."
"Ah." But he looked uncertain.
I stood and buckled my swordbelt on, "I'll stay here with you for a time, just to make certain it's settled."
He nodded, apparently remembering sisters or a mother who had had a similar problem at some point. Perhaps the rumour would go around that I was pregnant. I was amused at the thought, but wouldn't mind.
We watched the night in silence, both lost in our thoughts. Eventually, the guard changed, and I continued to stare out, as Gandalf had.
I was watching the western flank, eyes seeing nothing, mind drifting. I would not be able to sleep again, and wasn't sure I wanted to. Dreams, nightmares... Nothing would be restful.
"My lady?"
The hesitant tones of the guard pulled me from myself and I looked at him, "Yes?"
He coughed, "I do not wish, that is--we will fall, won't we."
Not a question. I considered it, "Possibly. I believe... I think, that many will fall, many will die. But... To not fight against such evil as this land holds, that would be wrong. For your children and their children after them, I suspect we are doing the only thing we can."
Would that it would be enough.
But he nodded, as if what I had said confirmed something in his mind. "Exactly so, my lady. Exactly."
I turned abruptly, not wishing to garner another hero-worshipper. And something flickered in the corner of my eye, I was facing back, sword in my hand, breath freezing in my throat.
There was nothing there.
"My lady?"
The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I stiffened. "Wake the camp. Now."
"I don't--"
He never had a chance, the sword swinging silently from the darkness, slicing him in half even as I reacted, throat tearing as I screamed, "To arms, men of Gondor, to arms!"
Gandalf was awake an instant later. ::What--::
::Light. Now.:: I didn't have time for more, hands and arms already wet with the blood of whatever was attacking us as I fought to keep the camp from dissolving into the total chaos of slaughter.
Brilliant light, brighter than the sun shattered the night, and I could see our attackers fully for the first time.
They were beasts out of a nightmare, twisted, mishapen things that had no business even existing much less breathing my air and befouling this plane of existence. With a cry that was more curse, I threw myself at them, sword and knife making quick work, slicing, tearing, kicking, and then I was out the other side of them. For a moment, I paused.
Something about these creatures was familiar, they were patchworks. A piece of this, a piece of that, as if some deranged scientist had melded lions to giraffes, then patched on a bit of rhinocerous, and a lot of lizard. And opposable thumbs. The hands were almost delicate, but strong in a sinewy way.
I shoved that to the side, and turned back, cleaving deeply, nearly slipping on the viscera beneath my feet. The men of Gondor fought as well, brave despite their rude awakening and the strangeness of their foes.
And suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, it was over, the last few of the creatures screaming as they died, their cries causing my skin to crawl as I drove the blade of my sword home for the last time.
The adrenaline surge that had sustained me until then began fading and I staggered as I stepped back into camp.
"Marya!" Pippin was there, concern in his eyes. "You're hurt!"
"No." I tried to smile, "Just tired, my friend."
Aragorn came towards us, "My lady, many thanks. Without your alarm, they would have had us."
And without my dragging Gandalf to bed, he would have been awake to deal with them. I remembered the young guardsman and felt suddenly sickened. He had died because I was lonely. Something in my eyes must have caught Gandalf's attention, because he touched my arm. "This is not your fault."
"Isn't it?" Bitterness tinged my tone, and I fought it, suddenly tired of feeling sorry for myself.
"No."
"Lord Gandalf, does this mean the Dark Lord has found us?" It was one of the other commanders, Prince Imrahil, possibly, I thought.
"I do not--"
"No." I interrupted him. "It doesn't." I moved, kneeling over the body of one of the creatures, and came up with a small medallion.
"Saruman." Aragorn hissed.
"Yes." I waved a hand, "He was taken with experimentation, I see. First the Uruk-Hai, now these." I studied them, feeling sad. "This was probably his last-ditch attempt to put himself back in you-know-who's graces."
"But," said Lord Feanor; a tall man, his dark hair plaited neatly from his face, his beard diagonally sliced as if someone had tried to shave him with an axe. "Does this not mean that the Dark Lord knows our whereabouts?"
I laughed, the sound not even remotely amused. "I suspect *he's* known where we are since before we left Minas Tirith. Don't fool yourself, gentlemen. Dr. Evil won't kill us until he's good and ready. Sitting ducks on the Dagorlad are much preferable to moving ferrets under his mountains."