AN: Hi everyone! Thanks for all the reviews. It's always a pleasant
surprise when I get them. I'm still generally shocked that people are
actually reading this story of mine.
Lomiothiel: Sorry, if I confused you. I was in a really dancer mood when I wrote that chapter. I promise that chapter was probably the most dance intense chapter I have. I sometimes forget that not everyone knows about that kind of stuff, silly mistake on my part. Anyway, thanks for the review and I'll get around to explaining the transporting thing soon.
Lily: Thanks for the review and the compliment.
TitanicHobbit: Ballet is always a good time. Spiro, my ballet teacher, is going through this Billy Joel phase so we spent most of the class dancing to "Uptown Girl and "In the Middle of the Night." I'm glad you like the references to "A Knight's Tale." I'll try to improve the dialogue between the characters. The chapter titles are Italian because I took three years of it in high school and I really like the language. Thanks for the review and the compliment.
PixiePea000: Spiro, modest? Are we talking about the same princess/diva? Though he is more modest than the cow. By the by, GOLLUM!
*words*---indicate something being sung. (This time the song actually gets involved. I don't own the song either. It's "Kiss From a Rose" by Seal.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for a handful of made up characters. Tolkien thought up the concept and, as such, it belongs to him. I'm just playing in his world. I'm broke and in college. All I own are Pointe Shoes.
Emma didn't remember waking up the next morning. She recalled motion of some kind, possibly the motion of a horse, but little else. She wasn't aware of how much time had passed. It could have been minutes or hours or days. All she recalled was a blur of greens and blues and browns.
"What happened? Where are we?" she asked, a kind of sleepiness to her voice.
"We are just outside of our destination," Mac replied, still looking antsy.
Emma cracked her back and, upon getting up, asked "How long have we been riding?"
"Several hours by my account," Legolas replied, "You were asleep most of the time, though."
"I wasn't asleep the whole time. I was watching the world travel by and I think I got, what people back home call, highway hypnosis," she corrected.
Watching the elves search their packs for a few moments, she piped up, "What day is it?"
"It is the day after yesterday," Fire replied.
Emma, inwardly, groaned. That answer didn't give her the information she wanted.
"Ice, is there a stream or a spring near by?" Legolas called.
Ice looked up from her rummaging through her pack and thought for a moment.
"Aye, I think there is one just through those trees," she, finally, replied.
"Can you and your lovely sister take Emma to go get cleaned up?" Legolas suggested.
"We have to get cleaned up as well. Captain would be ill pleased if we came back looking like this," Ice replied, taking a ball of fabric from Legolas.
She called Fire, who had been deep in conversation with Goose, over and the three female elves made their way through the trees.
"Stick close, Emma," Ice ordered, adding a comment in elvish that Emma assumed was meant for her sister.
Fire came up behind Emma, moving from her place at her sister's side.
"So we do not lose you," she explained, some sarcasm seeping into her voice.
Ice just shook her head and continued to lead the others through the dense trees.
A short while later, the group reached a shallow stream.
"Wash up, Emma. You are in no shape to meet royalty," Fire said.
"Royalty?" Emma, simply, questioned.
"Your brother is taking you to meet the king and queen of the city we approach," Fire explained, trotting a few paces down stream.
"Put this on when you are ready," Ice added, handing Emma the bundle she had received from Legolas and trotting off after her sister.
Emma looked at the bundle she was holding. It appeared to be a ball of some type of fabric. Shaking out the bundle, Emma was surprised to see that she was holding a dress. The dress appeared to be cut long on the bottom but the sleeves were cut short. It was a simple dark green color, nothing fancy about it.
"Nice," she commented.
She began to wash up in the icy cold water, trying not to think about what could possible be living I the water. When she was a Girl Scout, the troop always boiled the water they got from streams, rivers, and lakes just in case any disease carrying organisms resided in it.
"It's too quiet here. I wonder where all the animals are," Emma mused as she began to get dressed.
The woods she had visited in her Girl Scout days were always full of noise. From the singing of the birds to the sounds of buzzing insects to the growling of bears, there was always noise no matter what time of day or night.
Brushing a wrinkle out of the dress, Emma noticed something watching her from the bushes across the water. At first, she thought it was some kind of small animal, like a fox or something to that effect. Creeping forward, finally noticing that she really didn't make a sound as she moved, she moved to get a better look at the animal.
It was then that the creature turned and ran, making a terrible sound as it did. Emma did much the same thing, turning and calling for help.
Ice and Fire, back in their familiar gray cloak, appeared on the bank next to Emma's clothing.
"What is wrong?" Fire asked, sounding rather annoyed.
Emma caught her breath and replied, "Something was watching me and, when I went to see what it was, it took off and made a really awful sound."
The sisters looked around, as if they were expecting the creature to return.
"Come; let us get back to camp. I do not think that these woods are safe," Ice announced, picking up Emma's clothing and handing them to the child.
"We heard yelling. What happened?" Goose asked, when the three female elves returned to the camp.
"Emma was startled by something in the woods," Fire quipped, pushing a wet braid off her shoulder.
"Really, little elf? Did you see it?" Legolas questioned.
Emma shook her head and replied, "It made some really terrible sounds, though."
"What kinds of sounds?" Legolas prompted, motioning for Mac and Goose to come over with their mounts.
Emma thought for a moment, trying her best to figure out how to best articulate the sounds the creature made. She cleared her throat and made an attempt at mimicking the creature's sounds.
Upon hearing Emma's impression, Legolas announced, "We make for the city. It is not safe out here."
Ice, Fire, Mac, and Goose mounted their horses in swift succession and began to fall into a formation of some type. Ice took point, being flanked by her sister on her right and Goose on her left. Mac brought up the rear guard.
With the four elven rangers on their steeds, Emma noticed that Legolas stood with two horses. One was Arod, his mount, and the dappled gray horse that had been stripped of all its baggage.
"Emma," Legolas, quickly, said, "you ride on your own into the city. This horse is yours."
"I don't know how to ride," Emma reminded Legolas, backing away from the horse.
Riding with her brother, an experienced rider was one thing but riding on her own was out of the question. She didn't even know where to begin, especially since the horse was bareback.
"Emma, please do not pose a problem right now. Time is of the essence. He will not hurt you," Legolas said, physically lifting Emma up and placing her on the horse.
"What am I suppose to do?" Emma called, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
Legolas whispered something to the horse and it moved behind Ice, next to Fire.
"Hang on," was all he replied.
Ice gave a command and the horses sped towards the city, Emma hanging off her mount's neck.
Taking a back route that only Ice knew, the elves managed to by-pass all the check points leading up to the highest level of the city.
When Emma finally looked up, she decided that they had reached a palace of some kind. The guards standing at the gate, wearing armor bearing some kind of tree and stars as well as strange helmets with wings, took one look at Legolas and waved them though.
"How come we didn't get stopped?" Emma asked, trying to get her horse to slow down but not totally stop.
A word in elvish from Goose slowed the horse for Emma.
"I am friends with the royal family. The guards know me well enough to let me through," Legolas explained.
"This is where the four of us take our leave. Farewell," Ice called.
She and her three friends rode down a small path and disappeared from sight. They were off to meet their captain and receive their new assignments.
Emma's horse followed Arod, stopping a few feet from the entrance to the palace proper.
"This place is huge. It's like a castle in a fairy tale," Emma commented.
Legolas laughed, smiling at his sister's comment. Looking around, he spied several guards coming from what ever duty they had been assigned. He called one of the guards, who unlike the others was wearing armor bearing some type of orange, blue and black symbol, over.
"Do you know if the king is in?" he asked.
The guard gave Legolas a puzzled look. A type of recognition passed over his face. It seemed he recognized Legolas at last.
"I assume so, Master Elf. Do you wish to speak with him?" the guard replied.
"I do. May I leave our horses with you?" he requested.
"I do not see why you cannot. I will see that they are stabled with Captain's horses. Is that acceptable?" the guard suggested.
"It is, Bass," Legolas replied, getting off his horse and lifting Emma off of hers, "A surprise awaits you when you go back to Captain."
"I'm sure you can go right it," Bass said, sketching a bow and leaving with the two horses.
"Is there anything I need to know while I'm here?" Emma asked in a hurried whisper.
She wasn't sure if there were rules or regulations that she was suppose to follow. Where she was from, meeting kings and queens was something you didn't do unless you were the President or some other high ranking government official.
"Do not speak unless you are spoken to or someone gives you leave to speak freely. You seem like you know how to mind your manners," Legolas replied.
He watched Emma nod nervously, attempting to gauge her age in elven years. The child only knew her age as if she was of the race of men and the images he had seen in the mirror did little to help him create a time frame of events.
Emma, meanwhile, was busy trying to take in all the sights and sounds around her. Somewhere in the distance a fountain gurgled and, to her, everything held some inherent beauty to it.
The two elves entered the building only to find themselves in a vast empty room.
"Where is everyone? I thought the guard said the king was supposed to be here," Emma asked, assuming that this vast room was the throne room.
"He is here. Just not in this room," Legolas, knowingly, replied.
He took Emma the length of the room, stopping in front of a side door just near the front of the room. He knocked three times, stopped, and knocked again. He must have done something correctly for someone replied in a very strange language.
"Let us go," Legolas said, taking Emma by the hand and leading her through the large wooden door.
Emma glanced around the smaller room. It was nicely decorated and seemed lived in. She understood why someone would rather be in this room than the cold, stony room she had just come from. At the front of the room sat two figures, a male and a female. Both wore crowns and regale looking robes. Emma could only assume that this couple was the king and queen Fire had alluded to.
Legolas bowed and Emma followed suit, falling into a deep curtsey and thanking every lucky star that she had been taught how to correctly execute one in her ballet classes.
The male dismissed the guards, who exited through the door Emma and Legolas had entered from.
"Prince Legolas, it is very good to see you," the man said, in a very formal sounding voice.
"Thank you, sir. I see that you and your wife are well," the Prince replied.
"Who is your friend?" the woman inquired.
Legolas was about to introduce Emma but decided to wait.
"Emma," he asked in a whisper, "would you like to dance for my friends?"
"I guess so," Emma replied, figuring it would be ride of her to say "no."
Legolas backed off, leaving Emma in the center of the room and utterly puzzling the king and queen.
Lomiothiel: Sorry, if I confused you. I was in a really dancer mood when I wrote that chapter. I promise that chapter was probably the most dance intense chapter I have. I sometimes forget that not everyone knows about that kind of stuff, silly mistake on my part. Anyway, thanks for the review and I'll get around to explaining the transporting thing soon.
Lily: Thanks for the review and the compliment.
TitanicHobbit: Ballet is always a good time. Spiro, my ballet teacher, is going through this Billy Joel phase so we spent most of the class dancing to "Uptown Girl and "In the Middle of the Night." I'm glad you like the references to "A Knight's Tale." I'll try to improve the dialogue between the characters. The chapter titles are Italian because I took three years of it in high school and I really like the language. Thanks for the review and the compliment.
PixiePea000: Spiro, modest? Are we talking about the same princess/diva? Though he is more modest than the cow. By the by, GOLLUM!
*words*---indicate something being sung. (This time the song actually gets involved. I don't own the song either. It's "Kiss From a Rose" by Seal.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for a handful of made up characters. Tolkien thought up the concept and, as such, it belongs to him. I'm just playing in his world. I'm broke and in college. All I own are Pointe Shoes.
Emma didn't remember waking up the next morning. She recalled motion of some kind, possibly the motion of a horse, but little else. She wasn't aware of how much time had passed. It could have been minutes or hours or days. All she recalled was a blur of greens and blues and browns.
"What happened? Where are we?" she asked, a kind of sleepiness to her voice.
"We are just outside of our destination," Mac replied, still looking antsy.
Emma cracked her back and, upon getting up, asked "How long have we been riding?"
"Several hours by my account," Legolas replied, "You were asleep most of the time, though."
"I wasn't asleep the whole time. I was watching the world travel by and I think I got, what people back home call, highway hypnosis," she corrected.
Watching the elves search their packs for a few moments, she piped up, "What day is it?"
"It is the day after yesterday," Fire replied.
Emma, inwardly, groaned. That answer didn't give her the information she wanted.
"Ice, is there a stream or a spring near by?" Legolas called.
Ice looked up from her rummaging through her pack and thought for a moment.
"Aye, I think there is one just through those trees," she, finally, replied.
"Can you and your lovely sister take Emma to go get cleaned up?" Legolas suggested.
"We have to get cleaned up as well. Captain would be ill pleased if we came back looking like this," Ice replied, taking a ball of fabric from Legolas.
She called Fire, who had been deep in conversation with Goose, over and the three female elves made their way through the trees.
"Stick close, Emma," Ice ordered, adding a comment in elvish that Emma assumed was meant for her sister.
Fire came up behind Emma, moving from her place at her sister's side.
"So we do not lose you," she explained, some sarcasm seeping into her voice.
Ice just shook her head and continued to lead the others through the dense trees.
A short while later, the group reached a shallow stream.
"Wash up, Emma. You are in no shape to meet royalty," Fire said.
"Royalty?" Emma, simply, questioned.
"Your brother is taking you to meet the king and queen of the city we approach," Fire explained, trotting a few paces down stream.
"Put this on when you are ready," Ice added, handing Emma the bundle she had received from Legolas and trotting off after her sister.
Emma looked at the bundle she was holding. It appeared to be a ball of some type of fabric. Shaking out the bundle, Emma was surprised to see that she was holding a dress. The dress appeared to be cut long on the bottom but the sleeves were cut short. It was a simple dark green color, nothing fancy about it.
"Nice," she commented.
She began to wash up in the icy cold water, trying not to think about what could possible be living I the water. When she was a Girl Scout, the troop always boiled the water they got from streams, rivers, and lakes just in case any disease carrying organisms resided in it.
"It's too quiet here. I wonder where all the animals are," Emma mused as she began to get dressed.
The woods she had visited in her Girl Scout days were always full of noise. From the singing of the birds to the sounds of buzzing insects to the growling of bears, there was always noise no matter what time of day or night.
Brushing a wrinkle out of the dress, Emma noticed something watching her from the bushes across the water. At first, she thought it was some kind of small animal, like a fox or something to that effect. Creeping forward, finally noticing that she really didn't make a sound as she moved, she moved to get a better look at the animal.
It was then that the creature turned and ran, making a terrible sound as it did. Emma did much the same thing, turning and calling for help.
Ice and Fire, back in their familiar gray cloak, appeared on the bank next to Emma's clothing.
"What is wrong?" Fire asked, sounding rather annoyed.
Emma caught her breath and replied, "Something was watching me and, when I went to see what it was, it took off and made a really awful sound."
The sisters looked around, as if they were expecting the creature to return.
"Come; let us get back to camp. I do not think that these woods are safe," Ice announced, picking up Emma's clothing and handing them to the child.
"We heard yelling. What happened?" Goose asked, when the three female elves returned to the camp.
"Emma was startled by something in the woods," Fire quipped, pushing a wet braid off her shoulder.
"Really, little elf? Did you see it?" Legolas questioned.
Emma shook her head and replied, "It made some really terrible sounds, though."
"What kinds of sounds?" Legolas prompted, motioning for Mac and Goose to come over with their mounts.
Emma thought for a moment, trying her best to figure out how to best articulate the sounds the creature made. She cleared her throat and made an attempt at mimicking the creature's sounds.
Upon hearing Emma's impression, Legolas announced, "We make for the city. It is not safe out here."
Ice, Fire, Mac, and Goose mounted their horses in swift succession and began to fall into a formation of some type. Ice took point, being flanked by her sister on her right and Goose on her left. Mac brought up the rear guard.
With the four elven rangers on their steeds, Emma noticed that Legolas stood with two horses. One was Arod, his mount, and the dappled gray horse that had been stripped of all its baggage.
"Emma," Legolas, quickly, said, "you ride on your own into the city. This horse is yours."
"I don't know how to ride," Emma reminded Legolas, backing away from the horse.
Riding with her brother, an experienced rider was one thing but riding on her own was out of the question. She didn't even know where to begin, especially since the horse was bareback.
"Emma, please do not pose a problem right now. Time is of the essence. He will not hurt you," Legolas said, physically lifting Emma up and placing her on the horse.
"What am I suppose to do?" Emma called, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
Legolas whispered something to the horse and it moved behind Ice, next to Fire.
"Hang on," was all he replied.
Ice gave a command and the horses sped towards the city, Emma hanging off her mount's neck.
Taking a back route that only Ice knew, the elves managed to by-pass all the check points leading up to the highest level of the city.
When Emma finally looked up, she decided that they had reached a palace of some kind. The guards standing at the gate, wearing armor bearing some kind of tree and stars as well as strange helmets with wings, took one look at Legolas and waved them though.
"How come we didn't get stopped?" Emma asked, trying to get her horse to slow down but not totally stop.
A word in elvish from Goose slowed the horse for Emma.
"I am friends with the royal family. The guards know me well enough to let me through," Legolas explained.
"This is where the four of us take our leave. Farewell," Ice called.
She and her three friends rode down a small path and disappeared from sight. They were off to meet their captain and receive their new assignments.
Emma's horse followed Arod, stopping a few feet from the entrance to the palace proper.
"This place is huge. It's like a castle in a fairy tale," Emma commented.
Legolas laughed, smiling at his sister's comment. Looking around, he spied several guards coming from what ever duty they had been assigned. He called one of the guards, who unlike the others was wearing armor bearing some type of orange, blue and black symbol, over.
"Do you know if the king is in?" he asked.
The guard gave Legolas a puzzled look. A type of recognition passed over his face. It seemed he recognized Legolas at last.
"I assume so, Master Elf. Do you wish to speak with him?" the guard replied.
"I do. May I leave our horses with you?" he requested.
"I do not see why you cannot. I will see that they are stabled with Captain's horses. Is that acceptable?" the guard suggested.
"It is, Bass," Legolas replied, getting off his horse and lifting Emma off of hers, "A surprise awaits you when you go back to Captain."
"I'm sure you can go right it," Bass said, sketching a bow and leaving with the two horses.
"Is there anything I need to know while I'm here?" Emma asked in a hurried whisper.
She wasn't sure if there were rules or regulations that she was suppose to follow. Where she was from, meeting kings and queens was something you didn't do unless you were the President or some other high ranking government official.
"Do not speak unless you are spoken to or someone gives you leave to speak freely. You seem like you know how to mind your manners," Legolas replied.
He watched Emma nod nervously, attempting to gauge her age in elven years. The child only knew her age as if she was of the race of men and the images he had seen in the mirror did little to help him create a time frame of events.
Emma, meanwhile, was busy trying to take in all the sights and sounds around her. Somewhere in the distance a fountain gurgled and, to her, everything held some inherent beauty to it.
The two elves entered the building only to find themselves in a vast empty room.
"Where is everyone? I thought the guard said the king was supposed to be here," Emma asked, assuming that this vast room was the throne room.
"He is here. Just not in this room," Legolas, knowingly, replied.
He took Emma the length of the room, stopping in front of a side door just near the front of the room. He knocked three times, stopped, and knocked again. He must have done something correctly for someone replied in a very strange language.
"Let us go," Legolas said, taking Emma by the hand and leading her through the large wooden door.
Emma glanced around the smaller room. It was nicely decorated and seemed lived in. She understood why someone would rather be in this room than the cold, stony room she had just come from. At the front of the room sat two figures, a male and a female. Both wore crowns and regale looking robes. Emma could only assume that this couple was the king and queen Fire had alluded to.
Legolas bowed and Emma followed suit, falling into a deep curtsey and thanking every lucky star that she had been taught how to correctly execute one in her ballet classes.
The male dismissed the guards, who exited through the door Emma and Legolas had entered from.
"Prince Legolas, it is very good to see you," the man said, in a very formal sounding voice.
"Thank you, sir. I see that you and your wife are well," the Prince replied.
"Who is your friend?" the woman inquired.
Legolas was about to introduce Emma but decided to wait.
"Emma," he asked in a whisper, "would you like to dance for my friends?"
"I guess so," Emma replied, figuring it would be ride of her to say "no."
Legolas backed off, leaving Emma in the center of the room and utterly puzzling the king and queen.