A/N: I own Silverhooves. Maybe after I'm done using her to make fun of 'Sues, I'll release her from the Suvian spell that keeps her kind alive in M-E and give her a new name. But then again, I'm more of a dragon person, so maybe I'll give her to a nice reviewer who promises to take very good care of her as a gift . . .
And I own Tina too.
Chapter 12:
There is no way I'm riding THAT!
Tina screamed and threw herself on the ground, narrowly avoiding Gimli's axe. She scrambled to the side and yanked her leg out of the way just as Anduril pierced the ground where her thigh had previously been. The characters were weaving slightly at the shock of having been snapped back into canon so suddenly, and thus had not quite recovered their full proper skills. Tina was lucky; if it had not been thus, she would have died immediately.
Legolas was aiming an arrow, but with all the flailing around Tina, Aragorn, and Gimli were doing he couldn't risk a shot. Tina rolled over to avoid another swipe of Gimli's axe, right into something hard. Quick as lighting, a strong arm wrapped painfully around her neck, and a sword was pressed up against her jugular. In her haste to get away, she had rolled directly into Aragorn.
Tina stared up into the face of the Ranger, eyes wide with horror and her voice cut off by the powerful arm painfully constricting her neck. She attempted to scream, but all that came out was a breathy, lifeless squeak. The arm around her neck tightened and she gagged. She struggled wildly, but Tina was no proper Mary Sue, and against Aragorn's strength she had no power. Aragorn pulled her arms behind her and arched her back so that her vulnerable chest was an easy target, and Tina stared in horror as above her Legolas pulled an arrow back and aimed it directly at her heart.
Time slowed down.
Tina could hear her heart beating frantically against her ribcage, as if it were trying to escape and avoid the arrow that was going to pierce it in a fraction of a second. Tina's life began to flash before her eyes, and had she not been close enough to death to shake it's hand and ask it if it wanted a cup of tea, she would have probably marveled that such a phenomenon really did happen. She saw herself playing with her sister when they were both very young, saw herself receiving The Hobbit for Christmas, saw herself drinking her first cup of coffee. She saw the picture her parents had insisted on having taken last Christmas, with all of her family together. Her mother, a lawyer, a sharp, intelligent woman, the family breadwinner, her arm around the waist of Tina's father, a journalist with a talent for satire. Her preppy sister, grinning with pride in her new short skirt and high heels, her perfect brother, smiling his perfect smile, and in the very center, her - Tina, not Mary Sue, not Alinagawathawen, Tina. The middle child, the misfit, the family weirdo who, nevertheless, was loved by the smiling family standing around her.
She would probably never see them again.
Her pulse thudded in her ears. Legolas began to release his hold on the arrow. Tina squinted her eyes shut. She would die as Mary Sue, in a world that wasn't her own, away from the people who loved her the most, and no one would ever know what had happened to her. She didn't want to see her own end.
Legolas let go.
Suddenly the ground shook madly, and the arrow was diverted harmlessly off to the side, where it bounced off a rock and landed in the grass. The Hunters were thrown through the air and Aragorn released his hold on Tina, who threw herself away and tumbled across the rolling ground. The loud rumble of the second canon ripple slowly died away, and Tina lay on the ground as it stilled it's erratic waves. She was hyperventilating, gasping for air, her heart racing. Her lower lip quivered, and tears of shock at her brush with death threatened to spill over her flawless cheeks. Nevertheless, the screaming pain in her ankle, the wild beating of her heart, and the feel of the blessed, solid ground reminded her of one divine fact;
She was alive.
But for how long?
Slowly she peered behind her at the dazed Hunters, slowly rising to their feet. Legolas spotted her and started to move in her direction, and Tina froze like a deer in headlights. He was holding an arrow. When he was three feet away from her, he stopped, staring at her, and Tina stared back . . .
Into glassy blue eyes.
"Mary Sue? Why are you laying on the ground?" Legolas asked, and Tina sighed with audible relief. Just this once, she'd abandon her horror at seeing Legolas influenced by a Mary Sue author in the face of her undeniable relief at still being alive.
Then the rumbling started up again.
"No!" Tina screamed, before she realized that the pounding in her ears was not from a continued canon ripple, but from the sound of hundreds of horse hooves.
"Rohirrim!" she cried.
"What?" Legolas asked politely.
"Hide!" Aragorn shouted, springing up and rushing into a space formed between two rocks. Legolas hoisted Tina over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried her after Aragorn. Tina objected loudly to the uncomfortable treatment, but no one heard her. Instead Aragorn sauntered out, watched as the Riders went past, raised a dirty hand to his mouth and called;
"Rohans!"
"ROHIRRIM!" Tina shrieked. Near brush with death or not, mis-naming the Rohirrim should not go uncorrected.
Instantly the riders checked their steeds and circled the Hunters and 'Sue. Aragorn beckoned Legolas and Gimli out, and Tina clung to Legolas' back in order to keep her weight off her ankle as the Riders closed in. The Rohirrim lowered their spears to the four, and parted slightly to make way for a Rider coming towards them. Tina gulped noisily and stared at the rider, eyes wide, all her thoughts consumed by a single, overpowering, undeniable fact:
Éomer was really, really, REALLY hot.
"What business do Elves, Men, and Dwarves have in the Rider Mark? Speak quickly!"
"We track a band -" Aragorn started to say, but Éomer suddenly gasped loudly.
"I don't believe it!" he said as he jumped off his horse. To Tina's horror, he grabbed her hand, pushed Legolas aside, and cried "Mary Sue!"
With a squawk Tina collapsed onto her bad ankle as her Elvish support was pushed away.
"See here!" Gimli growled, advancing upon Éomer. "Mary Sue is with us!"
'Since when has he defended me in this 'fic?' Tina wondered, knitting her brows. Éomer glared at the Dwarf.
"I would cut off your head if you were taller, Dwarf!" he snarled, and Tina twitched.
"You would die before he fell!" Legolas shouted, aiming an arrow at Éomer.
"Are the lines really THAT HARD to get right?!" Tina shouted from the ground. "ARE THEY? And you're supposed to be fighting over Galadriel! GA-LA-DRI-EL! Darn you, Peter Jackson!"
"Mary Sue! Where have you been?" Éomer cried suddenly, remembering that Tina was on the ground. He stooped to her eye level.
"Somewhere that's not here," Tina said, trying to ignore Éomer's smashing ruggedness. "Go 'way."
To her surprise, Éomer suddenly embraced her.
-Ayomer wrapped his arms around Alinagawathawen in a friendly hug . . .-
'Friendly my arse!' Tina thought, pushing the Rohirric man away.
"You know this man?" Legolas asked, glaring suspiciously at Éomer.
-"Yes he was like a brother to me" said Alinagwathawen "I grew up with him and his sister in Rohan, their father king Thaoden raised me . . ."-
"Ye gods!" Tina yelped angrily at discovering another element of her Suvian past.
"Father worried so about you when you left!" Éomer babbled on. "He will be so glad to know you have returned! And with the Fellowship of the Ring, no less!"
Éomer, suddenly all too willing to receive the Three Hunters, rose and smiled at them. Tina looked around for something hard to bash her head against and dull the pain.
"You're not supposed to KNOW THEM YET!" she shrieked. "You're supposed to wait until they ask if you've seen hobbits, and then you're -"
She stopped suddenly. What was she doing?
Well, she answered herself, I'm trying to un-Sue him, of course.
Ah, said a little voice that was not the Author in the back of her head, But remember what happened last time you tried to un-Sue a character?
Tina paused in sudden doubt, remembering the horror and fury in the eyes of the Hunters once they were released from Suedom. If she freed the characters, she ran the risk of being killed. But she couldn't sit back and let them be 'Sued, nor could she play along with the story; the things the Author wanted her to do were quite beyond her abilities and rather hazardous to her health (and, at times, dignity).
Well this was a tight spot indeed.
While Tina pondered the perils of reviving the wits of the canon characters, Éomer had called forth horses for the hunters. Instantly Aragorn and Legolas both looked at Tina, who stared at them out of the corner of her eyes.
"I'm not riding with you." she said to Aragorn. Legolas visibly brightened. "Or you," she added to him. "How about giving me a horse?" she asked Éomer, quite willing to just this once break canon and take a third horse off his hands. Éomer looked at her quizzically.
He looked really hot when he was quizzical.
"Why? You can just call your own steed," he said, and Tina blinked.
"Are you nuts?" she asked. "What am I, a horse caller?"
"You have a steed?" Legolas asked.
-'Yes,' said Alinagawathawen 'I did not call her bcause it was notf air of me to ride when you were all on foot . . .'-
Tina promptly rolled her eyes and tried to stand. A sudden pain in her ankle reminded her that although she had conveniently forgotten it, she was injured.
"I can't ride anyway," she said. "My ankle is busted." She herself had no idea as to a remedy to this situation, and she was beginning to worry.
"But that is no problem for your Silverhooves!" Éomer exclaimed, chuckling.
"Silver . . . excuse me, Silverhooves?" Tina retched. "What kind of an Erudamned name is Silverhooves? Who in their right mind would name a horse Silverhooves?" That was an even worse name than Alinagawathawen!
"But Silverhooves is no horse!" Éomer said, looking surprised.
"Oh," Tina scoffed. "What is she then? A rabid penguin? A pink fluffy bunny? A winged freakin' unicorn?"
-Alinagwathawn stod and whistled and-
'Nothing doing,' Tina thought. "Stupid Author can kiss my arse."
But of course, the Author had no intention of doing so. Instead, S/he/it parted the Rohirrim. Tina looked past them warily.
Over a conveniently placed hill came a shining creature, a bright, clean white that would have made snow look gray, had there been any snow to compare it to. It drew closer, and it's light slowly dimmed. It stopped in front of Tina, and she stared at its powerful alabaster flanks, its long legs and silvery hooves, its long, ornately curled mane and tail, it's liquid blue eyes, and - Tina drew breath - the long, winding golden horn twining from it's forehead.
"That is Silverhooves?" Legolas breathed, gazing raptly at the shining, uncanonical unicorn. "She is beautiful . . ."
Tina only glowered at the creature's dull, glassy eyes and the sheer uncanon of it all.
"There is no way I'm riding that!"
And I own Tina too.
Chapter 12:
There is no way I'm riding THAT!
Tina screamed and threw herself on the ground, narrowly avoiding Gimli's axe. She scrambled to the side and yanked her leg out of the way just as Anduril pierced the ground where her thigh had previously been. The characters were weaving slightly at the shock of having been snapped back into canon so suddenly, and thus had not quite recovered their full proper skills. Tina was lucky; if it had not been thus, she would have died immediately.
Legolas was aiming an arrow, but with all the flailing around Tina, Aragorn, and Gimli were doing he couldn't risk a shot. Tina rolled over to avoid another swipe of Gimli's axe, right into something hard. Quick as lighting, a strong arm wrapped painfully around her neck, and a sword was pressed up against her jugular. In her haste to get away, she had rolled directly into Aragorn.
Tina stared up into the face of the Ranger, eyes wide with horror and her voice cut off by the powerful arm painfully constricting her neck. She attempted to scream, but all that came out was a breathy, lifeless squeak. The arm around her neck tightened and she gagged. She struggled wildly, but Tina was no proper Mary Sue, and against Aragorn's strength she had no power. Aragorn pulled her arms behind her and arched her back so that her vulnerable chest was an easy target, and Tina stared in horror as above her Legolas pulled an arrow back and aimed it directly at her heart.
Time slowed down.
Tina could hear her heart beating frantically against her ribcage, as if it were trying to escape and avoid the arrow that was going to pierce it in a fraction of a second. Tina's life began to flash before her eyes, and had she not been close enough to death to shake it's hand and ask it if it wanted a cup of tea, she would have probably marveled that such a phenomenon really did happen. She saw herself playing with her sister when they were both very young, saw herself receiving The Hobbit for Christmas, saw herself drinking her first cup of coffee. She saw the picture her parents had insisted on having taken last Christmas, with all of her family together. Her mother, a lawyer, a sharp, intelligent woman, the family breadwinner, her arm around the waist of Tina's father, a journalist with a talent for satire. Her preppy sister, grinning with pride in her new short skirt and high heels, her perfect brother, smiling his perfect smile, and in the very center, her - Tina, not Mary Sue, not Alinagawathawen, Tina. The middle child, the misfit, the family weirdo who, nevertheless, was loved by the smiling family standing around her.
She would probably never see them again.
Her pulse thudded in her ears. Legolas began to release his hold on the arrow. Tina squinted her eyes shut. She would die as Mary Sue, in a world that wasn't her own, away from the people who loved her the most, and no one would ever know what had happened to her. She didn't want to see her own end.
Legolas let go.
Suddenly the ground shook madly, and the arrow was diverted harmlessly off to the side, where it bounced off a rock and landed in the grass. The Hunters were thrown through the air and Aragorn released his hold on Tina, who threw herself away and tumbled across the rolling ground. The loud rumble of the second canon ripple slowly died away, and Tina lay on the ground as it stilled it's erratic waves. She was hyperventilating, gasping for air, her heart racing. Her lower lip quivered, and tears of shock at her brush with death threatened to spill over her flawless cheeks. Nevertheless, the screaming pain in her ankle, the wild beating of her heart, and the feel of the blessed, solid ground reminded her of one divine fact;
She was alive.
But for how long?
Slowly she peered behind her at the dazed Hunters, slowly rising to their feet. Legolas spotted her and started to move in her direction, and Tina froze like a deer in headlights. He was holding an arrow. When he was three feet away from her, he stopped, staring at her, and Tina stared back . . .
Into glassy blue eyes.
"Mary Sue? Why are you laying on the ground?" Legolas asked, and Tina sighed with audible relief. Just this once, she'd abandon her horror at seeing Legolas influenced by a Mary Sue author in the face of her undeniable relief at still being alive.
Then the rumbling started up again.
"No!" Tina screamed, before she realized that the pounding in her ears was not from a continued canon ripple, but from the sound of hundreds of horse hooves.
"Rohirrim!" she cried.
"What?" Legolas asked politely.
"Hide!" Aragorn shouted, springing up and rushing into a space formed between two rocks. Legolas hoisted Tina over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried her after Aragorn. Tina objected loudly to the uncomfortable treatment, but no one heard her. Instead Aragorn sauntered out, watched as the Riders went past, raised a dirty hand to his mouth and called;
"Rohans!"
"ROHIRRIM!" Tina shrieked. Near brush with death or not, mis-naming the Rohirrim should not go uncorrected.
Instantly the riders checked their steeds and circled the Hunters and 'Sue. Aragorn beckoned Legolas and Gimli out, and Tina clung to Legolas' back in order to keep her weight off her ankle as the Riders closed in. The Rohirrim lowered their spears to the four, and parted slightly to make way for a Rider coming towards them. Tina gulped noisily and stared at the rider, eyes wide, all her thoughts consumed by a single, overpowering, undeniable fact:
Éomer was really, really, REALLY hot.
"What business do Elves, Men, and Dwarves have in the Rider Mark? Speak quickly!"
"We track a band -" Aragorn started to say, but Éomer suddenly gasped loudly.
"I don't believe it!" he said as he jumped off his horse. To Tina's horror, he grabbed her hand, pushed Legolas aside, and cried "Mary Sue!"
With a squawk Tina collapsed onto her bad ankle as her Elvish support was pushed away.
"See here!" Gimli growled, advancing upon Éomer. "Mary Sue is with us!"
'Since when has he defended me in this 'fic?' Tina wondered, knitting her brows. Éomer glared at the Dwarf.
"I would cut off your head if you were taller, Dwarf!" he snarled, and Tina twitched.
"You would die before he fell!" Legolas shouted, aiming an arrow at Éomer.
"Are the lines really THAT HARD to get right?!" Tina shouted from the ground. "ARE THEY? And you're supposed to be fighting over Galadriel! GA-LA-DRI-EL! Darn you, Peter Jackson!"
"Mary Sue! Where have you been?" Éomer cried suddenly, remembering that Tina was on the ground. He stooped to her eye level.
"Somewhere that's not here," Tina said, trying to ignore Éomer's smashing ruggedness. "Go 'way."
To her surprise, Éomer suddenly embraced her.
-Ayomer wrapped his arms around Alinagawathawen in a friendly hug . . .-
'Friendly my arse!' Tina thought, pushing the Rohirric man away.
"You know this man?" Legolas asked, glaring suspiciously at Éomer.
-"Yes he was like a brother to me" said Alinagwathawen "I grew up with him and his sister in Rohan, their father king Thaoden raised me . . ."-
"Ye gods!" Tina yelped angrily at discovering another element of her Suvian past.
"Father worried so about you when you left!" Éomer babbled on. "He will be so glad to know you have returned! And with the Fellowship of the Ring, no less!"
Éomer, suddenly all too willing to receive the Three Hunters, rose and smiled at them. Tina looked around for something hard to bash her head against and dull the pain.
"You're not supposed to KNOW THEM YET!" she shrieked. "You're supposed to wait until they ask if you've seen hobbits, and then you're -"
She stopped suddenly. What was she doing?
Well, she answered herself, I'm trying to un-Sue him, of course.
Ah, said a little voice that was not the Author in the back of her head, But remember what happened last time you tried to un-Sue a character?
Tina paused in sudden doubt, remembering the horror and fury in the eyes of the Hunters once they were released from Suedom. If she freed the characters, she ran the risk of being killed. But she couldn't sit back and let them be 'Sued, nor could she play along with the story; the things the Author wanted her to do were quite beyond her abilities and rather hazardous to her health (and, at times, dignity).
Well this was a tight spot indeed.
While Tina pondered the perils of reviving the wits of the canon characters, Éomer had called forth horses for the hunters. Instantly Aragorn and Legolas both looked at Tina, who stared at them out of the corner of her eyes.
"I'm not riding with you." she said to Aragorn. Legolas visibly brightened. "Or you," she added to him. "How about giving me a horse?" she asked Éomer, quite willing to just this once break canon and take a third horse off his hands. Éomer looked at her quizzically.
He looked really hot when he was quizzical.
"Why? You can just call your own steed," he said, and Tina blinked.
"Are you nuts?" she asked. "What am I, a horse caller?"
"You have a steed?" Legolas asked.
-'Yes,' said Alinagawathawen 'I did not call her bcause it was notf air of me to ride when you were all on foot . . .'-
Tina promptly rolled her eyes and tried to stand. A sudden pain in her ankle reminded her that although she had conveniently forgotten it, she was injured.
"I can't ride anyway," she said. "My ankle is busted." She herself had no idea as to a remedy to this situation, and she was beginning to worry.
"But that is no problem for your Silverhooves!" Éomer exclaimed, chuckling.
"Silver . . . excuse me, Silverhooves?" Tina retched. "What kind of an Erudamned name is Silverhooves? Who in their right mind would name a horse Silverhooves?" That was an even worse name than Alinagawathawen!
"But Silverhooves is no horse!" Éomer said, looking surprised.
"Oh," Tina scoffed. "What is she then? A rabid penguin? A pink fluffy bunny? A winged freakin' unicorn?"
-Alinagwathawn stod and whistled and-
'Nothing doing,' Tina thought. "Stupid Author can kiss my arse."
But of course, the Author had no intention of doing so. Instead, S/he/it parted the Rohirrim. Tina looked past them warily.
Over a conveniently placed hill came a shining creature, a bright, clean white that would have made snow look gray, had there been any snow to compare it to. It drew closer, and it's light slowly dimmed. It stopped in front of Tina, and she stared at its powerful alabaster flanks, its long legs and silvery hooves, its long, ornately curled mane and tail, it's liquid blue eyes, and - Tina drew breath - the long, winding golden horn twining from it's forehead.
"That is Silverhooves?" Legolas breathed, gazing raptly at the shining, uncanonical unicorn. "She is beautiful . . ."
Tina only glowered at the creature's dull, glassy eyes and the sheer uncanon of it all.
"There is no way I'm riding that!"
