Disclaimer: -mouse angel: Guess what I own
- mouse angel's friend (wait mouse angel has a friend, whoa): the
publishing rights to the Lord of the Rings
- mouse angel: yup
-mouse angel's friend: sweet, we're rich
-heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson: Yes we get to sue.
-mouse angel: no no I don't. I'll give them back. I really DON'T
OWN ANYTHING.
A/N: Hey I'm back *people run away screaming. Mouse angel: shut up*. Just got home from a three week vacation where I increased my potc viewings. I'm up to six. I also went to this ultra cool camp called Educo. We did rock climbing (real and fake) and high ropes and low ropes and canoeing and a five day backpacking trip into the BC mountains and we went tubing down a river. It was awesome. And they have a sauna and a sweat lodge and a lake to swim in and they have the BEST cook in the world. Her food is to die for.
Anywho, back to the chapter. I didn't exactly know what to call it so the title has very little to do with the chapter.
-April: I wanted to call it How the music box saved my life the first time.
-mouse angel: But I'm calling it Lessons
-April: I think I should get because I'm the main character.
-mouse angel: You're fictional. I'm the REAL narrator, so shut up. Lessons it is.
So whatever you wanna call it, it's here right now, so enjoy. R&R!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 9
I was awoke bright and early the next morning. Legolas had somehow been given the duty of waking me. I was half-awake before Legolas came over to me. I always tried to stay asleep or resting my eyes until it was absolutely necessary to go. I heard Legolas coming over, though it didn't exactly register in my brain. He was about to shake me getting ready to jump, when I awoke fully.
At the sight of him reaching for me, I instinctively sat up and leaned away from him. "No touchee!" I practically yelled. Legolas looked almost scared and jumped back. Everyone laughed, or giggled, or smiled, or did something to show their amusement (I think I heard some snorting coming from Gimli's direction). For once I didn't share in this hilarity. But I guess it was only fair because no one else ever shared in my self-invoked fits of laughter.
And so we kept walking. I swear these people were trying to kill to me. I had thought we were on the same side, but it seemed that they decided to ignore that. We walked like mad people. I was so tired that I didn't complain, and basically didn't talk at all. I figured that this was why we kept going at such a pace, because a) it shut me up, and b) we made good time anyway.
I also became extremely bored. We had been walking, or I should say army marching, parallel to the same mountain for almost two weeks. The scenery was no longer stunning. It was just getting dull and the same.
It was time I decided to amuse myself, or at least to relieve some of my boredom. I asked Lara for her stupid little music box back. She willingly gave it up, since I was less likely to give away our position using it than she was. I felt pretty ridiculous strapping the little gold box around my arm, and I was even more self conscious this time because I had made the entire company stop so that I could put it on.
"It a music box," I said trying not to make myself sound like it was a perfectly normal thing.
I didn't do a very good job. They all looked at me like I was crazy, looks that - like I said before - were becoming more and more frequent. As soon as I was done, they all walked away without a word, even Lara.
The music helped. I just picked random songs and kept walking. The big advantage was that since the music was so loud around me, I couldn't hear anyone, so if I was lagging and they told me to catch up, I didn't do it. They had to actually touch me (which seemed like a fate worse than death to some of them, especially Legolas since this morning) to get my attention.
Sometimes I didn't even have the music on. I just ignored them for fun. Sometimes I would see them calling me, or beckoning to me with their hands, and I would wait for them to tap me. It amused me beyond belief.
Once they sent Legolas back to do that chore of telling me to hurry up. He was about to tap me when I jumped back and put my hands up. "No touchee," I said. I had gotten over my embarrassment from this morning. I laughed as he backed away with scared eyes just as he had this morning. After that they never sent him back to tell me to hurry up.
Finally we stopped for the day. The spot was atop a rocky hill. A few sparse bushes covered the hill but mainly there was just a whole lot of rock and ground. It seemed earlier than usually; the sun was not completely beyond visible yet.
"Perhaps we could have a song, or a story," suggested Lara.
"The singing voice carries too far," said Gandalf. "I'm afraid that we should not risk it. I'm sorry. But it would be nice to hear a story."
"Perhaps April could tell us a story," said Merry. Merry, Pippin and Lara were the only ones who didn't use something like miss or lady in front of my name. I was thankful for that. It made me feel like I was in the 17th century when someone called me a 'lady'. Technically I probably was in that century. The time period for BW seemed to match about 17th century Europe, or somewhere in there. I had never been too great at history.
"No you don't wanna hear my stories," I said. "But I could offer a little music."
"Did you not hear Gandalf?" asked Aragorn sharply. "There is to be no singing."
"Calm down, Aradork," I said. Aragorn and I hadn't been on very friendly terms after my rapist comments (or rather screams) and my uncooperative attitude on our long march to Rivendell (which seemed so short compared to what we were doing now, endless). This new nickname that I had given him didn't help at all, though I suspected that Aragorn didn't did have a great idea of what a dork was. "I was gonna play it from the music box."
Again I received many more looks that suggested I was crazy. I ignored them.
"So what do y'all wanna hear?" I asked.
"Why don't you chose something?" said Frodo. It was the first time he had actually talked to me. Usually he confided in Aragorn, Gandalf or Sam. A lot of the time though, he was off in his own little world. I didn't blame him though. A talking ring probably had far more interesting things to say than the rest of us.
"Um okay." I thought for a moment then whispered the song to the little box. I was getting used to talking to an inanimate objet. I thought all of their names.
Immediately the song came on.
"Stop, stop," cried Boromir.
I put my finger on the little black strip, and the music stopped. I gave Boromir a confused look. "Why?" I asked.
"It will be heard," he said.
"No it won't. Lara explain to him how it works. I'm not sure I get it completely. I just know how to work it." Plus they were more likely to believe what she said than what I said.
So Lara explained how the thing worked to everyone. Finally I was able to play the song.
I've been searching for reason and I'm running out of time
I can feel that it's the season
Time to make up my mind
And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do
There are so many thoughts in my head
There are two roads to walk down
And one road to choose
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over the things
Thinking over, thinking over
Thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things
Am I ready for forever
Oh, God, show me a sign
Cause if we're to be together
Then it's got to be divine
And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do
There are so many thoughts in my head
There are two roads to walk down
And one road to choose
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over the things
Thinking over, thinking over
Thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things
He wants to marry me, carry me far away
He wants to love me for life
He wants to be with me every morning I awake
He wants to hold me thru the night
Father, which way should I go?
I cannot clearly see
And, oh, I love him so
But only you know if he's the one for me
Thinking over, thinking over
Thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things
And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do
There are so many thoughts in my head
There are two roads to walk down
And one road to choose
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said
Oh, is this where I wanna be?
Thinking over the things that you said.
(A/N: For those of you who care that was Thinking Over by Dana Glover from the soundtrack to Tuck Everlasting. I don't own it)
Lara and Legolas had been cringing throughout the whole song. I didn't get it. It was a nice song and everyone seemed to like it.
"That was very pretty," said Pippin.
"Why was she asking her father about the man she loved?" asked Sam. "Why did she say that only he knew which way she should go?"
"Sometimes a father's advice is greatly needed," said Boromir. "Most of the time it is well that a father choose for his daughter, especially on the matter of marriage, because he is much wiser than her."
"No," said Legolas. "I do not agree. Matters of love should be determined by oneself, not by someone else."
"I believe she is referring to God," I said. This seemed to have no effect on calming them down because a) they were very intent on debating the subject of parents interfering in their children's love life, whether she was referring to God or not and b) I don't believe they were too familiar with God.
So the argument continued unabated. No one seemed too eager to take sides. I'm sure Aragorn would have sided with Legolas, but he didn't want to show it for fear of offending Boromir, his kinsman. The hobbits didn't seem that interested in the subject being debated. Gimli listened though without much interest. I was beginning to wonder whether there actually were female dwarves. I knew there were female elves and women, and I had no doubt that there were female hobbits, but female dwarves didn't leave a pretty picture in my mind. I'm sure though Gimli would have sided with Boromir, if only to be against Legolas. Gandalf just rolled his eyes and went to sit somewhere else. Lara watched with amusement without offering any input. That was a first.
I, on the other hand, thought it was just annoying and boring. I didn't really care about what Boromir and Legolas had to say on parents interfering with their children and arranged marriages. I wandered away and sat on a rock. There seemed to always be an abundance of those for me to sit on. Everywhere we stopped had rocks.
The hobbits also got bored and came over to join me. None of them were that interested in conversation. They just sat there beside. I had begun to notice that in BW no one said anything that wasn't absolutely positively necessary. It was boring not to be able to talk about nothing, but I didn't think that the hobbits would be interested in my Hollywood gossip. It would probably make them move farther away.
"Um, so what do you guys think about arranged marriages and parents interfering and all that crap," I said desperate to start some kind of conversation.
At first no one answered, then Frodo volunteered an answer. "I believe that no one should have someone else tell them who to love. They should be able to make that decision on their own."
"Yes Mr. Frodo said it," said Sam. Merry and Pippin nodded their agreement.
And that ended that topic of conversation; on to Hollywood gossip.
Everyone was so content just sitting and ignoring Boromir and Legolas' conversation. It annoyed me. I was so bored.
"Hey anyone bring any cards," I muttered to myself. I half expected Lara to bring out a pack and say 'let's play poker'. Actually that wasn't a bad idea. Whenever I got to wherever we were going, I was going to make a pack of card and teach my little company how to play poker. I could perhaps win some food or something off them.
But no one answered.
I decided that it was time to bring out the music box. Dancing would relieve my boredom, although it would probably heighten my levels of craziness in everybody else's eyes.
I made sure everyone could hear the music. It would probably force Boromir and Legolas to shut up, and it would drown them out to everyone else if they didn't. Besides I felt like attention and, since they already thought I was crazy, dancing my horrible NW dance moves wouldn't hurt, though it wouldn't help either.
"Christina Aguilera, Genie in a bottle." That would definitely make them think I was the weirdest girl in BW, and that would be pretty hard to do. I made sure to think all of their names to make sure they looked at me.
The music came on. Immediately Boromir and Legolas stopped arguing to stare at me. Everyone else stopped whatever they had been doing to stare at me. I began doing the nice Genie in a bottle moves to the dance, making myself look like a genie.
Then the most unexpected thing happened. Well actually not the most unexpected thing; the most unexpected thing would have been for giant elves to with Boromir beside them to come join in the dancing, but this still quite unexpected. Merry and Pippin decided to join up on my little stage of rocks. They began dancing with me, at first trying to imitate what I was doing, then simply doing their own moves. If I hadn't known better I would have said they were drunk. Unfortunately this sent me into one of my fits of laughing and I nearly broke my neck falling off the rock.
Merry and Pippin, confused, stopped dancing because I had stopped and fallen off the rock. They thought that this was one of the moves to the dance and they too fell off the rock on purpose right on top of me. And let me tell you, they may have looked small but they were no featherweights. I nearly coughed up my whatever food I had in me as Pippin fell on my stomach, winding me and nearly breaking my ribs. Merry landed on my thighs which wasn't nearly as painful, plus Merry was lighter than Pippin.
I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my cheeks. And the laughing had become very demented. I would let out a sort of snort between sobs and gasps as I tried to regain the breath in my lungs. I hadn't even stopped the music. Christina Aguilera still belted out 'I'm a genie in a bottle, you gotta rub me the right way'.
Within moments everyone had rushed to our side to see if we were all right. And what do you know, we were.
"Perhaps you could stop the music know, lady April," said Legolas, cringing slightly.
I frowned, then I suddenly got why he seemed to cringe every time I put the music on, and Lara as well. I had forgotten that they had very acute and so all sounds were amplified for them. A grin slowly spread across my face. "It's okay Blondie," I said, using the familiar nickname. "I like this song, and since no one but us can hear it, I think I'll leave it on."
He shot a look like daggers at me, but didn't say anything. Legolas wasn't one to complain. But Lara had other plans. She came up to me, lifted up my shirt sleeve - which was extremely loose - and pressed her finger on the little black strip to stop the music.
I glared at her, and my face contorted into a sneer.
"That was not nice," said Lara.
I rolled my eyes. 'Duh,' I mouthed at her.
After that I was ordered to go to bed. I created way too much havoc. And Gandalf had some thinking to do, which meant we all had to shut up. The best way for me to do that was to sleep.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The next morning I actually woke up on my own. It was one of those rare times on this trip when my body decided it didn't need all the sleep it could get. Stupid body. It might also have been the clang of swords that woke me up.
I sat up and looked around. Everyone else was up. Boromir was practicing sword fighting with Merry and Pippin, while Aragorn coached form the side. It occurred to me to go over and learn as well, since I had absolutely no fighting skills, but the presence of Aragorn deterred me. Sam was cooking breakfast. Frodo was sitting with Gandalf and Lara, Legolas and Gimli were just sitting around.
"Move your feet," I heard Aragorn direct one of the hobbits. He was smoking.
"You look good Pippin," said Merry.
"Thanks," replied Pippin.
"Faster," said Boromir.
I got up and rolled my sleeping pad up and put away my stuff. I headed over towards Sam and the food. He was cooking sausages, real food. Gandalf must have given in to the hobbits. We usually didn't have such good food. I took a knife and speared one.
"Hey," said Sam. "Give that back!" He grabbed the knife from me and replaced the sausage in the pan.
"Hey!" I cried. "I was going to eat that. I'm hungry."
"They aren't done yet, miss April. Wait."
"Hmph," I grunted and stalked off.
I went down to sit by Aragorn. This pleased him just as little as it pleased me, but out of politeness he endured me, and out of my own desire do to all possible things to annoy him, I endured him.
"You know, smoking is bad for you Aradork," I told him.
"Please refrain from calling me that miss April," he said tersely. "And pray tell why is smoking bad for me?"
"Well it blackens your lungs and will probably eventually kill you. Especially if you are a chain smoker. It also decreases your lung capacity, which lowers your overall physical fitness and leads to sluggishness and breathing problems, such as asthma and bronchitis."
He looked completely confused, and probably didn't even care what I talking about.
"Your funeral," I said shrugging. I went to go see if the sausages were done. They weren't. Sam needed to learn how to cook faster. I sat down by the fire to wait. Legolas jumped up on a rock and scanned the horizon for no apparent reason.
Suddenly there was a commotion. Merry and Pippin were tackling Boromir. I jumped up to join in the action, but Sam said something which I didn't quite catch since he was directing his question at Legolas. I thought he was saying that the sausages were ready. I plopped right back down beside him.
"Nothing. It's just a wisp of cloud," said Gimli. I saw that we were directing our attention to a little black cloud in the sky. It was something I would have both expected a lot and never expected from this crew (depending on my mood). They were looking and commenting on clouds.
Suddenly Boromir, Merry and Pippin stopped their tussle. "It's moving fast and against the wind," said Boromir, also commenting on the cloud. Interestingly enough, he was right. These guys were quite the little weather people (to be politically correct).
"Crebain from Duneland," shouted Legolas.
"What from wherenow," I shouted back, though he didn't seem to hear me.
"Hide," shouted Aragorn at almost the same time.
"Huh? Why?" I asked standing there stupidly as everyone else ran for cover. To my dismay, Sam dumped water over the fire, drenching the sausages as well. Just as I was about to go over and reprimand him for ruining breakfast, Aragorn grabbed my arm and pulled me into a hiding spot. We had hardly gone down when an enormous flock of birds flew into our camp. We were hiding from CROWS!
"Why are we -" I began, but Aragorn clamped a hand over my mouth. I struggled a little then decided to let it go. I could ask when we got out from hiding.
That came soon enough. The crows wheeled through the area a couple of times, obviously noticing us (it was very hard to hide from crows), then left.
"Spies of Sauruman," declared Gandalf, as we emerged from our hiding places. "The passage south is being watched. We must take the pas of Caradhras."
There was an impending silence following Gandalf's statement, as if someone had just predicted our deaths. I took that opportunity to voice my many questions. "Spies of who?" I asked. "Do you mean the crows? Where are Caradhras and Duneland? What are Crebain? Why were we hiding from crows?" I managed to spit this all out before I noticed that they were all staring dumbstruck at me.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
My stream of questions prompted the idea that I was severely lacking in my knowledge of anything about Bizarro World. This led to another bright idea: that I should be school in it. Guess who got to teach me? Aragorn and Legolas.
It was a very unpleasant experience. Since we didn't have time to waist a day sitting around while I learned the history of Bizarro World, I was taught on the move. At first I tried to listen to music while they were talking, but they soon caught on to that and Legolas confiscated my music box. Stupid elf. I was beginning to hate elves, even if I had a huge crush on this particular one.
So the long history and present of Middle-Earth (that's what it was actually called) was taught to me. And it was a condensed version. I would have hated to hear the non-condensed version. It took them two days to give me the whole lecture. At night when we stopped. We spent an or so pouring over maps that Gandalf had brought. I really didn't need to learn all of what they were teaching me, although I knew the customs of places would come in handy, if we ever met anyone else in this barren land. The history of Middle Earth, or at least the relevant part could be summed up in: there was and evil guy named Sauron who made rings and gave them all to the people of Middle Earth (the important people at least, because I noticed the hobbits didn't get any rings); three for the elves, who still had these rings because they were super powerful. Figures. Seven to the dwarves. Of course the dwarves didn't have them anymore; all their rings were taken back by the Dark Lord or lost. And nine to men. The men eventually got corrupted by the rings and turned into little black shadow thingies, ringwraiths as it were, which everyone quailed at the mention of except me because I had absolutely no idea of what they were. Then Sauron made himself a master ring because he wanted to indulge himself and then he had control of all the other rings. This master ring was the one Frodo held. We were going to destroy in the only place possible: the cracks of doom. Not a very appealing name, but we were going. This could all be summed up in a depresing little poem I was forced to memorize:
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for mortal men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
There was also this wizard guy called Saurumon who was more powerful than Gandalf, and now he was evil and corrupted and now he was in league with Sauron. He also lived really near to the road we were supposed to take, so we couldn't go there, so we were going over a mountain instead.
I also found out that about three thousand years ago, there was a great war and this guy Isildur could have destroyed the Ring, but he didn't. This really annoyed me because if he had then we wouldn't be making this stupid journey and I could still be safe and warm and well fed and clean, but instead I was here in extreme danger, cold and tired and starved and very very dirty. For once he wasn't an elf. He was one of Aragorn's ancestors if I remembered correctly from the not so secret counsel of Elrond. Stupid man.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Holy crap. I just realized that that was ten pages. Whoa. Anywho there are some distortions there like the breakfast thing with the sausages. They were actually having lunch. And I wanted to do the song thing cuz I thought she meant real father (like dad) for the longest time too. And it wasn't the greatest chapter, but as always REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and tell me what u think!
Namarie
Mouse angel
- mouse angel's friend (wait mouse angel has a friend, whoa): the
publishing rights to the Lord of the Rings
- mouse angel: yup
-mouse angel's friend: sweet, we're rich
-heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson: Yes we get to sue.
-mouse angel: no no I don't. I'll give them back. I really DON'T
OWN ANYTHING.
A/N: Hey I'm back *people run away screaming. Mouse angel: shut up*. Just got home from a three week vacation where I increased my potc viewings. I'm up to six. I also went to this ultra cool camp called Educo. We did rock climbing (real and fake) and high ropes and low ropes and canoeing and a five day backpacking trip into the BC mountains and we went tubing down a river. It was awesome. And they have a sauna and a sweat lodge and a lake to swim in and they have the BEST cook in the world. Her food is to die for.
Anywho, back to the chapter. I didn't exactly know what to call it so the title has very little to do with the chapter.
-April: I wanted to call it How the music box saved my life the first time.
-mouse angel: But I'm calling it Lessons
-April: I think I should get because I'm the main character.
-mouse angel: You're fictional. I'm the REAL narrator, so shut up. Lessons it is.
So whatever you wanna call it, it's here right now, so enjoy. R&R!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 9
I was awoke bright and early the next morning. Legolas had somehow been given the duty of waking me. I was half-awake before Legolas came over to me. I always tried to stay asleep or resting my eyes until it was absolutely necessary to go. I heard Legolas coming over, though it didn't exactly register in my brain. He was about to shake me getting ready to jump, when I awoke fully.
At the sight of him reaching for me, I instinctively sat up and leaned away from him. "No touchee!" I practically yelled. Legolas looked almost scared and jumped back. Everyone laughed, or giggled, or smiled, or did something to show their amusement (I think I heard some snorting coming from Gimli's direction). For once I didn't share in this hilarity. But I guess it was only fair because no one else ever shared in my self-invoked fits of laughter.
And so we kept walking. I swear these people were trying to kill to me. I had thought we were on the same side, but it seemed that they decided to ignore that. We walked like mad people. I was so tired that I didn't complain, and basically didn't talk at all. I figured that this was why we kept going at such a pace, because a) it shut me up, and b) we made good time anyway.
I also became extremely bored. We had been walking, or I should say army marching, parallel to the same mountain for almost two weeks. The scenery was no longer stunning. It was just getting dull and the same.
It was time I decided to amuse myself, or at least to relieve some of my boredom. I asked Lara for her stupid little music box back. She willingly gave it up, since I was less likely to give away our position using it than she was. I felt pretty ridiculous strapping the little gold box around my arm, and I was even more self conscious this time because I had made the entire company stop so that I could put it on.
"It a music box," I said trying not to make myself sound like it was a perfectly normal thing.
I didn't do a very good job. They all looked at me like I was crazy, looks that - like I said before - were becoming more and more frequent. As soon as I was done, they all walked away without a word, even Lara.
The music helped. I just picked random songs and kept walking. The big advantage was that since the music was so loud around me, I couldn't hear anyone, so if I was lagging and they told me to catch up, I didn't do it. They had to actually touch me (which seemed like a fate worse than death to some of them, especially Legolas since this morning) to get my attention.
Sometimes I didn't even have the music on. I just ignored them for fun. Sometimes I would see them calling me, or beckoning to me with their hands, and I would wait for them to tap me. It amused me beyond belief.
Once they sent Legolas back to do that chore of telling me to hurry up. He was about to tap me when I jumped back and put my hands up. "No touchee," I said. I had gotten over my embarrassment from this morning. I laughed as he backed away with scared eyes just as he had this morning. After that they never sent him back to tell me to hurry up.
Finally we stopped for the day. The spot was atop a rocky hill. A few sparse bushes covered the hill but mainly there was just a whole lot of rock and ground. It seemed earlier than usually; the sun was not completely beyond visible yet.
"Perhaps we could have a song, or a story," suggested Lara.
"The singing voice carries too far," said Gandalf. "I'm afraid that we should not risk it. I'm sorry. But it would be nice to hear a story."
"Perhaps April could tell us a story," said Merry. Merry, Pippin and Lara were the only ones who didn't use something like miss or lady in front of my name. I was thankful for that. It made me feel like I was in the 17th century when someone called me a 'lady'. Technically I probably was in that century. The time period for BW seemed to match about 17th century Europe, or somewhere in there. I had never been too great at history.
"No you don't wanna hear my stories," I said. "But I could offer a little music."
"Did you not hear Gandalf?" asked Aragorn sharply. "There is to be no singing."
"Calm down, Aradork," I said. Aragorn and I hadn't been on very friendly terms after my rapist comments (or rather screams) and my uncooperative attitude on our long march to Rivendell (which seemed so short compared to what we were doing now, endless). This new nickname that I had given him didn't help at all, though I suspected that Aragorn didn't did have a great idea of what a dork was. "I was gonna play it from the music box."
Again I received many more looks that suggested I was crazy. I ignored them.
"So what do y'all wanna hear?" I asked.
"Why don't you chose something?" said Frodo. It was the first time he had actually talked to me. Usually he confided in Aragorn, Gandalf or Sam. A lot of the time though, he was off in his own little world. I didn't blame him though. A talking ring probably had far more interesting things to say than the rest of us.
"Um okay." I thought for a moment then whispered the song to the little box. I was getting used to talking to an inanimate objet. I thought all of their names.
Immediately the song came on.
"Stop, stop," cried Boromir.
I put my finger on the little black strip, and the music stopped. I gave Boromir a confused look. "Why?" I asked.
"It will be heard," he said.
"No it won't. Lara explain to him how it works. I'm not sure I get it completely. I just know how to work it." Plus they were more likely to believe what she said than what I said.
So Lara explained how the thing worked to everyone. Finally I was able to play the song.
I've been searching for reason and I'm running out of time
I can feel that it's the season
Time to make up my mind
And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do
There are so many thoughts in my head
There are two roads to walk down
And one road to choose
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over the things
Thinking over, thinking over
Thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things
Am I ready for forever
Oh, God, show me a sign
Cause if we're to be together
Then it's got to be divine
And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do
There are so many thoughts in my head
There are two roads to walk down
And one road to choose
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over the things
Thinking over, thinking over
Thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things
He wants to marry me, carry me far away
He wants to love me for life
He wants to be with me every morning I awake
He wants to hold me thru the night
Father, which way should I go?
I cannot clearly see
And, oh, I love him so
But only you know if he's the one for me
Thinking over, thinking over
Thinking over the things that you've said
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things
And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do
There are so many thoughts in my head
There are two roads to walk down
And one road to choose
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said
Oh, is this where I wanna be?
Thinking over the things that you said.
(A/N: For those of you who care that was Thinking Over by Dana Glover from the soundtrack to Tuck Everlasting. I don't own it)
Lara and Legolas had been cringing throughout the whole song. I didn't get it. It was a nice song and everyone seemed to like it.
"That was very pretty," said Pippin.
"Why was she asking her father about the man she loved?" asked Sam. "Why did she say that only he knew which way she should go?"
"Sometimes a father's advice is greatly needed," said Boromir. "Most of the time it is well that a father choose for his daughter, especially on the matter of marriage, because he is much wiser than her."
"No," said Legolas. "I do not agree. Matters of love should be determined by oneself, not by someone else."
"I believe she is referring to God," I said. This seemed to have no effect on calming them down because a) they were very intent on debating the subject of parents interfering in their children's love life, whether she was referring to God or not and b) I don't believe they were too familiar with God.
So the argument continued unabated. No one seemed too eager to take sides. I'm sure Aragorn would have sided with Legolas, but he didn't want to show it for fear of offending Boromir, his kinsman. The hobbits didn't seem that interested in the subject being debated. Gimli listened though without much interest. I was beginning to wonder whether there actually were female dwarves. I knew there were female elves and women, and I had no doubt that there were female hobbits, but female dwarves didn't leave a pretty picture in my mind. I'm sure though Gimli would have sided with Boromir, if only to be against Legolas. Gandalf just rolled his eyes and went to sit somewhere else. Lara watched with amusement without offering any input. That was a first.
I, on the other hand, thought it was just annoying and boring. I didn't really care about what Boromir and Legolas had to say on parents interfering with their children and arranged marriages. I wandered away and sat on a rock. There seemed to always be an abundance of those for me to sit on. Everywhere we stopped had rocks.
The hobbits also got bored and came over to join me. None of them were that interested in conversation. They just sat there beside. I had begun to notice that in BW no one said anything that wasn't absolutely positively necessary. It was boring not to be able to talk about nothing, but I didn't think that the hobbits would be interested in my Hollywood gossip. It would probably make them move farther away.
"Um, so what do you guys think about arranged marriages and parents interfering and all that crap," I said desperate to start some kind of conversation.
At first no one answered, then Frodo volunteered an answer. "I believe that no one should have someone else tell them who to love. They should be able to make that decision on their own."
"Yes Mr. Frodo said it," said Sam. Merry and Pippin nodded their agreement.
And that ended that topic of conversation; on to Hollywood gossip.
Everyone was so content just sitting and ignoring Boromir and Legolas' conversation. It annoyed me. I was so bored.
"Hey anyone bring any cards," I muttered to myself. I half expected Lara to bring out a pack and say 'let's play poker'. Actually that wasn't a bad idea. Whenever I got to wherever we were going, I was going to make a pack of card and teach my little company how to play poker. I could perhaps win some food or something off them.
But no one answered.
I decided that it was time to bring out the music box. Dancing would relieve my boredom, although it would probably heighten my levels of craziness in everybody else's eyes.
I made sure everyone could hear the music. It would probably force Boromir and Legolas to shut up, and it would drown them out to everyone else if they didn't. Besides I felt like attention and, since they already thought I was crazy, dancing my horrible NW dance moves wouldn't hurt, though it wouldn't help either.
"Christina Aguilera, Genie in a bottle." That would definitely make them think I was the weirdest girl in BW, and that would be pretty hard to do. I made sure to think all of their names to make sure they looked at me.
The music came on. Immediately Boromir and Legolas stopped arguing to stare at me. Everyone else stopped whatever they had been doing to stare at me. I began doing the nice Genie in a bottle moves to the dance, making myself look like a genie.
Then the most unexpected thing happened. Well actually not the most unexpected thing; the most unexpected thing would have been for giant elves to with Boromir beside them to come join in the dancing, but this still quite unexpected. Merry and Pippin decided to join up on my little stage of rocks. They began dancing with me, at first trying to imitate what I was doing, then simply doing their own moves. If I hadn't known better I would have said they were drunk. Unfortunately this sent me into one of my fits of laughing and I nearly broke my neck falling off the rock.
Merry and Pippin, confused, stopped dancing because I had stopped and fallen off the rock. They thought that this was one of the moves to the dance and they too fell off the rock on purpose right on top of me. And let me tell you, they may have looked small but they were no featherweights. I nearly coughed up my whatever food I had in me as Pippin fell on my stomach, winding me and nearly breaking my ribs. Merry landed on my thighs which wasn't nearly as painful, plus Merry was lighter than Pippin.
I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my cheeks. And the laughing had become very demented. I would let out a sort of snort between sobs and gasps as I tried to regain the breath in my lungs. I hadn't even stopped the music. Christina Aguilera still belted out 'I'm a genie in a bottle, you gotta rub me the right way'.
Within moments everyone had rushed to our side to see if we were all right. And what do you know, we were.
"Perhaps you could stop the music know, lady April," said Legolas, cringing slightly.
I frowned, then I suddenly got why he seemed to cringe every time I put the music on, and Lara as well. I had forgotten that they had very acute and so all sounds were amplified for them. A grin slowly spread across my face. "It's okay Blondie," I said, using the familiar nickname. "I like this song, and since no one but us can hear it, I think I'll leave it on."
He shot a look like daggers at me, but didn't say anything. Legolas wasn't one to complain. But Lara had other plans. She came up to me, lifted up my shirt sleeve - which was extremely loose - and pressed her finger on the little black strip to stop the music.
I glared at her, and my face contorted into a sneer.
"That was not nice," said Lara.
I rolled my eyes. 'Duh,' I mouthed at her.
After that I was ordered to go to bed. I created way too much havoc. And Gandalf had some thinking to do, which meant we all had to shut up. The best way for me to do that was to sleep.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The next morning I actually woke up on my own. It was one of those rare times on this trip when my body decided it didn't need all the sleep it could get. Stupid body. It might also have been the clang of swords that woke me up.
I sat up and looked around. Everyone else was up. Boromir was practicing sword fighting with Merry and Pippin, while Aragorn coached form the side. It occurred to me to go over and learn as well, since I had absolutely no fighting skills, but the presence of Aragorn deterred me. Sam was cooking breakfast. Frodo was sitting with Gandalf and Lara, Legolas and Gimli were just sitting around.
"Move your feet," I heard Aragorn direct one of the hobbits. He was smoking.
"You look good Pippin," said Merry.
"Thanks," replied Pippin.
"Faster," said Boromir.
I got up and rolled my sleeping pad up and put away my stuff. I headed over towards Sam and the food. He was cooking sausages, real food. Gandalf must have given in to the hobbits. We usually didn't have such good food. I took a knife and speared one.
"Hey," said Sam. "Give that back!" He grabbed the knife from me and replaced the sausage in the pan.
"Hey!" I cried. "I was going to eat that. I'm hungry."
"They aren't done yet, miss April. Wait."
"Hmph," I grunted and stalked off.
I went down to sit by Aragorn. This pleased him just as little as it pleased me, but out of politeness he endured me, and out of my own desire do to all possible things to annoy him, I endured him.
"You know, smoking is bad for you Aradork," I told him.
"Please refrain from calling me that miss April," he said tersely. "And pray tell why is smoking bad for me?"
"Well it blackens your lungs and will probably eventually kill you. Especially if you are a chain smoker. It also decreases your lung capacity, which lowers your overall physical fitness and leads to sluggishness and breathing problems, such as asthma and bronchitis."
He looked completely confused, and probably didn't even care what I talking about.
"Your funeral," I said shrugging. I went to go see if the sausages were done. They weren't. Sam needed to learn how to cook faster. I sat down by the fire to wait. Legolas jumped up on a rock and scanned the horizon for no apparent reason.
Suddenly there was a commotion. Merry and Pippin were tackling Boromir. I jumped up to join in the action, but Sam said something which I didn't quite catch since he was directing his question at Legolas. I thought he was saying that the sausages were ready. I plopped right back down beside him.
"Nothing. It's just a wisp of cloud," said Gimli. I saw that we were directing our attention to a little black cloud in the sky. It was something I would have both expected a lot and never expected from this crew (depending on my mood). They were looking and commenting on clouds.
Suddenly Boromir, Merry and Pippin stopped their tussle. "It's moving fast and against the wind," said Boromir, also commenting on the cloud. Interestingly enough, he was right. These guys were quite the little weather people (to be politically correct).
"Crebain from Duneland," shouted Legolas.
"What from wherenow," I shouted back, though he didn't seem to hear me.
"Hide," shouted Aragorn at almost the same time.
"Huh? Why?" I asked standing there stupidly as everyone else ran for cover. To my dismay, Sam dumped water over the fire, drenching the sausages as well. Just as I was about to go over and reprimand him for ruining breakfast, Aragorn grabbed my arm and pulled me into a hiding spot. We had hardly gone down when an enormous flock of birds flew into our camp. We were hiding from CROWS!
"Why are we -" I began, but Aragorn clamped a hand over my mouth. I struggled a little then decided to let it go. I could ask when we got out from hiding.
That came soon enough. The crows wheeled through the area a couple of times, obviously noticing us (it was very hard to hide from crows), then left.
"Spies of Sauruman," declared Gandalf, as we emerged from our hiding places. "The passage south is being watched. We must take the pas of Caradhras."
There was an impending silence following Gandalf's statement, as if someone had just predicted our deaths. I took that opportunity to voice my many questions. "Spies of who?" I asked. "Do you mean the crows? Where are Caradhras and Duneland? What are Crebain? Why were we hiding from crows?" I managed to spit this all out before I noticed that they were all staring dumbstruck at me.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
My stream of questions prompted the idea that I was severely lacking in my knowledge of anything about Bizarro World. This led to another bright idea: that I should be school in it. Guess who got to teach me? Aragorn and Legolas.
It was a very unpleasant experience. Since we didn't have time to waist a day sitting around while I learned the history of Bizarro World, I was taught on the move. At first I tried to listen to music while they were talking, but they soon caught on to that and Legolas confiscated my music box. Stupid elf. I was beginning to hate elves, even if I had a huge crush on this particular one.
So the long history and present of Middle-Earth (that's what it was actually called) was taught to me. And it was a condensed version. I would have hated to hear the non-condensed version. It took them two days to give me the whole lecture. At night when we stopped. We spent an or so pouring over maps that Gandalf had brought. I really didn't need to learn all of what they were teaching me, although I knew the customs of places would come in handy, if we ever met anyone else in this barren land. The history of Middle Earth, or at least the relevant part could be summed up in: there was and evil guy named Sauron who made rings and gave them all to the people of Middle Earth (the important people at least, because I noticed the hobbits didn't get any rings); three for the elves, who still had these rings because they were super powerful. Figures. Seven to the dwarves. Of course the dwarves didn't have them anymore; all their rings were taken back by the Dark Lord or lost. And nine to men. The men eventually got corrupted by the rings and turned into little black shadow thingies, ringwraiths as it were, which everyone quailed at the mention of except me because I had absolutely no idea of what they were. Then Sauron made himself a master ring because he wanted to indulge himself and then he had control of all the other rings. This master ring was the one Frodo held. We were going to destroy in the only place possible: the cracks of doom. Not a very appealing name, but we were going. This could all be summed up in a depresing little poem I was forced to memorize:
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for mortal men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
There was also this wizard guy called Saurumon who was more powerful than Gandalf, and now he was evil and corrupted and now he was in league with Sauron. He also lived really near to the road we were supposed to take, so we couldn't go there, so we were going over a mountain instead.
I also found out that about three thousand years ago, there was a great war and this guy Isildur could have destroyed the Ring, but he didn't. This really annoyed me because if he had then we wouldn't be making this stupid journey and I could still be safe and warm and well fed and clean, but instead I was here in extreme danger, cold and tired and starved and very very dirty. For once he wasn't an elf. He was one of Aragorn's ancestors if I remembered correctly from the not so secret counsel of Elrond. Stupid man.
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A/N: Holy crap. I just realized that that was ten pages. Whoa. Anywho there are some distortions there like the breakfast thing with the sausages. They were actually having lunch. And I wanted to do the song thing cuz I thought she meant real father (like dad) for the longest time too. And it wasn't the greatest chapter, but as always REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and tell me what u think!
Namarie
Mouse angel