Rude awakenings part two

Tony

'Ow! Damn you, you fuckin' tree! What the hell is your problem!' Tony had never seen a wood this dense before. The air was warm, really warm. Like, almost unnatural. Where in the world was she? Well, she was definitely not home.  She looked around to see if there was an exit anywhere, but was unable to find one. She cursed, again.

And again.

And again.

Until, it seemed, the forest could bare it no longer. Branches were shooing her this way and that, until she was out of the forest. She looked back as the branches used the wind to wave their goodbyes.

'Bunch of wimps.' Tony said to herself, and started walking. She had walked for quite a while now, and still no sign of anything that even suggested habitation. Tony had been part of the girl-scouts, so she knew how to read nature pretty well. It wasn't long till she finally am across a sign of habitation. And what kind of sign.

'…This time, they did not get away!' The first, what appeared to be a soldier replied.

'They will think twice now, before crossing our borders. We have shown them enough strength in battle to make sure of that.' The second soldier replied. Both men laughed heartily at this, and ate some of the deer that was hanging over the fire they sat at. Tony, who had walked for some hours without food or water, was hungry as heck. She decided to throw caution aside. After all, what was caution, if there was no one around to practice it? She stepped out of the bushes she was hiding in and walked towards the fire.

'Hello, my merry men! What's for dinner?' She said, in as middle-aged a way as she could muster with an empty stomach. The soldiers stopped laughing, and looked at her. This was a strange woman, wearing even more strange attire.

'Stag, My lady. Would you care to join us?'

'Would I ever!' Tony said, and accepted a peace of stag that was handed to her by soldier number one. After all, this Middle-Earth, and people were polite to women, even if they wore strange clothing. At least, that's what soldiers one and two had been taught. But still, a woman wearing trousers? This was odd. Maybe they had best bring her to the Steward. He would know what to do. They hoped so, at least.

So, the men took Tony with them on their journey back to Gondor. She soon learned about the house of the Stewards, the current Steward, Denethor the second, and his sons Boromir and Faramir. Tony asked them questions, but they were more in the lines of dinner, other peoples that inhabited Middle-Earth, and languages. She then found out that she had been speaking fluent Westron, and couldn't remember ever learning it. That was strange. Oh well, who cares. She thought to herself. But, sub-consciously, it stuck and started to vegetate. Waiting for an opportunity to jump out and munch. You see, fact was that Tony wasn't easily surprised. Her reaction to the forest made that quite obvious. Yet, she did notice things. But stress would just have to wait till later.

The two men she was travelling with were called Erthador and Barahir. Tony knew this name, because Aragon had a ring that had belonged to someone with that name once. Janet had told her that, in the time that she couldn't choose between Aragorn and Legolas. Tony had found it easy to choose, Aragorn. But in the end, from Janet's point of view, Legolas had prevailed.

The journey took longer than Tony had expected, though the men were praising their horses for making such good time, being each burdened with a passenger every other day. Tony , however, became tired and her bum was getting very sore indeed. She felt this more and more each day, though she never complained about it. She was hoping more skin would magically appear in her rear-end to make the journey less painful. Alas, more of nothing showed up, and the journey seemed to go on forever.  And it wasn't just the pain, the scenery was always the same, wherever they went. Tony was getting bored. She practically fell asleep the moment she stepped up behind one of the soldiers, and they had to prod her occasionally to keep her awake. But the peace wouldn't last much longer.