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A/N: This chapter is half Book-Verse, half Movie-Verse, so you might get lost in the beginning. Plus, it is rather boring, since my sense of humour seems to be taking a holiday. There are bits of laughter, though, but not as much as usual.
*
Wordlessly, the humans exited from their hole in the rocks. Gandalf shook his head, defeated.
'The Gap of Rohan will be monitored against us. We must take an alternative route.'
The maia turned towards the towering presence of Caradhras. Ren sighed for the hundredth time, and the group began to trudge up the mountain. Silly mountain.
*
Snow. Snow. Snow. Wind. Snow. More snow. Ren swore silently to herself that if she ever saw snow again after this, she would run away as fast as she could. The amount of flaked ice everywhere was driving her to the brink. Stupid snow, she thought as she kicked a mound hard, only to fall through a drift. Silei tumbled in after her, having stood behind her in the line. Shu Wen and Inez crashed in as well. All four netballers muttered something about potholes and mud before hauling themselves onward. Glorfindel, Erestor, Galdor and Legolas were all being most unhelpful, treading upon the snow as if they weighed nothing. Ren muttered another savage curse as the wind bit at them.
'My hands are freezing.'
Silei just plodded along, nodding in agreement. Ren found the snow getting deeper still.
'We'll be buried alive. We need to get closer to the mountain, where the snow is firmer.'
Ren proceeded to try and pull herself nearer to the mountainside, but the snow just shifted like sand beneath her hands and legs. Glorfindel came over to pull them up. Ren cursed again, brushing what snow she could off herself. Diana was partially submerged in the drift already, Sara being no better off as the two shortest people of the human company sank. Glorfindel had to pull them out too. Ren smiled ruefully as she realized they were going to follow Book-Verse. That was not a good sign, she decided, but decided not to open her mouth and worry those behind her further. Gandalf eventually called for a stop, as the lesser of the company had all but frozen. The humans looked positively blue, and the hobbits were white. Aragorn was bearing the snow quite well, as was Boromir, but the elves were by far the best off.
'Not one strand off their pretty heads amiss, I suppose.'
Ren muttered sarcastically under her breath, wiping long strands of fringe off her face and tucking them behind a ear. She sat on, big surprise, snow. The rest followed suit, and the group huddled together the best they could. Gandalf looked around and passed about a flask of miruvor. Ren paled. It was going in the opposing direction from her, meaning that it went to Sara, then Yvonne, then Inez then the Book-Versed people. Before Ren could say anything. the three who had not read the books had downed the liquid. Oh crap. Ren nudged Silei, who nudged Diana. Shu Wen was already half-way through her mouthful, having forgotten what miruvor was. Ren stuttered through the cold.
'Glor?'
The elf looked up.
'Glorfindel, please tell me that isn't miruvor.'
The elf shrugged, drinking a mouthful out of his own flask, gifted to him by Elrond.
'It is, why do you-. Oh Elbereth. Oh, oh Eru!'
Seeing Glorfindel's reaction, Ren knew they were in for trouble. The human lunged for the flask and snatched it away from Shu Wen before she could drink anymore of the fluid. More accurately, the alcohol. Ren passed it back to Gandalf.
'That stuff is alcohol guys. Gandalf just gave thirteen year olds alcohol.'
Too late. Sara was already grinning absently and Yvonne had collapsed into mindless giggles. Inez had just gone red all over, and way swaying dangerously from side to side. Shu Wen spat what was left in her mouth down the mountainside. Ren cursed savagely again, and rubbed her arms. Nothing to warm them. Boromir, on cue, suggested,
'What about a fire?'
Gandalf knew he would have to do something. The humans could not be left to freeze. Gimli had tried flint and tinder, but to no avail. Gandalf sighed and thrust his staff at a faggot of wood and muttered a word of command. The wood burst into blue and green flames and Gandalf muttered about being able to be seen now by enemy eyes. Sara stared at the fire, transfixed.
'Lookit all the pretty colours!'
Ren shook her head in dismay. Her friends were drunk. They thus passed the night in that manner, until Caradhras stopped the flurry of snow.
*
The next morn saw Legolas and Erestor leave off to go "find the Sun", while the rest of the group sat huddled together. The three who had drunk the miruvor were complaining of hangovers, and to be truthful, Ren felt a headache of her own coming on. Her hands were so cold they nearly froze. After an hour, the elves returned, and the Men in the company began to dig them out of the igloo they were in. Caradhras had beaten them, Ren knew, as the group trudged down the path made by Aragorn and Boromir, and Moria now awaited them. They progressed down and off the mountain, and towards Dimrill Gate.
*
The Company sat at the fire, wordless. They were following Book-Verse now, Ren knew. It was not good. Book-Verse was, if possible, worse than Movie-Verse in terms of the stuff they had to battle against. And so that night, the werewolves came, just as they were expected to have come. Legolas loosed his bow, Erestor doing the same, while Glorfindel shone with a bright light, becoming again the Glorfindel of Aman. Ren muttered something about being a "lighthouse" as the humans and perian grouped together at the centre, away from the action. Ren wanted part of the action, but she knew better than to try and commit suicide by doing something so stupid. Instead, she just clutched the hilt of her dagger, and the humans who were taller than the hobbits circled the outside, occasionally having to deal out slashes to keep wolves that got out of the protective circle the more experienced fighters made at bay. It continued in a normal fashion until Gandalf cried aloud.
'Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth! Fire against the werewolf host!'
Everything broke down for the wolves under the power of Gandalf, as the trees danced with flame and blades shone and flickered. Arrows burst into flames as they were released and the company thus drove the wolves away.
The next morning, arrows were found undamaged on the ground. Gandalf said it was because the wolves were Werewolves. Ren just thought Legolas was a bad shot.
The Book-Verse was becoming scarily real. On second thought, though, as Ren saw it, it meant that things were going along to Plot, which was definitely a good thing. Then again, heading to Moria was not a good thing in her standards. But there they were.
*
Ren barely remembered what happened at the Gate of Moria: Everything went far too swiftly. Bill the Pony was let loose, and just as Frodo asked for the word mellon, all hell broke loose. Tentacles were everywhere, silmarilli were being chased, the One Ring was sought after, and a lot of dangerous weaponry was being tossed about. Sara, finally having her slice of action, hacked gleefully away at a tentacle that came too close to her. Her strokes, though crude, proved effective, and the Watcher seemed to want to evade her, much to the dismay of the bloodthirsty human. Ren, Diana and Shu Wen were having hard times, as the Watcher seemed to have found something amiss and chased after them. It might have sensed the silmarilli, or it might just have been hungry. Really, really hungry. Glorfindel and Erestor took after the humans, acting as keepers and chopping off whatever wandering tentacle came their way, while Aragorn, Boromir and Legolas defended the hobbits. Galdor and Gandalf herded everyone into the darkness while Gimli took care of any last bits of Watcher that tried to follow. Then, just as Inez dove into Moria, the walls crumbled into nothingness.
Gimli took a look around and started sobbing melodramatically, which earned him a smack on the head by Diana. The dwarf promptly shut up, but looked around muttering things like "Uncle Mor", "Great-uncle-thrice-removed-Thor" and "Fifty-ninth nephew Firi" every couple of seconds.
*
The journey through Moria, as it turned out, was actually quite entertaining. Yvonne kept on finding reasons to "accidentally" pull Legolas' hair, claiming that she thought it was a handhold, while Sara and Inez ganged up to try and pester Aragorn by dropping comments about Arwen whenever he was in earshot. Ren kept silent most of the time, but was more prone to following Glorfindel around. To be truthful, it was very easy for anyone to follow Glorfindel around in the darker passages, much to the elda's annoyance. For some reason, maybe because of his rebirth or him seeing the Two Trees, the elf lord glowed in the dark. A soft white light was emitted from about him, and even though it made him look rather intimidating, Ren had hung around him long enough not to care. He was, after all, a very useful torch light when Gandalf's staff only did so much. The arrangement was altered slightly to place Glorfindel nearer the front. The maia at the front kept asking Eru to try and "dim" Glorfindel slightly, much to Erestor's amusement. The black haired noldo had little difficulty blending into the darkness, but that alone caused Diana to keep ramming into him by accident. Galdor stuck to Legolas, too afraid of the humans to go close. Sara took delight in torturing him, too. Gimli was too busy lamenting "Pet Dog Raphly" to care. Silei was poking fun at Gandalf's beard, while the hobbits trailed around after her, trying to see if the new human had any mushrooms.
Everything was going, quite surprising, fine save for Gollum, until they reached the Chamber of Mazarbul. Gimli abruptly burst into tears again, bemoaning Balin this time around, while Gandalf read the Book. Everything most suddenly switched into Movie-Verse.
Bangle bangle bong poink.
There went the skeleton. Pippin was
in so much trouble.
Doom doom boom doom doomdoomboom.
Those orcs really, really needed to get a better drum, thought Inez the Drummer. Ren was thinking alongside the same lines, if it had not been for the fact that she was too busy helping Shu Wen help bar the doors with Aragorn and Boromir. Legolas stood in factory line format, passing the four axes. Glorfindel was positively delighted to have some orc flesh to vent his anger on, and the blade of Gondolin shined in the gloom. Gimli was burning for vengeance, and everyone else just armed themselves. Sam accidentally pulled out a frying pan instead of a dagger, but it was slightly too late when the doors burst open and orcs flooded in.
This time, the humans were all to themselves. Ren tried to brace herself, but nothing could really brace her for the orc attack. Unconsciously, she ran backwards slightly, pulling her friends with her, and let the front line take the brunt first. Better alive than dead. Strong as the front may have been, though, there were too many orcs. Ren soon found her dagger buried in orc flesh. The human decided she did not want to know if the orc was alive or dead, or even where the blade had ended up in the first place. Tugging it out with all her might, she ran off to help her friends.
The Cave Troll made its mighty entrance all too soon, Ren thought as she rubbed her shoulder where the blunt end of an orc spear had whacked her. She had managed to nick off seven to eight orcs, pulling her friends with her, and they congregated at one end of the chamber, finding killing in unison a much more effective technique, shielding those too scared or queasy to fight and lowering risks of behind hit from behind. Silei kicked an orc off to the side as they moved out of the way of a rampaging cave troll, with Legolas on top of it. Glorfindel was merrily slicing through the orcs like a knife through butter, glowing brighter than ever before, and Erestor sniped from a higher position, picking off any orcs trying to take an subtle approach to back stab people. Frodo cried out in pain from a corner, and Ren knew that the cave troll had done its job.
'Run!'
She cried, pulling her friends away from the centre of the chamber where the troll was to fall. Sara dallied to try and hack at an orc, but Erestor took it out first. The human's swing had gone completely off anyhow. As the troll finally fell to Legolas' arrow, Ren breathed a sigh of relief. All in her company were alive, though all were also bruised and beaten. Some had been grazed by swords and arrows, others hit by staves or the wrong end of Sam's Incredible Frying Pan. The hobbit beat anybody who came near him, regardless of friend or foe.
They had too little time to dwell on injuries though, as Gandalf commanded them to run. They stopped in the middle of the Goblin Horde as they fled. Gandalf sighed as Sam asked what was behind them.
'This foe is beyond any of you-'
Gandalf stopped and sighted Glorfindel.
'Well, most of you at any rate. Run!'
They ran. Well, if you could call the half-limping, half-dragging of bodies running.
They ran down stairs, across stone over lava, and finally pass the bridge and Frodo's little tilting-stair scare. Gandalf bade them stop at the other end.
'A balrog of Morgoth!'
Ren knew what was flashing through Glorfindel's mind.
'Grab him!'
The humans proceeded to pull Glorfindel back before the elda tried anything stupid. He struggled like a madman, er, Elf, against them, but Ren tried a different tactic. She pulled out a string out of her pocket and hastily tied a stone to the end. It was a ridiculous ploy, but it would keep Glorfindel otherwise occupied for the time being.
'Look at the stone, Glorfindel. You no longer want to kill Balrogs. Repeat after me: Yooooooou doooooo nottttt waaaaanttt tooooo killllll balllrogggggs!'
Glorfindel gritted his teeth and renewed his efforts, trying to head the stone out of his line of vision.
'I want to kill balrogs! Get off me!'
'This is not your fight, Glorfindel. Can't you act like a normal elf and run away?'
'You've fought one balrog, you've fought a hundred! Let me go!'
Glorfindel tried to get free. Ren decided it was time to try a different form of hypnotism. She uncovered a small bit of her silmaril.
'Come on, Glorfindel. Follow the pretty jewel!'
Glorfindel, tried to shut his eyes against the tempting silmaril, but Sara took delight in forcing them open again. Somewhere in the background, Gandalf was shouting something along the lines of "you shall not pass". Glorfindel shouted.
'You plagiarized that off me, you fool maia!'
The silmaril came back into his line of sight. Glorfindel relented.
'Fine, I won't fight, just get that thing away from me!'
Ren grinned and let off. Inez was shaking in anger as she watched Gandalf fall into the pits of flame. Frodo let out a keening wail that left all of the elves wincing.
'GANDALF!'
One down. Ren hoped Gandalf was having a nice flight. That ledge would make, she considered, a brilliant bungee jumping spot.