Chapter Five by angelinhell

The scene opens in an insubstantial film studio in upstate New York. It is raining. Like it always does.

angelinhell: And we're back!

evilemmylou: I've lost count of how many times you've said that.

angelinhell: Shut up.

ririchan: She's right, you really should come up with a new—

angelinhell: I said SHUT UP!!!

ririchan: (cringes)

angelinhell: ANYway, this chapter is...new. The fifth. What else can I say?

ririchan: You could say something about what it's about.

angelinhell: But that would ruin the surprise, wouldn't it?

evilemmylou: There's a surprise?

angelinhell: (squirms) Well, no, but...it would ruin it if there was one!

ririchan: Isn't that "if there were one"?

angelinhell: STOP PICKING ON MY GRAMMAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

laaanessness: (bursts in) You guys will never believe this!

angelinhell: Wanna bet?

laaanessness: The Fellowship is walking down Broadway singing Beatles songs at the top of their lungs!

angelinhell: You win. Let's go.

evilemmylou: (points at readers) Kinda leaving them hanging, aren't you?

angelinhell: (looks at readers) Here, I'll just turn on the DVD and let them watch it. They're responsible, aren't you, my darling readers?

Darling readers: (blink and stare blankly) (crickets chirp)

evilemmylou: (shrugs) All right, go ahead, but don't blame me if the studio isn't here when you come back.

Darling readers: Hey! We resent that! We would not deliberately demolish this building!

ririchan: No, but you might be witnesses to its destruction, right?

Darling readers: (pause) Well, and what if we were?

angelinhell: Come on, guys, let's go!

evilemmylou and ririchan: (sigh and leave)

Penny: (pops up) Now what can I kill and cremate? (to audience) Did you know it's legal to burn things if they're already dead?

(crickets chirp)

Penny: Right! DVD! And then to my beautiful and flame-filled plan!

Darling readers: Isn't that fun-filled plan?

Penny: Shut up and watch this stupid movie. (pops it in)

(Monty Python's Flying Circus theme begins to play)

Penny: (looks sheepish and takes DVD out) Sorry. Wrong one. (puts in the right DVD) By the way, angelinhell doesn't own LOTR. (takes out bag of popcorn and lighter) Popcorne flambeaux, anyone?

Frodo first saw her in his dreams.

She started as a quiet, gentle voice, never speaking to him but always somewhere in the background. It comforted him to hear her, even though he didn't know the voice.

In the half-awake way he spent most of the time, she was a faceless angel with soft hair and gentle hands, a voice as beautiful as the wind and a silence bridged by her touch.

In the dreams she fought faceless shadows, her light driving them to the brink of cliffs and over. She protected him and sometimes fought beside him, a shapeless lantern of golden light and a silver sword held in a vaguely outlined hand. His own light was blue; on his other side was a second, red light. Together they beat back blackness after blackness, demon after demon. And when he tired, felt as though he could not go on, the two held them up and fought on through his flickering light.

For hours, hours that felt like days, like weeks, like years, they fought, on and on through a sea of the unknown, until, in a final burst of pure, white light, all the shadows disappeared and the floated, soundless and safe, in the peaceful waves of eternity.

He opened his eyes.

To his right Sam lay sprawled in a chair, with an expression that said, no, I won't fall asleep...well, maybe just for a few minutes...zzz...I give up.

Frodo smiled and looked to the left.

There was a girl there, watching him with content in her hazel eyes. Watching as if she knew he would wake up—as if it were just a matter of time.

He knew, without a doubt, that this was the girl he had seen, the girl who had cared for him in waking and protected him in sleep. She smiled, a quiet, patient smile. He smiled back at her.

"Frodo, this is Morgan Lane," came a familiar voice from further away. "She already knows you."

"Gandalf!" he exclaimed, happy to see the wizard standing over him. "Why—"

"That, perhaps, is a story for another time," the old man interrupted, smiling. "Or, perhaps, for another person to tell. Right now I suggest you listen to Morgan—who's story is, by the way, infinitely more interesting."

Morgan blushed slightly and looked down.

"I've heard it before," Gandalf said, getting up, "so I'll leave her to tell it to you." He smiled at Morgan. "Call me when you're ready," he told her, and closed the door gently behind him.

Morgan looked down at her hands in a desperate attempt to avoid Frodo's searching eyes. Finally face to face with the person she had loved for five years, she felt struck dumb and was searching desperately for the courage to speak.

When she finally did, it was halting, not nearly as easy as her previous conversations with Elrond, Sam, and Gandalf. They were only actors to her—distracting, but not the same. It was one thing to talk to the cast members—it was quite another to talk to the star.

As she explained, though, she fell into a rhythm and felt more secure, talking more easily and even managing to look up once or twice. When she did she was rewarded with a smile.

And it didn't feel so different after all, talking to him.

Finally she was finished, and he asked the one question she had been dreading. "When did you get here?"

"A few days ago," she said, trying to stop there but knowing it was not enough. "Right before Arwen—"

He nodded, then asked a question she had not expected. "What did you do while I was—"

She smiled at her hands. "I watched you. I did what I could. My friends—you'll meet them, they're great—they helped, they talked to me. I tried visualization and it seemed to work, so I kept doing it."

"Visualization?"

She looked up without thinking and, this time, forgot to look back down. "I pictured power flowing from me to you, trying to...fortify, to protect. Elrond did a good job of healing that nasty gash—I did what he couldn't. I tried to heal the nasty mental gash you got."

Of what she had said throughout the interview, he seemed to have understood about half, but that looked like enough. He asked no more questions.

For which she was very thankful.

From the first moment of the council, the four other-worldly girls took charge.

"All right," Morgan began as soon as every had arrived. "Down to business. Elrond could give you a lot of poetic language but I'll say it straight out—Sauron's ring, the One Ring, has dragged itself out of hiding and is, now, in Rivendell.'

Autumn gave Frodo a tiny shove. He stood up, walked over, and nervously placed the Ring on the pedestal in the center of the circle.

There was a moment of confusion until Autumn rose and held her hands up for silence.

"You can't use it," she said. "It would turn against you. We've read the book—we know. So the only thing to do is destroy it."

"Easy enough," said Gimli, hefting his axe and preparing to stand up.

"Hold it," Alli said, standing up quickly. "I know what you're thinking, buddy, and all it's going to do is earn you a broken axe and a head injury. Conventional bashing is not going to work."

Although all Gimli appeared to have understood of that was "broken axe" and "head injury," all he needed to have understood was "broken axe." He settled down.

Autumn thanked Alli with a nod. "As Morgan has said before, I'm going to break through Elrond's infinitely prettier but much slower language to say—in order to get rid of it, someone has to take it into Mordor and throw it into Mount Doom."

"Wonderful," Boromir commented ruefully. "Just wonderful."

"If we weren't around," Alli commented, no longer able to keep quiet, "there would be a short "Gondor gets the Ring" vs. "Destroy the Ring" argument between Boromir and another of our good friends, known as of now as Strider. And eventually it would come out that the said good friend is actually Aragorn, son of Arathorn, rightful king of Gondor. Although," she added under her breath, "I really don't know why you need to know his father's name."

No one spoke.

The silence was broken by Aragorn himself. 'How do you know all this?" he asked incredulously.

"Like she said, we've read the book," Morgan said, and sat.

"You seem to know the answers to everything," Boromir said, now annoyed. "So tell us this—who of us is to go to Mordor and how exactly to you propose we get there and return unscathed?"

"That, my friend, is for you to decide amongst yourselves," Morgan said impassively.

This sentence was followed by the expected, excited discussion—and by the single voice that rang out above all of them, also expected but no less hard, even for those who had known.

"I will take the Ring."

Morgan looked at Frodo's small, uncertain figure, and what of her heart that was still hers went out to him. She went over and stood beside him.

"I will take this task also." That, at least, everyone understood.

"And I," all three other girls said simultaneously, standing up. They shared a smile as they collected around Morgan.

Gandalf also went over. "If you expect to get there at all, I believe you'll need a bit more than the map you remember."

Morgan smiled generously at him, then made eye contact with the others who were to go. Aragorn hardly needed an excuse, and neither did Legolas, whose very nature was enthusiastic. Gimli took one look at Legolas standing there, was filled with envy, and went up as well.

As always, the last was Boromir, who looked at the band with a cynical glance. "Well," he said quietly, "I suppose if I don't go, all will be lost. You have my strength and the strength of Gondor."

The four girls, with their foreknowledge, smiled at Boromir more than anyone else.

Elrond got up slowly, but before he could speak, Autumn stopped him. 'If I remember this right," she said with a wry smile, "there are a few others listening who, perhaps, should not be. Why don't you three come out?"

Merry and Pippin came out sheepishly from their pillar, but Sam was nowhere to be seen. Alli sighed. "Sam, if you don't come out, we're going to leave without you."

There was a slight rustling and Sam appeared, defiant.

"Thirteen," Elrond said. "A well-known number, if not a particularly lucky one—"

"Actually, it's Morgan's favorite number," Beth commented.

Elrond did not deign to glare at her, but his disapproval was tangible. "This is your final choice?" Barely waiting for the nod, he continued, "Very well. You shall be the Fellowship of the Ring."

There was a brief dramatic moment, broken when Morgan said, "Right. Now that business is taken care of, does anyone have chainmail in my size?"

angelinhell: (comes back in) So, how'd it go?

Penny: (has fallen asleep) (all readers are gone)

angelinhell: (sighs and goes over to Penny) (yelling in her ear) HOW'D IT GO??????

Penny: (sits bolt upright and whacks head on...something) Fine!

evilemmylou: (enters with laaanessness) What's up? leans against wall

Wall: (falls over)

Entire studio: (falls apart, as it is a set disguising the biggest nuclear power plant in the world)

All readers: (stop work and look sheepishly at angelinhell)

angelinhell: You know, I should have suspected something when the room with a fifth the size of the building.

evilemmylou: Let's try to figure this out before the government finds out.

laaanessness: Then we have the better part of eternity. Ciao!

angelinhell: Bye!