Chapter 1
"Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiing!" screamed my alarm clock and I groaned as I turned over and shut it off. The first Monday in my life as a junior and I already hated school, I didn't even know my schedule. I slowly dragged myself out of bed and stripped down to nothing, then turned on the shower and jumped in. The warm water running all over me felt wonderful and cleared the sleep from my eyes. But soon I had to get out, my mom would be pissed if I took thirty minutes like last time, I slowly stepped out and wrapped a towel around my body when I was suddenly bombarded by the force of two little girls commonly known as my sisters and fell backwards.
"Get out!" I shrieked and shoved them roughly out the door then slammed it behind them. I skillfully locked the door even with them trying to hold down the handle and returned to getting dressed. I needed to make a good impression today but not look like I wanted to be liked so I decided to wear my baggy tan corduroy capris and my hot pink 'Miss Understood' shirt that I loved dearly but was getting a bit to small lengthwise.
I pulled up the top half of my hair and put it in a clip, next I put in a new belly button ring with pink rhinestones then I ran downstairs, grabbed a bagel, and jumped on the computer. I had just started a new fanfic that I couldn't stay away from, it involved both lord of the rings and the forgotten realms, pretty cool huh? Well anyway, Legolas was just about to tell Rachel he loved her when...
"Honk honk!" the school bus beckoned and I didn't even have shoes on so I rushed outside carrying my flip-flops and ran onto the bus. I sat beside my friend Travis who is a funny dude and we talked a bit then we arrived. Whoa! Talk about crowded, all the little ninth graders were running around making beelines towards their classrooms and some looked hopelessly lost and a bit teary eyed.
"Were we ever this pathetic?" Travis asked grinning playfully.
"You were." I laughed and left him to go to first period, which was art. Okay so about art, I love it, but I sadly couldn't draw a circle if you asked me too, my talent was in writing so I usually wrote poems and drew little half hearted doodles along the sides. Today I sat in the back as usual but oddly enough, the lights were all turned off and there were only a few kids in the classroom. The teacher Ms. Petrini suddenly burst in, interrupting a few very heated conversations if I might add, and set her stuff down and walked to the front of the room.
"Okay class today we are going to watch a hour long film on real life art I want you to take notes and listen carefully to the terms they use." She clicked on the TV and the movie started. I tried to take notes I really did but the TV voice guy kept going on and on and I was still tired from staying up till twelve last night and well, soon I was laying on my desk and still I tried to keep my eyes opened but it was no use and I fell asleep.
Wulfgar pounded the glowing metal and until it had finally given a bit under his blows and smiled. This piece of work would make a fine sword someday, of that he didn't doubt, Bruenor would be pleased. With that thought, Wulfgar realized he was glad that Bruenor would be happy. Over his four and a half years in Bruenors service Wulfgars anger had slowly died and replacing it was a stoic calm that helped him stay relaxed when he was shot by one of Bruenors harmless, yet painful, verbal jabs. He had learned to work a forge and to be patient and overall had had a nice time in Bruenors service, but not for much longer. In only a few months he would be free to do his own biding and though he might miss the rough and tumble dwarf he knew that he would be overjoyed to be able to stretch his limbs.
Suddenly he heard the sound of stomping boots and the protesting of someone who did not sound dwarven at all.
"Let go of me you midgets! I am not a nutcase!" Who was this person? They spoke with the oddest accents and used some words he had never heard before. Hesitantly he looked out of his workshop and saw Bruenor leading a group of dwarves into the main hall, and being dragged behind them was a young girl who looked to be around 16. In addition, she was definitely not from the dale; her clothes were made for very hot conditions and didn't cover enough of her body. Her hair was a variation of black, blonde, red, and brown all in different clumps, her ears were covered with at least five piercing, two in each lobe and one in the cartilage, she also had one in her navel.
"Let me go you freaks! I demand my rights! You can't just drag me anywhere you please!" What was she talking about? As far as Wulfgar was concerned if the dwarves brought her in she had a reason to be here, but what could she have done? She really did not seem that strong, nor was she dressed to keep away-unwanted attention.
"Ye get what's coming to ye! Ye should know better then to ambush a bunch o' dwarves!" Bruenor stared at the girl with a mixture anger and amusement.
"I told you I WAS NOT ambushing you! I don't even know who you are! Moreover, even if I was I wouldn't and couldn't kill you." She added the last part quietly and they all looked at her in expectation but she seemed closed up. Wulfgar decided it was his turn to speak up.
"What was she doing exactly?" He turned to Bruenor and the dwarf gave a reluctant shrug.
"She was sneaking round the base o' Kelvin's Cairn with this," he handed Wulfgar a box thing with little rubber numbers on it, "An' she wouldn't tell us her business so we brought her in to make sure she weren't a wizard or some such thing." Wulfgar looked again at the box thing and then looked at the girl.
"What is this?" he waved the object around and pressed a little button, which made the phone sing this weird song (tune to 'hey ya' by Outkast). He immediately dropped it and it hit the ground with a loud crack.
The girl fell down sobbing and brought the dwarves holding her along for the ride.
"My cell phone! My beautiful harmless cell phone, you lived only a year and yet you served me well." She knelt her head down as if in reverence and for a moment Wulfgar was scared he had killed a living being but instead the girl scrambled over, scooped up the remains of the 'cell phone' and stuck them in her pocket.
"Do you realize how expensive those are? My parents already swore if I destroyed another they wouldn't buy me a new one and know it's happened!" She looked at him angrily and the force of her gaze made him step backwards toward the wall. He quickly straightened; no warrior of the tundra would bow down to a mere female.
"I think I know what use ye can be put to." Bruenor announced and she looked down at him in puzzlement.
"Ye can work with cleaning team every week for a half year then we'll send ye on yer way, but not a day sooner." Bruenor smirked, for though he didn't even have a cleaning team he couldn't leave this girl, who was seemingly alone, on her own in the wilds of Icewind dale.
"What the hell are you talking about? You have got to be joshin me dude." She stared at Bruenor with a dazed expression on her face, Wulfgar smirked, even if he didn't know what the word 'joshin' or 'dude' was he could tell she had never done real work in her life.
"I don't clean," She said finally.
"Know ye do," Bruenor said evenly and she made a sound that was somewhere between a huff and a groan.
"Where do I sleep?" she said in defeat and Bruenor asked her to follow him and they bustled off in search of room.
Wulfgar wasn't sure but he had the idea that things were going to get very interesting.
Okay, here were the problems, one I was in a weirdo place where some guys were seven ft. tall and some were a bit less than five ft. as adults! Second, I had no cell phone, which wasn't really important since I couldn't get a signal, which is why I ran into the dwarves, third, I had cleaning duty. It had been an hour since the red bearded midget brought me to this dark little, and may I put emphasis on little, room with no windows, no air conditioning, and no bathroom.
"What am I supposed to do? Wait till the lollipop kids come to get me?" I muttered and then another thought came to me, this room was dirty, I had no change of clothes, therefore I would become like a filthy captive girl who doesn't get a bath for a few months and I would end up looking like shit when my prince in shining armor came to save me.
All I could hope for was that the prince was Orlando bloom and this was just some odd deleted scene from Lord of the Rings.
Bruenor was conferring quietly with some other dwarves when Wulfgar approached him. The girl's room was directly across from his, and she was being the loudest wench in history. First, she started to scream bloody murder then she started to sing a lot of very depressing and haunting songs. He hadn't gotten any sleep last night and he was very cranky. Bruenor turned and watched as the seething Wulfgar trotted up to him, his new hammer, Aegis Fang, slung over his shoulder.
"What do ye want boy?" he asked gruffly.
"That girl stayed up all night screaming at the top of her lungs and didn't give me a moments quiet." He raged and Bruenor raised an eyebrow.
"Did ye tell her to be quiet?" Bruenor asked and Wulfgar looked at him like a gaped mouthed like a fish.
"N...no..." he stuttered and frowned slightly. "Can't you do anything with her?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.
"Yes, you an' th' girl are going t' get battle lessons together." Bruenor announced calmly and Wulfgar turned red.
"I take lessons with a female? You've got to be kidding." He gasped out and Bruenor's eyes turned hard.
"Ye'll take lessons with whoever I say you'll take em' with, got that boy?" Bruenor said coldly and Wulfgar just stomped out knowing he wouldn't be able to budge the stubborn dwarf.
Okay so after my little 'encounter' with the midget's I started to have a little tantrum, which simply involved throwing around the few items in the room, and screaming my throat hoarse. Next, I started to sing Evanescence, all the words I knew from the songs were the chorus so on some I improvised but otherwise I think I was pretty good. I soon found a piece of chalk under the now broken desk and started to draw on the walls. Like I told you I am definitely not an artist, but I did my best and soon had a mural consisting of dragons, forests, and big sea monsters, one looked a lot like the Kraken. I was very pleased with myself and wanted to finish but considering the fact I had no other color but a pale gray that wasn't going to happen. I decided to take stock of myself; a few bruises lined my waist and arms where the little bearded people had trampled me. My hair was a rat's nest, which I could do nothing about and my once hot pink shirt was now more brown than anything else, I also realized my tan capris were dark brown.
"Great now I not only look like crap but I feel like crap too!" you muttered, you voice rising with every word.
"And these stupid short people expect me to clean, for FREE, and be their personal slave and they think I ambushed their sorry asses! No one ambushes anyone else anymore, if I wanted to attack them I would have used a machine gun and gotten it over with! Who the hell are they to say I attacked them! I only wanted to get a signal, which thanks to big, fat and ugly (Wulfgar) I can't even try to do anymore!" You screeched and seethed and yelled more about them, little did you know that right outside your door stood the red-bearded dwarf and 'tall fat and ugly'.
"I told you did I not? She's mad, been screaming like that all night!" Wulfgar whispered.
"I don't care if she's a bloody banshee yer' gonna train in the art o' weaponry with her and that's that!" he scolded and prepared to barge in on the now quieted girl.
I was just about to remove my shirt and see what could be done about it when the tweedle dee and tweedle dumb came barging in; luckily, it hadn't passed my ribcage.
"What the hell do you think your doing you perverts? Get the hell out or I'm gonna kill you!" Yes, it was an empty threat but they both rushed out anyway, looking properly embarrassed and I quickly slammed my shirt back down.
"You can come in now." I said quietly but they apparently heard and the door was slowly opened. Both men had red faces and the short one spoke softly when he asked if I needed anything and told me if I cooperated, I could come and get some food.
"Finally! Okay, I need a brush, clothes, a mirror, some hair ties, a bath, pjs, fresh underwear," I felt my face grow a bit hot, that one had just slipped out. "The location of a phone, something to entertain myself with and maybe a few other odds and ends to get me comfy, like a mattress." I finished and they both looked stunned.
"What's a pj? And what..." Wulfgar began to ask, but Bruenor interrupted him.
"We'll see what we can be gettin' ye, don't expect much ye aren't our firs' priority." He announced calmly and I guessed I'd have to live with that. "Ye'll also start yer weapon training with a friend o' mine, he'll prepare ye for the dale."
"Why on earth would I need weapon trainin' to be ready fer the dale?" I said, trying to mock his accent. He looked sharply at me.
"Cause we wouldn't want ye to be eatin' by one o' them nasty beasties that live in these parts," he said slowly but I tried to show no reaction. "Aren't ye wantin' to be ready to fight fer yerself?"
"Why should I? The only thing I could possibly run into is a wild animal and I can just steer clear of them when they come to call. Unless you think an orc or giant or something is gonna get me. If that's the case your going to be surprised to hear that they don't exist and never have." I gave him a crazy look and shorty turned an angry red.
"I told the boy and I'm gonna tell you too. I don't care if ye think yer invincible and are never gonna die! Yer takin' fightin' lessons and that's that!" he roared and you immediately shut up.