A/N: Hey all! We're finally back, and alive, we think. But unknown as to how long that'll last. Well, my surgery went ok, and I was only struck with a mild infection or I would have updated sooner. So we've had a couple questions that we feel we should answer. One being about and I quote: "hey! i wanted to know why is it that almost all "girls go to middle earth" fics the girls are from america or sumthing like that i mean why cant they be from japan or sumthing then it would be a bit more normal for the girls to know how to handel swords." this was from a person and while it's not mean we feel we should let people know that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. We mean how do you know that we haven't studied sword fighting... I mean yes we're not from Japan or China but our history does have sword fighting in it too. We are from Canada, and we're proud to admit it! Most stories are written by people from America, Canada or the UK so like any good author they write what they know. We don't write stuff that we don't know even the littlest amount about. We're not saying we're swordmistresses but we do have a basic knowledge of what's what. We don't want to sound mean but we did think we should explain our feelings.
LadyElven: Unfortunately, you'll just have to keep reading and find out what happens at Helm's Deep and if we're gonna ax Haldir or not.
Nekomiyu: Hey! The name Shenaux actually comes from a place not to far from where we live. It's a dam and a small community named "Chenaux". Is actually French-Canadian for channel, that's the word we were taught, and if you look it up in the French/English dictionary it's that too. I (Shenaux) took the name and twisted it to fit my purposes... heck, my daughter (when I finally settle down) will be lucky enough to have the name legally. Until then it's mine!
ElvenStar5: Thanks for the catch in the grammer department. We know that our grammer is horrid! And eventually (hopefully this summer) we'll have time to go through and fix everything up *crosses fingers*. But sometimes when I post (Shenaux) I don't catch everything or am just plain in too much of a hurry to worry at the time. I'll definately try to do better. And well J-chan *laughs nervously in the background* is just.... let's not go there. She's a great typist, just a little grammer impaired.
Cynthia Dysis: Two pots of coffee... now that's dedication! *J-chan gives a standing ovation with a big grin* Wow, we... yeah.... wow! Honestly, we never expected anyone to like this story that much to sit and read it all like that. THANK YOU! You made our day!
LorSparrow: Run! Hide! Umm, you might want to be sneakier in your knicking of elven items. Thank you though for everything, tell them it was our fault and maybe you'll get a few minutes rest. Thanks for the reviews.
Sorry to one and all who reviewed, but unfortunately time was not on our side. Thanx to one and all! Now here's Johnny!
***
Much to the surprise of the two women and the two animals, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas were waiting for them by a boulder. The two women still figured that they should still be slightly angry with their companions. They had, after all, ignored them completely.
After many apologies and some begging later, Sinn and Shenaux finally consented to forgive them. They found it rather hard to stay angry and run at the same time.
It was about four days later when Sinn and Shenaux, gasping for breath, saw Aragorn lie down on the ground and placed his ear to the ground, listening.
"Their pace has quickened. They must have caught our scent." Aragorn said as he got to his feet and looked at his four other companions. "Hurry!"
Legolas ran up to Aragorn, not even breathing all that heavily for his efforts. He turned around to look at Gimli and the two women. "Come on, Gimli. Sinn. Shenaux."
"Three days and nights pursuit. No food, no rest, no sign of our quarry but what bare rock can tell." Gimli grumbled.
"If we don't rest soon, I'm going to pass out." Sinn gasped to Shenaux. "I have never ran this long in my entire life!"
"I don't think I have exerted this much energy since I was four on a sugar high." Shenaux breathed heavily.
"How can they keep up this pace?" Sinn questioned then groaned when she saw some hills. "I'm gonna die!" she moaned.
"Dear Goddess! What have we done to deserve this?" Shenaux raised her eyes heavenward.
The five kept running and running and running. The two women were about to fall flat on their faces in exhaustion when Aragorn stopped and stooped down to the ground. He picked up a leaf-brooch.
"Not idly do the leaves of Lórien fall." Aragorn spoke into the silence, bar the gasping breathing.
Legolas looked at the brooch with new hope in his eyes. "They may yet be alive."
"Less than a day ahead of us. Come." Aragorn announced.
Sinn and Shenaux groaned and they tried to help Gimli as they manoeuvred over some boulders, but the Dwarf slipped and fell and began rolling down the hill. Sinn and Shenaux tried to stifle their giggles, but weren't all that successful. Giz and Oxana looked out from the packs of the women where they were now residing and shook their heads.
"Come! Gimli, we are gaining on them!" Legolas called out, not seeing the two women.
Gimli struggled to his feet. "I am wasted on cross-country. We Dwarves are natural sprinters. Very dangerous over short distances."
"I'm going to be so glad when we are able to rest and breath deeply again. I miss being able to sigh." Sinn muttered to Shenaux as they struggled to keep their feet as they tried to catch up.
"I miss holding a natural conversation." Shenaux told her friend. "And food. I am definitely missing food."
The five companions struggled through a boulder covered area and came to a rise that overlooked the lands of Rohan.
"What a beautiful sight." Shenaux stated before she bent over double and placed her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath.
"I'm going to die!" Sinn moaned as she bent over, gasping for breath. "Aragorn, what have we ever done to you?"
"I promise we will rest shortly." Aragorn stated.
"Promises, promises. I have yet to meet a man that kept his promises." Shenaux muttered. She looked over the landscape. "Are we where I think we are?"
"Rohan. Home of the horse-lords. There is something strange at work here. Some evil gives speed to these creatures, sets its will against us." Aragorn confirmed everyone's suspicions.
Legolas walked over to stand beside Sinn. "Are you all right Sinn?" He asked her in concern as he heard her wheeze.
"Yeah, great. I'm fine. Wish I brought my inhaler though." She gasped, trying to take deep breaths.
"But you don't have an inhaler Sinn." Shenaux pointed out.
"Well I should." Was her reply, making Shenaux shake her head at her friends logic.
Aragorn began to jog down the hill, making both women groan.
"We're off… again." Sinn sighed as she straightened slowly.
"That man is absolute evil!" Shenaux grumbled as they made their way down the hill behind Legolas and Gimli. "Positively evil."
Aragorn finally came to a standstill. He frowned into the distance. "Legolas, what do your Elf eyes see?" he questioned.
Legolas came to stand beside his friend and peered off into the distance. "The Uruks turn Northeast. They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard!"
"Saruman." Aragorn spat, saying the word as if it were a curse.
"Soon." Sinn muttered to Shenaux. "Soon we can rest. Gods I hope that time comes really soon. I don't think I will be able to move much longer."
"Neither can I."
The two women groaned as the group began to run again. They had begun to lag behind with Gimli.
"Keep breathing, that's the key. Breathe. Ohh." Gimli gasped for breath as he tried to catch up with the others of the group.
Shenaux and Sinn looked at each other, neither having the breath to giggle at the odd comment coming from the Dwarf.
"They run as if the very whips of their masters were behind them." Legolas muttered to himself as the five ran on and on.
They rested a few times during the night, but they still kept up the harsh running. Sinn and Shenaux kept telling themselves that soon they will be able to stop, very soon. By morning, the four were running across a top of a hill.
The two women looked at the sunrise, as did Legolas, but only he made a comment on it.
"The red sun rises, blood has been spilled this night." He said to his companions, then began to run again. The two women looked at each other with a meaningful glance. Only one thought went through either of their minds. Soon.
It was a few minutes later when Aragorn bent down and looked at the ground. He stood quickly and gestured for the other four to hide behind a rock and in the tall grass. Sinn, Shenaux and Gimli did so grateful for the chance to sit down and rest. Pulling their cloaks about them as if to blend in with their surroundings, the five travellers waited.
It was another few minutes later when riders rode up over the hill, their armour gleaming, and none took any notice of the people hiding in the grass.
Once the last of the riders passed, Aragorn stepped out from his hiding place and called out to them. "Riders of Rohan! What news from the mark?" He yelled, as his other companions joined him.
In surprise, the horsemen turned around and surrounded the five remaining people of the Fellowship with their spears out.
"What business does an elf, a man, a dwarf have in the Riddermark? Speak quickly!" The leader of the horsemen demanded.
"What are we? Chopped liver?" Shenaux muttered loudly. "Are we not people too? Or -" Sinn quickly covered her friends mouth with her hand.
"They have spears… we do not…. Their spears are pointed at us… we have a bow and swords… we're not fast with our weapons… don't piss them off." Sinn told her friend through clenched teeth.
"They wouldn't try to harm us Sinn. It would go against their code of honour." Shenaux explained to her, once Sinn removed her hand.
"… True enough." Sinn said. "Speak away."
Ignoring them, Gimli spoke to the leader. "Your real name, horse master, and I shall give you mine."
The leader got off his horse and looked down at Gimli. "I would cut off your head, dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground."
Now that definitely wasn't the smartest thing to do with an extremely loyal Elf and two very loyal women standing there. Both Legolas and Sinn drew their bows and Shenaux drew her twin knives.
"You would die before your stroke fell." Legolas told him.
"Ditto!" Sinn and Shenaux said.
Well, the horsemen definitely didn't like the idea of anyone threatening their leader, so of course they drew in closer so that their spears were even closer to the small group of five.
Aragorn grabbed Legolas' arm and made him lower it. He sent a look to both Sinn and Shenaux that shouted, "I am still the leader, do as I say or you will regret it." Or maybe it said, "I don't want to die quiet yet and neither do you, lower your weapons. We are out numbered." But either or, the look worked, for both Sinn and Shenaux lowered their weapons. Gimli let out a sigh of relief once they did so.
"I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, this is Gimli son of Gloin, Legolas of the woodland realm and two warrior maidens from another realm--"
Before Aragorn could finish what he was saying, Shenaux interrupted him with a shout. "Whoo-hoo! I am Xena, warrior princess!"
"No! You're more Gabrielle!" Sinn retorted.
"Goddess no! Gabrielle is such a pansy!"
"Not in the later episodes she's not! Besides, I want to be Xena this time!" Sinn pouted.
"Okay, okay y--" Shenaux was interrupted by Aragron clearing his throat.
"Ladies, do you mind?" He asked.
"No, not really." Shenaux grinned at him cheekily.
He glared at the two women and they both stepped back and in unison said: "Shutting up now."
Aragorn sighed and turned back to the horseman. "As I was saying, we are friends of Rohan, and of Théoden your King." Aragorn told the horse leader.
The leader looked at the five of them. "Théoden no longer recognises friend from foe." He said as he removed his helmet. "Not even his own kin."
The Riders raised their spears and backed off slightly. If their leader was all right with the fact that these people were no threat, then they were.
"Saruman has poisoned the mind of the King and claimed lordship over his lands. My company are those loyal to Rohan, and for that we are banished. The white wizard is cunning. He walks here and there they say, as an old man, hooded and cloaked, and everywhere his spies slip past our nets." The leader told them bitterly.
"We are no spies. We track a party of Uruk-hai westward across the plain. They have taken two of our friends captive."
"The Uruks are destroyed, we slaughtered them during the night."
"But there were two hobbits. Did you see two hobbits with them?" Gimli questioned desperately.
"They would be small, only children to your eyes." Aragorn explained to him what Hobbits were.
"We left none alive. We piled the carcasses and burned them." The leader told them.
"Dead?" Gimli questioned sadly.
The two women looked at each other with a frown.
Could that have changed Shenaux? Sinn questioned her friend in her mind. Could Merry and Pippin have died because of us?
I don't want to think of that Sinn. I'm guilty enough as it is. Shenaux told her friend.
I'm scared Shenaux. I'm really scared.
I know. So am I.
The two women stepped closer to each other. Oxana and Giz poked their heads out from the two women's packs and nuzzled Sinn and Shenaux' necks respectively.
The horsemen leader nodded his head sadly. "I am sorry." He told them.
Gimli looked down at the ground and Legolas puts his hand on the Dwarf's shoulder in a silent gesture of comfort. The exact same way Boromir did in the halls of Moria.
The leader whistled and three horses came forward. "Hasufel, Arod and Ethienne. May these horses bear you to better fortune than their former masters. Farewell."
The three horses come forward. Two were sorrel and the third was white.
"Look for your friends, but do not trust to hope. It is forsaken in these lands. We ride north!" He said the last to his fellow riders.
The riders followed their leader, leaving the five alone.
***
A/N: Well hope that tides y'all over for now. Everybody please remember that we write both from the book and the movie, so you might see things you don't recognize from the movie that were in the book and vice versa. Also, I (J-chan) needed to add a third horse, so don't get mad at me. And if you DO get mad, well Boo to you!
Shenaux: Bye! *wiggles her fingers* Enjoy your long weekend.
J-chan: Ta! Happy Easter all!
LadyElven: Unfortunately, you'll just have to keep reading and find out what happens at Helm's Deep and if we're gonna ax Haldir or not.
Nekomiyu: Hey! The name Shenaux actually comes from a place not to far from where we live. It's a dam and a small community named "Chenaux". Is actually French-Canadian for channel, that's the word we were taught, and if you look it up in the French/English dictionary it's that too. I (Shenaux) took the name and twisted it to fit my purposes... heck, my daughter (when I finally settle down) will be lucky enough to have the name legally. Until then it's mine!
ElvenStar5: Thanks for the catch in the grammer department. We know that our grammer is horrid! And eventually (hopefully this summer) we'll have time to go through and fix everything up *crosses fingers*. But sometimes when I post (Shenaux) I don't catch everything or am just plain in too much of a hurry to worry at the time. I'll definately try to do better. And well J-chan *laughs nervously in the background* is just.... let's not go there. She's a great typist, just a little grammer impaired.
Cynthia Dysis: Two pots of coffee... now that's dedication! *J-chan gives a standing ovation with a big grin* Wow, we... yeah.... wow! Honestly, we never expected anyone to like this story that much to sit and read it all like that. THANK YOU! You made our day!
LorSparrow: Run! Hide! Umm, you might want to be sneakier in your knicking of elven items. Thank you though for everything, tell them it was our fault and maybe you'll get a few minutes rest. Thanks for the reviews.
Sorry to one and all who reviewed, but unfortunately time was not on our side. Thanx to one and all! Now here's Johnny!
***
Much to the surprise of the two women and the two animals, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas were waiting for them by a boulder. The two women still figured that they should still be slightly angry with their companions. They had, after all, ignored them completely.
After many apologies and some begging later, Sinn and Shenaux finally consented to forgive them. They found it rather hard to stay angry and run at the same time.
It was about four days later when Sinn and Shenaux, gasping for breath, saw Aragorn lie down on the ground and placed his ear to the ground, listening.
"Their pace has quickened. They must have caught our scent." Aragorn said as he got to his feet and looked at his four other companions. "Hurry!"
Legolas ran up to Aragorn, not even breathing all that heavily for his efforts. He turned around to look at Gimli and the two women. "Come on, Gimli. Sinn. Shenaux."
"Three days and nights pursuit. No food, no rest, no sign of our quarry but what bare rock can tell." Gimli grumbled.
"If we don't rest soon, I'm going to pass out." Sinn gasped to Shenaux. "I have never ran this long in my entire life!"
"I don't think I have exerted this much energy since I was four on a sugar high." Shenaux breathed heavily.
"How can they keep up this pace?" Sinn questioned then groaned when she saw some hills. "I'm gonna die!" she moaned.
"Dear Goddess! What have we done to deserve this?" Shenaux raised her eyes heavenward.
The five kept running and running and running. The two women were about to fall flat on their faces in exhaustion when Aragorn stopped and stooped down to the ground. He picked up a leaf-brooch.
"Not idly do the leaves of Lórien fall." Aragorn spoke into the silence, bar the gasping breathing.
Legolas looked at the brooch with new hope in his eyes. "They may yet be alive."
"Less than a day ahead of us. Come." Aragorn announced.
Sinn and Shenaux groaned and they tried to help Gimli as they manoeuvred over some boulders, but the Dwarf slipped and fell and began rolling down the hill. Sinn and Shenaux tried to stifle their giggles, but weren't all that successful. Giz and Oxana looked out from the packs of the women where they were now residing and shook their heads.
"Come! Gimli, we are gaining on them!" Legolas called out, not seeing the two women.
Gimli struggled to his feet. "I am wasted on cross-country. We Dwarves are natural sprinters. Very dangerous over short distances."
"I'm going to be so glad when we are able to rest and breath deeply again. I miss being able to sigh." Sinn muttered to Shenaux as they struggled to keep their feet as they tried to catch up.
"I miss holding a natural conversation." Shenaux told her friend. "And food. I am definitely missing food."
The five companions struggled through a boulder covered area and came to a rise that overlooked the lands of Rohan.
"What a beautiful sight." Shenaux stated before she bent over double and placed her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath.
"I'm going to die!" Sinn moaned as she bent over, gasping for breath. "Aragorn, what have we ever done to you?"
"I promise we will rest shortly." Aragorn stated.
"Promises, promises. I have yet to meet a man that kept his promises." Shenaux muttered. She looked over the landscape. "Are we where I think we are?"
"Rohan. Home of the horse-lords. There is something strange at work here. Some evil gives speed to these creatures, sets its will against us." Aragorn confirmed everyone's suspicions.
Legolas walked over to stand beside Sinn. "Are you all right Sinn?" He asked her in concern as he heard her wheeze.
"Yeah, great. I'm fine. Wish I brought my inhaler though." She gasped, trying to take deep breaths.
"But you don't have an inhaler Sinn." Shenaux pointed out.
"Well I should." Was her reply, making Shenaux shake her head at her friends logic.
Aragorn began to jog down the hill, making both women groan.
"We're off… again." Sinn sighed as she straightened slowly.
"That man is absolute evil!" Shenaux grumbled as they made their way down the hill behind Legolas and Gimli. "Positively evil."
Aragorn finally came to a standstill. He frowned into the distance. "Legolas, what do your Elf eyes see?" he questioned.
Legolas came to stand beside his friend and peered off into the distance. "The Uruks turn Northeast. They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard!"
"Saruman." Aragorn spat, saying the word as if it were a curse.
"Soon." Sinn muttered to Shenaux. "Soon we can rest. Gods I hope that time comes really soon. I don't think I will be able to move much longer."
"Neither can I."
The two women groaned as the group began to run again. They had begun to lag behind with Gimli.
"Keep breathing, that's the key. Breathe. Ohh." Gimli gasped for breath as he tried to catch up with the others of the group.
Shenaux and Sinn looked at each other, neither having the breath to giggle at the odd comment coming from the Dwarf.
"They run as if the very whips of their masters were behind them." Legolas muttered to himself as the five ran on and on.
They rested a few times during the night, but they still kept up the harsh running. Sinn and Shenaux kept telling themselves that soon they will be able to stop, very soon. By morning, the four were running across a top of a hill.
The two women looked at the sunrise, as did Legolas, but only he made a comment on it.
"The red sun rises, blood has been spilled this night." He said to his companions, then began to run again. The two women looked at each other with a meaningful glance. Only one thought went through either of their minds. Soon.
It was a few minutes later when Aragorn bent down and looked at the ground. He stood quickly and gestured for the other four to hide behind a rock and in the tall grass. Sinn, Shenaux and Gimli did so grateful for the chance to sit down and rest. Pulling their cloaks about them as if to blend in with their surroundings, the five travellers waited.
It was another few minutes later when riders rode up over the hill, their armour gleaming, and none took any notice of the people hiding in the grass.
Once the last of the riders passed, Aragorn stepped out from his hiding place and called out to them. "Riders of Rohan! What news from the mark?" He yelled, as his other companions joined him.
In surprise, the horsemen turned around and surrounded the five remaining people of the Fellowship with their spears out.
"What business does an elf, a man, a dwarf have in the Riddermark? Speak quickly!" The leader of the horsemen demanded.
"What are we? Chopped liver?" Shenaux muttered loudly. "Are we not people too? Or -" Sinn quickly covered her friends mouth with her hand.
"They have spears… we do not…. Their spears are pointed at us… we have a bow and swords… we're not fast with our weapons… don't piss them off." Sinn told her friend through clenched teeth.
"They wouldn't try to harm us Sinn. It would go against their code of honour." Shenaux explained to her, once Sinn removed her hand.
"… True enough." Sinn said. "Speak away."
Ignoring them, Gimli spoke to the leader. "Your real name, horse master, and I shall give you mine."
The leader got off his horse and looked down at Gimli. "I would cut off your head, dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground."
Now that definitely wasn't the smartest thing to do with an extremely loyal Elf and two very loyal women standing there. Both Legolas and Sinn drew their bows and Shenaux drew her twin knives.
"You would die before your stroke fell." Legolas told him.
"Ditto!" Sinn and Shenaux said.
Well, the horsemen definitely didn't like the idea of anyone threatening their leader, so of course they drew in closer so that their spears were even closer to the small group of five.
Aragorn grabbed Legolas' arm and made him lower it. He sent a look to both Sinn and Shenaux that shouted, "I am still the leader, do as I say or you will regret it." Or maybe it said, "I don't want to die quiet yet and neither do you, lower your weapons. We are out numbered." But either or, the look worked, for both Sinn and Shenaux lowered their weapons. Gimli let out a sigh of relief once they did so.
"I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, this is Gimli son of Gloin, Legolas of the woodland realm and two warrior maidens from another realm--"
Before Aragorn could finish what he was saying, Shenaux interrupted him with a shout. "Whoo-hoo! I am Xena, warrior princess!"
"No! You're more Gabrielle!" Sinn retorted.
"Goddess no! Gabrielle is such a pansy!"
"Not in the later episodes she's not! Besides, I want to be Xena this time!" Sinn pouted.
"Okay, okay y--" Shenaux was interrupted by Aragron clearing his throat.
"Ladies, do you mind?" He asked.
"No, not really." Shenaux grinned at him cheekily.
He glared at the two women and they both stepped back and in unison said: "Shutting up now."
Aragorn sighed and turned back to the horseman. "As I was saying, we are friends of Rohan, and of Théoden your King." Aragorn told the horse leader.
The leader looked at the five of them. "Théoden no longer recognises friend from foe." He said as he removed his helmet. "Not even his own kin."
The Riders raised their spears and backed off slightly. If their leader was all right with the fact that these people were no threat, then they were.
"Saruman has poisoned the mind of the King and claimed lordship over his lands. My company are those loyal to Rohan, and for that we are banished. The white wizard is cunning. He walks here and there they say, as an old man, hooded and cloaked, and everywhere his spies slip past our nets." The leader told them bitterly.
"We are no spies. We track a party of Uruk-hai westward across the plain. They have taken two of our friends captive."
"The Uruks are destroyed, we slaughtered them during the night."
"But there were two hobbits. Did you see two hobbits with them?" Gimli questioned desperately.
"They would be small, only children to your eyes." Aragorn explained to him what Hobbits were.
"We left none alive. We piled the carcasses and burned them." The leader told them.
"Dead?" Gimli questioned sadly.
The two women looked at each other with a frown.
Could that have changed Shenaux? Sinn questioned her friend in her mind. Could Merry and Pippin have died because of us?
I don't want to think of that Sinn. I'm guilty enough as it is. Shenaux told her friend.
I'm scared Shenaux. I'm really scared.
I know. So am I.
The two women stepped closer to each other. Oxana and Giz poked their heads out from the two women's packs and nuzzled Sinn and Shenaux' necks respectively.
The horsemen leader nodded his head sadly. "I am sorry." He told them.
Gimli looked down at the ground and Legolas puts his hand on the Dwarf's shoulder in a silent gesture of comfort. The exact same way Boromir did in the halls of Moria.
The leader whistled and three horses came forward. "Hasufel, Arod and Ethienne. May these horses bear you to better fortune than their former masters. Farewell."
The three horses come forward. Two were sorrel and the third was white.
"Look for your friends, but do not trust to hope. It is forsaken in these lands. We ride north!" He said the last to his fellow riders.
The riders followed their leader, leaving the five alone.
***
A/N: Well hope that tides y'all over for now. Everybody please remember that we write both from the book and the movie, so you might see things you don't recognize from the movie that were in the book and vice versa. Also, I (J-chan) needed to add a third horse, so don't get mad at me. And if you DO get mad, well Boo to you!
Shenaux: Bye! *wiggles her fingers* Enjoy your long weekend.
J-chan: Ta! Happy Easter all!