Disclaimer: I am not JRR Tolkien.
I am not Peter Jackson.
I have not yet set any plots of LotR domination into action.
Yet is the key word here.
Therefore, I do not own the Lord of the Rings.
Pity.
AN: This chapter is meant to give some background on the character. It is not meant as offense to anyone or group mentioned. I know a few decent cheerleaders and jocks, and I know a few sick, twisted, demonic ones. I just used the aforementioned groups because they are typically popular, and therefore, enemies of the unpopular. Which fits in perfectly to the protagonist's development later in the story.
Chapter 1
My home life was... difficult. I was a loner. The preppy cheerleaders and their brainless varsity jock boyfriends hated me, but that was justified. Back home, there was an unwritten law: they would do everything in their power to make my life miserable, and I would return the favor. Simple math determines my success at the latter:
My life was a living death.
I became a Goth, since that typically defined my mood. I also learned all about the Middle Ages and all that stuff, just so I could creep out all those snotty preps.
Swords and Sorcery were cool and all, but I liked rocks better.
My true passion was geology. I knew all about caves and rocks. I had also studied metal craft, and some weaponry to match it. I knew all the properties of every metal, mineral, and crystal known to man.
It also happened to be my most carefully guarded secret. If those dough-headed cheerleaders ever got any idea...well, I'd never live through it.
I had gone through a lot of stress that week.
And I mean a LOT.
I had just suffered through three consecutive days of the most brutal finals that the universe could throw at me, which I promptly failed, and each of my teachers had assigned a truckload of homework. To make matters worse, some creeps at school had somehow gotten into the water system at school, and replaced the water in the showers with purple paint.
I looked like an eggplant, and my shower cloths were completely ruined. And when I tried to leave the showers, the football team dogpiled me, tied me up, and later tied me to the flagpole.
The top of the flagpole.
Then they put into action another (successful) plot for my public humiliation, involving myself (still purple, still at the top of the flagpole), the intercom system, and a bowl of rice pudding.
I was not happy.
I went straight home after that and took a shower until all the purple was out of my raven hair and all the hot water was out for at least three miles in every direction.
To relieve my stress I decided to wander around the field by my house. The rain was pounding, but I noticed grimly that it was also getting the remaining paint off of my scalp. It was always calming to walk through the long grass and just think, uninterrupted by the annoying blare of everyday life.
You heard me.
Every. Day.
Not one out of 365 was reserved for my peace of mind and well being.
It was a wonder I hadn't gone homicidal yet.
But the field helped. It was soothing. It was natural. It was always green and gold or white or an earthy brown. No matter what season, I could always find tracks or animals or neat looking pebbles or something. I knew the field like the back of my hand.
Which is why I was so surprised to find the sinkhole. The rain had probably exposed it, and therefore, I was the first one to see it.
So naturally, I wanted to explore it.
I'm not stupid. I just needed something to get my mind off my problems. So I crept to the edge of the hole, to see if I would need rope to get down into the cave. Just as I was over the edge, the rain came down even harder. I shifted my weight to one hand, and used the other to wipe the water from my eyes.
Bad move.
My grounded hand slipped forward, and I found myself on my stomach. I heard a crack, and a chunk of bedrock shifted from under me, sending me headfirst into the cave.
When I woke up, I knew three things at first: one, it was dark. Two, I was wet. Three, my head pounded. A moment later, my brain started working again. When I fully regained my senses, I realized a few more useful details: I couldn't see whatsoever, I was in a cave, and the entrance of said cave couldn't be more than twenty feet away. Then I remembered the more negative things. In a cave, you are blind. Unless you have a flashlight or a lamp or something to that effect, there is no way to penetrate the merciless dark. Back to the positive outlook and the nonexistent bright side: though I couldn't see any light, I couldn't have slid too far from the sinkhole. I should have been able to use the soil on the ground to lead me out.
Emphasis on should have.
I crouched on my hands and knees, but there was no earth beneath my fingers. Not even mud. Only stone. I struggled to control the panic that was slowly churning inside me. I crawled a little further, hoping to feel grains of sand, or a fallen leaf, or something.
Anything.
About fifteen minutes later, I did feel something different. A series of things, to be exact. Under my hands were a group of pebbles, and what seemed to be some kind of formation that felt like big sticks. They seemed to be sharp and smooth, not at all bumpy, like many rock formations end up being. The things I felt seemed slimy, too, but I shrugged that off: most caves are naturally damp. I continued to feel my way up the formations, and my heart raced. I swear that I felt cloth. It's somebody's shirt or something, I told myself. I'm getting close. Somebody just lost their shirt, and it washed down here. It's nothing. Nothing. I continued to feel my way up the formation, just to convince myself. Then my hand landed on some kind of dome.
My heart stopped completely. My hand fluttered slightly downward.
Two holes, twice the size of quarters. My hand fell again.
A third hole. A rough triangle, with a blade down the center. My hand moved again on its own.
Teeth.
I screamed.
Note that generally I am not the type to scream. But let's face it. I was all alone, completely in the dark, hopelessly lost, and I had just manually examined a human skeleton. In a flash, I was on my feet and running madly, still blind. At several points, I ran headfirst into a wall, turned, and ran into another wall. At one point in particular, I cut myself on what I thought was a jagged rock. When I picked it up, I realized it was a spear. That, and the fact that it used to be embedded in another skeleton. I started running again, once again screaming bloody murder, and I still had not let go of the spear.
May I make a note of the fact that there are times when you think all is lost, and you let your body run on auto pilot because your brain has shut down for the day.
As it turns out, age-old human instinct is more effective than the modern human brain. Go figure.
In my blind panic, I managed to stumble into a room with actual light. The light was more golden than anything else, so I somehow concluded that it was probably somewhere around noon. As far as I could tell, there were a few more skeletons strewn across the ground. But all the running and screaming had exhausted me completely, so I ignored them. I dropped to my knees and said a few dozen prayers of thanks for the light. Then, still holding the spear, I drifted off to sleep.
When I woke up the next day, I thought I was still dreaming. The room was well lit, but there was no definite source of light. All around me were these weird skeletons, all of them covered in medieval armor and weapons. And they were a lot smaller than your everyday Joe Schmo. I doubt any one of them was taller than four foot two. I decided that I didn't like this particular dream, so I decided to pinch myself.
Unfortunately, pinching does not magically take you where you want to go. It would be cool if it did, though. Nonetheless, I remained in a mass gravesite for midgets, surrounded by a few pillars and a lot of skeletons. I considered running around screaming again, but I discovered that my throat was still sore from the previous night's expeditions.
Someone will hear me, part of me said.
No. You're way too far underground for that. You'll just wear yourself out again. Said another part of me.
If I'm so far underground, then WHY IS THERE LIGHT?!? My positive half argued.
...Glowing algae? I discovered a new level of pathetic-ness: when you talk to yourself, then argue with yourself, and then win the argument because part of you has run out of snappy comebacks.
While I was contemplating my screaming situation, something interesting happened. One of the skeletons started moving. More important, it started crawling toward me. I decided to death with it, and started screaming again.
Rather than running away from me, the skeleton started crawling faster. In an instant, it was in front of me, with its hand clapped over my mouth.
At this point I made another important discovery: I couldn't feel bones on my face. Only skin. Therefore, the thing that had scared the death out of me was not a skeleton.
Not quite human either, but you can't win 'em all.
"Stupid girlses, Precious, they shouts too loud. They brings orcses here. Yes, Precious, nasty orcses." I stopped screaming and stared blankly at the thing.
"What's an orcses?" I asked when the thing had let go of my mouth. Now that the thing was in the light, I could see that it had large ears and pale blue eyes, and still some scraggly hair left on its head. The poor creature also looked like it hadn't had a meal in centuries. And apparently, it wasn't used to direct questions.
"What? The girlses speaks, Precious? They askses us questions, Precious!" This creature was living, breathing, and speaking English, however much it would torture my grammar teacher to hear it. I was very, very happy. Too happy to wonder who 'Precious' was.
"Yes. I speak. But what is an orcses?" The creature looked annoyed.
"Stupid girlses. Orcses are hard and nasty and filthy. They hurts us. Yes, Precious." Though I still didn't know exactly what an orc was (I decided that orcses must mean more than one, though I might have been wrong), I got the basic idea.
"Did... did the orcs do this?" I pointed to the masses of skeletons all over the place.
"Yes, Precious. Nasty orcses kills mean dwarfses." The thing turned to leave.
"Wait!" I shouted. The thing spun on its heel, its face angry.
"Stupid girlses! Don't shouts. Shoutses brings orcses!" I was tempted to burst out laughing, but I decided against it.
"Are you coming back?" I said quietly.
"Gollum, gollum," the creature coughed, and turned away. Slowly, it melted into the darkness, and I was left alone.
It was about an hour after I first saw the skeletal-zombie-creature-thingy-with-really-big-eyes-and-ears that I realized something pretty nifty.
I had a spear.
To most people, this would mean close to nothing. But I am happy to announce that I, Stephanie Gaia, am not most people. I knew how to use a spear. I did this project on medieval combat in the sixth grade, and after that, I learned how to actually do some decent damage with one of the featured weapons.
Dumb, perhaps, but it made me feel a whole lot better.
Armed and moderately dangerous, I began to explore. The room I had slept in, and about two dozen others near it, were well lit. All of those were covered with these beautiful carvings, of epic battle scenes and some heroes (all of which, I noticed, were midgets with really thick beards) and stuff. Most of the rooms had these pillars that looked like huge gray trees.
I'm not kidding.
When I first saw one, I thought, man! How do you get something so big to actually grow in the dark? I could make out bark and leaves and even a squirrel on one.
I will never understand why people would want to carve a squirrel onto a pillar, but it looked absolutely spiffy.
There were probably more really cool carvings and stuff, but I didn't go into the dark chambers. I'm no coward, but I didn't dare enter those rooms. Whatever killed those... what'd that thing call 'em? Dwarves?...might still be around, and I didn't want to be caught blind, even if I could use a spear.
I also found another predicament.
The skeletons.
My parents raised me to have a tremendous respect for the dead.
Dwarven or otherwise.
Besides, it is really freaky to suddenly look up and see this dead guy staring back at you.
So I made it my own little project to round up all of those skeletons and put them in one special section of one of the rooms. I tried to position the bones like those Egyptian mummies. You know—all noble and dignified, with their arms crossed over their chests. It looked a bit strange, probably because I mixed up the arm and leg bones on a few of the skeletons. It was the best I could think of at the time. Oh yes. That was after I worked up the courage to actually touch a bunch of dead people. I put all the weapons I found around the bodies—kind of a respect thing. I think that part was Norse. The only thing I didn't put in the little tomb was my spear. I felt way too vulnerable without it.
By the time I had finished my little project, the light that flooded the room had gone all pale and silvery and a bit chilly. I assumed that it was night.
Which was good, because I was really tired.
I wandered to the farthest room from the little crypt and picked out a cozy spot between two pillars to be my official bedroom. I lay down in my spot and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I saw the creature again the next day. I should have expected it, but it was still pretty bizarre to see its skeletal thing creep through the room. Though I didn't know exactly what the creature was, I knew that it wasn't some kind of zombie, so I remained relatively calm as it approached.
The first thing I noticed was that the thing seemed to crawl close to the ground, with its legs very far apart. It put me in the mindset of a spider. I also heard occasional muttering, all of it to the mysterious 'Precious'. I watched from one of the central rooms as the thing scuttled around, sometimes coughing in its weird way. I remained silent as the creature approached. It scampered toward the tomb, the scurrying of its feet accompanied by mutters:
"Look, Precious. All the dead Dwarvses are together. Yes, Precious. All the Dwarvses and their nasty swordses and cold axes. All gone, Precious. Why are they there, we wonders, yes, we wonders. Did the girlses puts them there? Gollum, gollum," It coughed, and looked up at me. I smiled softly. The creature shook its head and continued its examinations. I remained silent, listening thoughtfully to the strange comments. After some time, it seemed to be satisfied, and it moved on—into the absolute dark of the unlit rooms—without hesitation.
When the creature left, a loud grumble in my stomach brought an important fact to my attention.
I hadn't eaten since lunch the previous day.
I searched the lit rooms again for anything that could be eaten—some old bread, some beef jerky—blast, I would have eaten moss if I had found any. The only thing I found was the well and ceramic bowl that I used for water. Again my search didn't leave the lit rooms. I wasn't ready to surrender to the endless black.
I tried to distract myself from my hunger by practicing with my spear. I did everything I could think of, from hitting invisible enemies with the blunt staff to stabbing madly into the air, from practicing power and speed to perfecting my aim and precision. The only problem with these exercises was that they made me even hungrier than I had been before.
"Hello," I said softly on my third day. The creature looked at me with interest.
"Harru?" It muttered questioningly. I translated this into hello, and welcome to the cave. I will be taking the part of the information desk, so if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to speak to me.
"Do you know the way out of here?" I asked quietly.
"Yes, Precious... Which ways out, the girlses asks us, Precious. It is far, past nasty orcses and long stairs..."
"Can you take me there?" I whispered. The creature nodded slowly. "Please. Show me the way."
AN: How is it? I'm new at this, so if you see ANYTHING wrong with it, tell me. This is a kind of bizarre concept, but I think I can go somewhere with it. Flames, comments, questions, just review! Please review! Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease! PLEASE!
Oh, yes, and be sure to read The Truth About Elves, by Blue Kat. It's really (to the 10th power) good.
AN: Sorry about that. It looks like Algebra is finally getting to me.
