The story of Elenion is based on the Lord of the Rings movies, directed by Peter Jackson. The characters, with the exception of Elenion, belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. Elenion is a character all my own. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 18: The doors of Moria
The Fellowship suffered the grueling trip back down the mountainside, and many days later, they approached the walls of Moria.
"We weren't meant to come here," Elenion said softly to Aragorn as they walked alongside each other.
"There is nothing here except for pure evil. It is a sad place…a cursed place," she continued. He looked at her awkwardly.
"I do not wish to go through Moria either, Elenion. We must trust in Gandalf though. He will not lead us to harm," he said softly back to her. She looked crossly at him.
"If any of us trusts him, it is I," she said. "I just cannot shake my own feelings," she continued grimly. She would have continued voicing her opinions had she not heard Gimli gasp at the sight of the walls of Moria. Elenion clinched her jaw, refraining herself from ruining his moment of excitement over viewing Moria from a distance. She sighed heavily and looked at Aragorn once more before walking off on her own.
She hoped her father was right. That as long as they had each other, nothing could go wrong.
From that point, they walked until darkness covered them. They had reached the mountainside by dusk and had been walking around the base of it until nightfall. They came to a pathway that led along the wall and Gimli began tapping the rocks with his axe.
"Dwarf doors are invisible when closed," he stated as the sound of metal on rock ricocheted along the path.
"Yes, Gimli, even their own masters can not find them, if their secrets are forgotten," Gandalf stated. Elenion walked ahead of the group until she emerged from the path. She found herself overlooking a lake. The murky waters softly rippled in the quiet of the night. The place was too quiet for comfort. Frodo walked by her and his foot slipped in the mud and into the water, catching him completely off guard. Elenion offered him a hand and helped him to a drier patch of land as Gandalf began to mumble about something. She turned to see what he was talking about when she saw it for herself. There were patterns and writing etched onto the mountainside, but the sky was not bright enough for common eyes to see them. She walked to his side.
"You will need more light to see it," she said softly, and he smiled softly at her, glad that she had spotted the etchings as well. He turned to the sky.
"It can only be revealed by starlight…and moonlight," he mused to himself. The sky seemed to rid itself of it's clouds almost instantly, and as moonlight struck the etchings, they began to glow. The doors to Moria stood before them, growing underneath the night sky until their entirety was revealed. Gandalf smiled to himself in awe then began to read the words to the entire party.
"It reads like so. 'Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria, speak friend and enter'," he translated, using his staff to point at each word he read. Merry spoke up.
"What do you suppose that means," he asked. Gandalf chuckled softly.
"It's quite simple really. If you are a friend you speak the password and the doors will open," he said excitedly. He then grabbed his staff and pointed it at a star like etching in the center of the doors. He began to chant in elvish, calling out for the doors to open. After several attempts, nothing had happened. The doors remained shut for some time as he tried to come up with the opening words.
The fellowship found ways to busy themselves as Gandalf pondered on what to do about their current predicament. Merry and Pippin were skipping rocks across the water quite noisily. Aragorn ran over and grabbed Pippin's arm, warning him not to disturb the water. Elenion found herself staying as far away from the water as possible. She did not want to risk anybody seeing her reflection. Very few knew what she really was. Most assumed she was an elf, and those that knew she was Gandalf's daughter knew she was of the Maiar. She had chosen to tell Legolas of her fairy side, and Aragorn had known for many long years. How Gimli had found out, she did not know, unless he had simply guessed it by her ears alone. Most were not so observant. She feared that in time she would have some explaining to do.
She closed her eyes for only a moment before she heard the water rippling. Her eyes shot open, expelling their usual glow and she walked as close as she would risk to the water's edge. Boromir walked up behind her, studying the rippling waves as well. The ripples seemed to grow bigger with each passing second. Aragorn soon joined them, inching closer to the water's edge.
"That is most peculiar," Elenion said mostly to herself. Frodo soon began talking to Gandalf, breaking the silence.
"It's a riddle! Gandalf, what's the elvish word for friend," he asked. Gandalf sat up and looked at Frodo.
"Mellon," he answered, and the sound of rock sliding on rock slightly startled everybody. The doors of Moria began to open. Elenion quickly walked off, eager to get away from the water's edge. She walked over to Gandalf, who was beaming in is pride over Frodo, who had solved their dilemma. She stood in the dark doorway next to Gandalf. She did not want to enter the mines, but sighed heavily and took her first step inside. Gandalf placed a crystal in the top of his staff and it lit up, producing the tiniest bit of light in the entry way. Everybody began filing in one by one into the dark caverns.
Gandalf, even with his crystal lit staff, was not seeing what Elenion was seeing. She stopped dead in her tracks, eyes wide open, glowing in the darkness of the cave. She did not blink and barely made a sound when she breathed. Gandalf took notice.
"Elenion? What is it that you see," he asked her. She did not want to say, for Gimli was boasting to Legolas about the greatness of Moria and of his relatives that resided there. Elenion did not want to spoil the dwarf's excitement. She stared straight ahead and Gandalf walked up beside her.
"You will see…..all of you will," she said, her voice taking on an eerie tone she had not intended. Gandalf lit his staff even brighter, and a bright light filled the opening cavern of the mines. All stared in shock at the ruins they had stumbled upon. There was debris mixed along the dead, badly decomposed bodies and the skeletons of both dwarves and goblins. Elenion shut her eyes in grief as Gimli began to moan in sadness and disbelief.
"This isn't a mine…it's a tomb," Boromir stated. All began to scuffle about, the hobbits especially. Boromir continued speaking.
"We should never have come here," he said. He began ushering everybody out of the mines. Legolas pulled the arrow from a corpse's ribcage and examined it. He looked up at Elenion. "Goblins," he said with disdain, pulling out his own bow and lining up an arrow, prepared for anything that might happen upon them. Aragorn and Boromir drew their swords. Gandalf put a hand on Elenion's shoulder and began to push her back towards the entrance of the cave. She was glad to be heading out of Moria and turned around to walk when she noticed the hobbits standing in the doorway. It was what lay behind them that made her draw her own bow.
Frodo's feet went out from under his body and the other three hobbits began to hold onto him as an extremely large tentacle wrapped itself around his ankles. Elenion lined up her arrow and fired it, piercing the tentacle, but it didn't budge. It was determined to keep it's hold on Frodo. She yelled for Aragorn, as did the hobbits. Before she and Aragorn could get out of the doors, the creature had flung several more tentacles out of the water, sending the rest of the hobbits off of their feet. It soon had Frodo suspended above the lake. Legolas and Elenion began to fire arrows into the flailing tentacles of the beast as it began to sling Frodo around like a fish.
Elenion left Legolas to be the sole archer and retrieved her sais from their sheaths. She darted out into the water with Boromir and Aragorn, slicing at the tentacles as they flailed at her as well as the men. Aragorn, with one swift swing of his blade, sliced through the tentacle that held Frodo upside down above them. Boromir caught Frodo as he fell, and Gandalf appeared at the waterside.
"Into the mines," he ordered, and everybody began to run back inside the place that only moments before, they had all wished to flee from. The monster attempted to follow them back inside the darkness of the cave, but as it came, it's tentacles began to destroy the rock walls of the doorway. The fellowship all made it inside safely, but their nerves were shattered.
Dripping wet and out of breath is how Gandalf found the men when he relit his staff. Elenion's eyes began to glow in the darkness and Gandalf studied her, giving her an awkward glance before smirking at her. He looked away and she was confused, but only for a moment. She looked at Boromir and Aragorn, and they were dripping wet from head to toe. She was wet also, but only as if she had been lightly sprinkled with rain. She looked down at her feet and realized they were the same as the rest of her. Barely wet at all. She looked at Gandalf in shock. She had run out into the water, same as the others, yet she appeared to have barely skimmed the water's surface. She closed her eyes for a moment and ran her hands over her face in realization, hoping to herself that nobody noticed. She had heard that fairies were capable of it, but even she had not known of her own ability to walk on the surface of water. Gandalf began to speak softly in the quiet that now filled their ears.
"We now have but one choice," he said with disapproval of their environment. "We must now face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard…there are fouler things than orcs in the deep places," he finished, looking sideways at Elenion as he passed her.
"It's a four day journey to the other side. Let's hope our presence may go unnoticed," he said to the group as he led the way up the stairs and over the corpses of dwarves and goblins. Elenion walked alongside him for a bit, then fell back to right behind him as paths grew narrower and steeper.
Therefore the Fellowship began their journey through Moria, stopping only when the hobbits needed to rest or when Gandalf needed to reflect on which direction to head next.