Chapter 3 - Take it Easy

(This first section, up to where Red starts to sing, is Amaya Rayne's)

The red sun was an astonishing site to see as it cleared the horizon. Shades of night which covered the sky had begun to melt into oranges, yellows, and pinks. Light uncovered the beauties of the earth that the darkness had hid in the night.

Her water traits had become a nuisance ever since she left camp and had been growing with every step she took. The longing to submerse herself in the clear liquid was becoming unbearable and she glanced around, trying to find the source. No sound of a stream or rain cloud was evident. The dirt beneath her feet was dry and scratched her skin. 'Why can't it rain?' She wondered as she stumbled on.

Her thoughts drifted to Legolas and she mentally kicked herself. She hated herself for it, but she couldn't keep him out of her mind. He had attempted to save her life and thus impacted her deeply. No one other than her adoptive father had cared about her well-being and she still had no idea why. She wondered, what was the true reason?

She would never know.

'You'll never lose by loving. You'll always lose by holding back,' the words echoed in her mind and she wondered where she had heard them. Who would have said them to her?

She was so deeply thinking about where she had heard them, she forgot about their meaning. She could love him. She was merely two decades old; how could she understand love?

"He's a dear friend of mine," she told herself...her only friend.

Her depression was deep and she barely noticed herself entering what she thought was a clearing. She looked and stopped in her tracks. There in front of her lay a body of water so large she could not see the other shore. It was water how she never possibly dreamed and she understood why he had felt the call from so far away. The expanse of such a place was overwhelming, yet she oddly felt she did not belong; rather, that the water was not welcome to her or she to it.

Was this where she was from, she wondered. Were her parents dwelling in that vastness?

The rising sun caused the water to sparkle with an unearthly light. The colors of the sky were reflected with each ripple and tide, always changing. The water seemed to dance with happiness, yet hold deep secrets within it.

She sat on the sand, feeling too awed to leave, yet too drawn to enter.

She had no idea how long she sat there. Day turned to night and dawn passed. She must have drifted off for many hours, but she remained on that beach for at least a day and a half, until she heard voices.

"Blue? Blue!" It was clearly Red's excited voice behind her.

Red ran over and plopped into the sand beside her, giving her a smile.

"Told you that wouldn't be the last of her," Green mumbled as she sat on her other side.

"Hiya, Blue! Blue?" Red greeted. Blue made no movement or acknowledgment. "Is she okay?" she whispered across her to Green.

"She's fine. Just in awe of the water. So, Blue, you comin' with us?"

She shook her head. "I don't belong where you're going."

"You sure? We're headed out there." Green motioned to the horizon.

"There?" She ripped her eyes away from the water to look at her. "You couldn't possibly...you're swimming—"

"No! What are you, insane? Don't answer that. No, we're not going in it, we're going on it."

"On it?"

"Haven't you listen to anything I've said? We're buying a boat."

Somehow, Blue got dragged along with them. Blue walked along the beach next to Red and Green in the cart, with webbed feet, the tide coming in to wet her feet and be sucked back into the sea.

"You're gonna have to get rid of those by the time we get there." Green told her, pointing to her feet. Blue nodded in reply. She had no idea what he was in for, but what did she have to lose? What else was she to do? She would follow them until she figured out what she'd do with the rest of her life.

Then Red began to sing. Again.

"Well I'm a runnin' down the road trying to loosen my load, I've got seven Rangers on my mind," sang Red cheerily. "Four that wanna hold me, two that wanna stone me, one says he's a friend of mine...Take it easy, take it easy. Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy..."

Green sat next to Red, tapping her toe and nodding her head in time with Red's singing. She didn't know why the others always hated it when Red sang, she had found it sort of entertaining herself. Red was the equivalent of a Middle-earthen radio.

"Well, I'm standing on a corner in Minas Tirith's lower level; such a fine sight to see: it's a man, my lord, in a four-horse Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me."

Green laughed and slowly fell silent. How she loved the smell of the salty sea air.

"I don't understand it, Aragorn," said Legolas the Elf to the Ranger. "How can she make fire with her bare hands? How is she able to lift a grown man off his feet with no apparent effort? How is it that she came by such powers?"

"Perhaps she is a member of the Istari, or Mearas," suggested Aragorn.

Legolas looked at the man skeptically. "She is a thief and a killer, Aragorn," he said.

"I don't know, Legolas. It was just a suggestion."

The two companions continued through the trees in silence. The brush was beginning to thin out and the sun pierced the leaves more frequently. The edge of the forest was nearing.

Black had already reached and passed through the border of the trees and now, out in the middle of the plain she whistled, listened, then started off in another direction.

Back in the trees, Legolas again was expressing his distaste for the dark woman.

"I don't trust her, Aragorn," he said. "Right now she is probably running back to her thieving friends, taking the Ring with her and leaving us to face our doom alone."

"She promised that she would help us," said Aragorn. "I do not think she would turn back on her word."

"Sometimes I think you are too trusting, Aragorn," sighed the Elf.

Aragorn looked as if he wanted to say something, then decided against it. Instead he kept walking with no word at all.

When Legolas and Aragorn finally emerged from the woods they found themselves standing at the edge of a great plain, mountains in the distance, with absolutely no sign of Black. Legolas glanced sidelong at Aragorn.

"Shut up," Aragorn grumbled.