Ch. 13; A DRAGON?

Glorfindel waited until he could no longer hear the Hobbits or Strider. Both of them knew that they had followed Strider, since it's almost impossible for someone to follow an Elf or Ranger with them noticing unless you were specially trained, when they got within range, Glorfindel used a spell to scare them away. With the Hobbits gone and their secret safe, Glorfindel turned his attention to the current mess his olds friends youngest adopted child had gotten herself into this time.

He turned around and came face to snout with a green dragon. Now, normally, the sight of ANY dragon would have the reborn Elf-lord unsheathing his sword faster than a Hobbit could yell 'Mushroom!' but Glorfindel knew this Dragon would not harm him intentionally, since he knew it personally. That, and it was gravely injured.

Although it was fairly large, it was still considered small in Dragon terms. Laying down, it's back was still taller than the Elf, and that was excluding it's long, bat-like wings that extended from behind the shoulder blades, the highest part reached over the shoulder and stopped midway up the neck, ending in a small claw, the tip of it went up to the base of it's tail, so that when it stood on two legs, the wouldn't drag. The Dragons back leg were enormously thick, they had to be to support most of the weight when walking, ending at the three-clawed foot. The snake-like tail was at least as long as it's body.

While back legs were thick and heavy, the front legs were smaller and only about the size and thickness of his own arms, they ended in three wickedly dagger long and sharp claws. It's neck was long and topped by a roughly triangle shaped head and on it's head were two very long ivory horns that were also spiked and slightly curved. Overall conclusion; very big, very scary, VERY dangerous.

However, when you got passed the whole 'big, mean, scary dragon' thing, you could see that it was also in immense pain. It's right hind leg was badly wounded, it had a long gash on it's side that was bleeding profusely, and since it was lying on it's side, you could clearly see a long, thin, wound that went across it peachy scaled under body. It's long snout also had a cut across it, although you could barely see it, on account that it's mouth was contorted in a fierce snarl because of it's immense pain.

When Glorfindel approached it, the giant creature opened only one wholly blood-red eye to see who it was.

"Shhh….There, there my friend, just stay calm, all will be better soon." Said Glorfindel in what he hoped was a soothing voice. He gently touched the wound on it's leg to see the extent of the damage, but quickly withdrew his hand when it whimpered, albeit loudly, in pain.

The whimper was responded by a calming whiney from his horse, how had taken refuge, with his unconscious passenger still on his back I might add, behind the dragon when the fighting started between this large beast and the Nazgûl. The dragon responded by a low rumble coming from it's chest.

Slowly, it closed it's eyes and a bright light suddenly appeared from seemingly nowhere, until it finally concentrated on the dragon. It seemed as if it was absorbing it and getting brighter all the time, until it reached a point that Glorfindel had to shield his eyes or he feared he might be blinded.

He waited for several minutes before opening his eyes. When he did he saw that the green dragon had disappeared, but in it's place was a rather small girl, immediately recognizable as Hiryuu. She was standing up, her cloak was thrown back and her usually clean tunic and leggings were now blood soaked and torn. She looked blankly at Glorfindel and blinked owlishly before she closed her eyes and collapsed. Luckily he caught her before she fell onto her very badly wounded leg. All the wounds that had been on the dragons' body had transferred onto Hiryuus' body.

Gently holding Hiryuu in his arms in a position he hoped wouldn't worsen her wounds, he slowly walked to Asfaloth and gently eased her behind the Hobbit and slowly walked the rest of the way to Rivendell, his horse following faithful behind him.

He met up with a small group of Elves, led by the twins Elladan and Elrohir, they were probably sent by Lord Elrond after he got word of where they were from Aragorn.

One of them slowly approached Asfaloth and gently looked at his wounded passengers. He nodded once to his duplicate then turned to Glorfindel, probably Elladan.

"We shall continue on to the Ford, to make sure that the Nazgûl are gone." He said, before heading towards the Ford with most of his company. Only Elrohir stayed behind with him on the excuse that 'To make sure you don't make a fool of yourself and end falling on your facing from exhaustion.' But Glorfindel knew that he was just worried about his adopted youngest sibling.

They finally trudged into Rivendell a while later and were immediately surrounded by at least a dozen or so elves, all of them healers.

Basically it was a lot of noise, and only semi-organized. At leas tit was until Elrond yelled, loudly.

He immediately had both Frodo and Hiryuu carried to the Healing Wing of Rivendell and immediately set up trying to help them as best he could, starting with the most pressing wounds, such as the shard of a Nazgûl blade that was imbedded into Frodos shoulder, and the one that Hiryuu managed to get into her own leg. After they were gone, Glorfindel brought his horse to the stable and asked the Stable hand there to groom him thoroughly, so as to remove all of Hiryuus' blood that had seeped into his usually pristine white coat, after that, he when to his chambers and fell deeply asleep.

Several Days Later

It was several days before Frodo woke up, but when he did, he had a killer headache. Slowly opening his eyes, to let them adjust to the bright light.

"Where am I?" He asked groggily.

"You are in the house of Elrond. And it is 10:00 in the morning on October 24th, if you want to know." Said a deep and fairly recognizable voice.

"Gandalf!" Cried the weak Hobbit.

"Yes, I'm here. And you're lucky to be here too, Hiryuu as well! A few more hours, and both of you would have been beyond our aid. But both of you have amazing strength in yourselves, My dear friend." Said the Wizard, calmly lowering his pipe. Frodo struggled to sit up. He looked at his trusted friend.

"What happened Gandalf? Where's Hiryuu, is she alright? She isn't hurt is she? Why didn't you meet us the Prancing Pony?" Said the worried Hobbit.

At these words, Gandalf small smile turned into a small frown.

"I'm sorry Frodo," said the wizard, "I was delayed." He said absentmindedly as he thought about the treachery of one of his oldest friends; Saruman. How he had been imprisoned on top of his tower, and how he escaped. After he had finished with his tale Frodo looked up at him with confusion.

"Gandalf? What is it?"

The old wizard just looked at him calmly.

"Nothing, Frodo."

"Then can you tell me what happened to Hiryuu?" Asked Frodo, and just as the wizard was about answer, they were interrupted.

"Frodo!" The Hobbit looked quickly towards the door, just in time to see Sam rushing up at him."Frodo!" He yelled again.

"Sam!"

"Bless you, you're awake!" He said happily.

"Sam has hardly left your side, except to check up on our other injured friend." Said Gandalf, smiling broadly.

"We were that worried about them. Weren't we, Mr. Gandalf?"

"By the skills of Lord Elrond, you're beginning to mend."

"What about Hiryuu?" Asked Frodo worriedly, he noticed that the wise wizard had been avoiding his question for the last while.

"She is resting at this moment. I suspect she'll wake up sometime soon. I welcome you to Rivendell, Frodo Baggins." Said a new voice.

Frodo turned to see a new person that had silently walked to Gandalfs' side, He had long brown hair that was all gathered at the back, save for two strand that fell on either said of face. He also had pointed ears. Frodo assumed that this was the Great Lord Elrond that he had heard so much about from his Uncle Bilbo.

"May I go see Hiryuu? If it is alright with you sir, of course. It's just that I am very worried about her." Asked Frodo, prayer harder than he ever had before to be able to see her again.

Lord Elrond looked at Frodo with his stern grey eyes, after several intense, at least for Frodo, moments, he spoke.

"You may. But not right now, you need rest, and I still must see to a few more of her injuries before I permit anyone to see her. Her injuries are severe, I'm afraid that she will be bedridden for several more days after she wakes before I let her walk around." Said the Elf Lord, before turning and walking out of the room, to leave the two Hobbits to talk in peace, and to check up on his adopted daughters injuries. He headed out of the Healing wing, and into what was commonly known as they Family Wing, were members of Elronds' family, close friends and very important guests slept.

Once they were out of earshot, Gandalf laughed.

"My dear friend, somehow I doubt you'll manage to get your daughter to stay in bed as long as you wish. We both know she has a bad habit of finding new ways of getting out. She also has the most incredible ability to heal quickly, why, she would almost rival an Elf!"

"I know that as well, but I can always pray that for once she will listen." They continued talking like this for some time before they reached Hiryuus' door. It was very recognizable as hers. As it was painted a deep blue (her second favourite colour), while all the rest of the doors in this particular part of the Wing were all pale earthy colours, beige, light brown, each one a different colour to help them differentiate who's room was who's whenever Lord Elronds sons and daughters would arrive home late at night and prevent any embarrassing moments that shall not be explained in this story.

Quietly, Elrond opened the door and they both peered inside. The inside of the room was a mass of black and blue, with some silver here and thereto add a bit of colour. The four giant windows that were usually kept shut on all but the hottest days and nights, were now open, letting in a gentle breeze waft through the room.

Most of the walls were painted a calming ocean blue, at least the parts you could see, since one wall was lined with many books, another was taken up by the windows, the other wall held many different swords, daggers and other bladed weapons that had been gifts from friends and teachers, one or two of them were of her own design that she asked the smiths to make, the weapons all surrounded a door that led to her own bathroom. The last wall, the one with the door that led to the hall, was covered in many pictures of her friends and family. The ones closest to the tops were drawn by an inexperienced hand of a child, but as you would look down, they slowly got better and better. This particular wall reminded Elrond of the walls in one of his rooms, it was completely covered by literally hundreds of pictures drawn by both his real children and adopted ones. It was affectionately known of as the 'Hall of Paper' by all who had seen it.

There, laying in a bed seemingly deep asleep, was Hiryuu. Although her sleep was far from peaceful, her brows were knitted slightly in the pain the Elrond had not managed to dull, as he feared that to much of the pain killer would send her into a coma. All of her injuries were tightly wrapped and appeared to be freshly changed. With her right leg and left arm having the most bandages.

Elrond entered the room and undid the wraps to see how much they had healed in the last day. Luckily her leg was healing fine, though it would be a few weeks before Hiryuu would walk without a small limp, and was uninfected even though it had been cut with a Morgul blade, this was probably due to the fact that Hiryuu had been transformed at the time. Her left arm though, was not so fortunate. It too, had been cut by the blade, but a tiny shard of the sword had entered her body. The wound wasn't fresh either. The moment Lord Elrond had caught sight of the festering wound, he knew that she had had it for several days at least, and as his son Aragorn had not mentioned a wound this serious, he could only presume that she had kept it secret from him, not realizing what damage it could do. Luckily her spirit was strong and had slowed down the shard so that it wouldn't pierce her heart. But Gandalf and Elrond shuddered to think of what would have happened then.

After making sure they were getting better, they left the young girl to rest and regain her strength.

-Fin of Chapter 13-

(PS SFT is short for Silver Fox Trot)

SFT; Yeah! I've finished another chapter!

Everyone; Congrats!

SFT bows to the crowd

Hiryuu; While my creator is busy with that, I shall keep you company!

Elladan; Me as well! As my brother is off on a mission without me! (not really)

SFT comes back

SFT; I'm back, now which one of you two wants to do the disclaimer while I remember to put one up?

Both shrug and say at the same time; Silver Fox Trot owns nothing! Except for me/Hiryuu!

SFT; Great, now for my bit! I would like to that the following reviewer; Anawey(Â ). And to mention that I shall NOT be updating until I get about 35 reviews, and I am looking for a beta reader, someone that shall read over my chapters BEFORE I post them, and who shall be in charge of finding small errors, plot holes, and spelling mistakes my spell checker might have missed. If you are interested in this job, send an E-MAIL (not a review) saying why you want this job, how often you're online and how meticulous you are in looking for mistakes and things. You have until I post the next chapter to respond. Those that send a review shall NOT be considered. If you are wondering why I am doing this now, it's cause I've spotted several errors already in my fic that my grammar/spellchecker didn't catch… Well, good luck to you all! Takes a deep breath.

p.s; Must not kill Quickedit, must not kill. Stupid thing keeps on removing my indents!