Chapter 17: Make the Pain Stop

The morning was calm and tranquil. The sky was a deep blue with fluffy clouds strewn here and there. In the gardens of Minas Tirith, the flowers were in bloom, the sun was shining down, and the birds sang from their perches in the trees. The castle gleamed a shimmering white as the city bustled with life.

"AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Several glass windows shattered messily as the birds fell out of the trees and the citizens cowered in fear, expecting an apocalypse. Who can blame them, when a bloodcurdling scream that resembled the sound of someone being murdered messily interrupted the early morning calm.

This unbearable shriek was followed by many other shouts. Among them could be heard:

"MEEEELLAAAAMIIIINNNNNN!"

"IS CELESTE ALL RIGHT?"

Starr scrambled to the door and barricaded it to the best of her ability. Which wasn't very good. "DON'T COME IN!" she screeched like a harpy.

Celeste stood mutely, staring at the mirror.

"Whut are we gonna dooooo!1" Starr moaned, pulling at her still-perfect hair.

Celeste didn't move. It took Starr another five minutes to realize she was asleep. She pounced on her and shook her viciously. "Stay up u idiott!"

Starr began to pout as she glanced in the mirror at her no-longer pointed ears. "I'm not lyke an elf n e more! I'm gonna get old! Yuckie!"

Starr frowned. "Somehting is lyke going on. I should lyke send a patrol out 2 look 4 Saeriel."

I sneezed.

"Something wrong?" Arwen looked back. I shook my head.

"Someone must be talking about me!" I laughed.

"Yeah, you know that Seiryu? I can't stand her!" Belgaer teased, whispering loudly to Browne. She stopped laughing when I chucked the rock at her, though.

Okay, so I'm kidding. I didn't throw a rock at her. But it was tempting.

There was a sudden burst of pink sparkles, and several VERY mean-looking guards appeared just ahead of us. Without a sound, we scrambled into nearby trees. They turned around and began marching down the path under us. It was very soon that we found out that their surliness was proportional to their complete and utter stupidity. The branch Eowyn was on dropped a rather large twig, which fell right onto the head of guard number one. What did he do? Look quickly around, brandishing his sword, that's what. Did he ONCE look up? Nope.

So I promptly dropped the rock I had saved for Belgaer onto guard number two's head. It was very satisfying.

"I'm guessing the fairy had something to do with this." Arwen whispered very softly. But, unfortunately for us, the guards had superb hearing. I guess Starr isn't as stupid as…well, yes she is, but had sense enough to not make her guards completely useless.

We jumped from the tree to confront them. Guard number three, who was obvious feeling left out, immediately rushed at Naurin, figuring an elf would be easiest to take down.

Boy, was he wrong.

She took him down in a flash while explaining nonchalantly to us how it was necessary to be fast when fighting Sues. Apparently they make up for their lack of strength with an excess of speed.

"So basically they're cowards whose best defense is running away." Browne added as she delivered a vicious uppercut to one of the other guards.

"That and temporarily blinding their opponents with their shiny hair." I smiled, whacking one of the guards across the head with a large stick. By the time our conversation was over, all the guards were on the ground in various degrees of pain.

They vanished suddenly and we shrugged and continued on towards Rohan.

"We should be in Rohan tomorrow, at the rate we've been traveling." Arwen calculated.

"Finally!" Browne and I chorused.

"Yeah, well don't expect a warm welcome or any time to relax." Eowyn pointed out.

"In that case, can we camp here?"

Starr let out a high-pitched wail as the defeated guards appeared at her feet. "Whut teh heck happened!"

The fairy frowned. "I wasn't aware Saeriel could do something like this…I underestimated their strength."

"In Elnglish, plz!"

The fairy rolled her eyes. "I thought they were weak. They weren't."

"Ohhhhh!1"

Satisfied with this, Starr wandered off, singing a random song in an extremely off-key voice.

The fairy debated flying repeatedly into the walls until the headache stopped.

TBC…