Disclaimer: Just to let you all know. I neither own the characters nor the copy right on them. I'm just obsessed about them and think about them way too much, not that I wouldn't love to own them, as they are so much fun.
A/N: I know the whole person from our world finds him/herself in Middle Earth has been done numerous times ad nauseum, but I am writing this for a someone as a friendly joke, and thought I would share it with all of you out there as well. Please enjoy and reviews are kindly and gladly accepted.
So, if you found my story the least bit enjoyable, please drop a review by and let me know…reviews are great motivators to keep writing
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Ch 2 Cold Comforts and Camp Fires
Karla couldn't remember every having gotten into so much trouble in her whole life. By the end of the first week she was absolutely positive that 'Took' was the Hobbit's word for trouble. Oh, things started off all right. Where walking was concerned, Karla had had lots of practice doing that. Not one to drive, she was used to walking most places. But camping, well, that was a completely different matter. Karla did not camp.
That is not to say that Karla had never been camping, oh, she had done that before. She had been camping once, and had even lived to tell about it, not small feat, as she would be happy to tell anyone who asked her. During family get together her family would laugh and talk about 'the' camping trip. But this, well, this was completely different. This was like camping taken to the extreme.
But the first thing Karla noticed on her outdoor adventure was the cold. After leaving Rivendell the Fellowship made straight for the Ford of Bruinen and then turned south. The key direction there, at least for Karla, was south. "Shouldn't things be getting warmer the more south we go?" she mumbled to herself, but all she could feel were the icy blasts of air that assailed the whole company.
No amount of tucking her cloak and assorted clothing pieces around herself managed to maker her feel any warmer. For her, time seemed to pass in a steady stream of shivers, shivers and the hope of warm fire at then end of the day (but shucks, no s'mores).
After the first night Karla quickly learned that packing in Middle Earth was nothing like packing back home. There were just so many 'things' in her pack, most of which she had no idea what they were or why they were there. And so, after trying to pack everything back into her pack the next morning, grumbling and cursing all the while (she couldn't for the life of her figure out how all that stuff managed to come from such a small pack to begin with) Merry took pity on her and came over to help.
"Do you not remember how to pack your own bag Pip?" Merry queried, looking like Karla had lost what little was left of her senses. That was not the first mistake of that kind that Karla had made. Luckily, being quick on her feet about those sorts of things, she managed to cover those faux pas quite nicely. This one, on the other hand, was not so easy to find an excuse for.
"Well, Sam's just so much better at it than I am" Karla responded, guessing that Sam probably had helped pack up the packs last time. Since Sam had just packed his own, Frodo's and had tried to help Merry, Karla guessed that Pippin had gotten Sam to help out on his.
"True, but Strider wants us all to get into the habit of packing up our own stuff. It will make breaking camp that much faster."
"Phew," Karla sighed to herself, glad to have gotten out of that one. But little did Karla know that that was just the start of the trouble to come.
After walking what felt like forever Karla was glad when Strider decided to call in a day and make camp. She was so cold she couldn't even feel her fingers or her toes. "I'm surprised I don't have frost bite yet," Karla mumbles putting her pack down and trying to get some circulation, or at least some feeling, back into her fingers.
"Well, we knew it wasn't going to be a quaint summer stroll, Pip," Merry commented, placing his back and bed roll beside Karla.
"I know, but there is a decided difference between quaint summer stroll and hiking in the deep freeze."
"Deep freeze is it, Master Took?" Aragorn commented, the laughter audible in his voice. "Well, if you're that cold, then why don't you make supper tonight. That way you can stay nice and close to the fire."
"Cook?" The panic was almost palpable. Anyone who knew Karla knew that she didn't cook. It wasn't that she couldn't cook; anyone could make a PB&J, but cooking camping food over an open flame, well that took real skill. But either no one noticed, or no one seemed to care. With her choked out question all but ignored, the rest of the fellowship went along it's merry was unpack and getting ready to set up guards and watches after dinner.
Looking at the fire pit, Karla had a sinking sensation in her stomach. A girl scout she was not…well, there were those two days back when she was eight. No, those did NOT count. She could definitely not be called a girl scout by any definition of the word. That being so, she did not have the foggiest idea how to start a fire without a lighter, and the odds were pretty good that they would not even know what one was, let along have one. Did they have flint? And if so, how would that help her.
Not for the first time, she was beginning to regret that she had no real practical outdoors experience. Trying to pile the wood into the semblance of a nice arrangement (although she knew in her head that there was probably a proper way of organizing the wood so that it would burn properly and for a longer time, not that she knew what that was), Karla couldn't stop herself from mumbling, "don't these people understand the term 'city-slicker'?"
Looking around the campsite, watching Boromir clean his horn, Gimli sharpen his axe, Legolas fix some of his arrows and Aragorn go over his supply of medicines, Karla had the sinking feeling that she was on her own in the cooking department. Even Sam seemed pleasantly occupied at that moment, tending to Frodo, looking after some comfort that he probably didn't even need anyway.
Well, after a couple of failed attempts to get a fire started, Karla finally did manage to get the wood lit, although how she wasn't sure. Actually, she was quite proud of the feat, considering she had never done it before. The only problem was, the way that she had the logs arranged in the fire pit, which, much to her chagrin she had forgotten to put stones around to prevent the fire from spreading, was arranged in such a way that the fire caused the logs to collapse very heavily. Now, normally that might not have been too much of a problem, but seeing as how she did forget to put any stones to encompass the fire pit (and since she didn't dig a 'pit' it was more just a spot on the ground), the sparks flew out everywhere, and, being the lucky person that she was, managed to fly right at Gandalf, Legolas and Aragorn.
Luckily for them, Legolas and Aragorn were pretty quick on their feet and managed to get out of the spray of spark before any damage could be done. Gandalf, on the other hand, was neither as agile nor as quick. The spray of sparks, caught just on an inopportune wind, flew right at him, covering him with soot and ash.
"Now how am I going to explain that one?" was all Karla could think, as suddenly she was the center of everyone's attention.
"Having a little trouble there, are we little one?" Coming over to stand next to Karla, Boromir looked at the disaster that was once her campfire. "Well, I can see no one has ever taught you how to lay a proper camp fire. I guess now would be a good time to start." And with that, Boromir began showing Karla the rudiments of outdoor living.
But all night long, Karla could not get the image out of her head of Gandalf, sitting talking to Aragorn, looking down at his robes in horror as little sparks few at him, causing little holes to be burned into his robes. "At least nothing really caught fire." Feeling a little embarrassed, Karla turned over in her bedroll, trying to get some sleep as the humiliation of the day played itself out again in her head.
"You look so much like your cousins, Pippin, I forget that you're quite a bit younger than they are." Coming to wake her up for her turn at standing watch, Aragorn took the time to comment on her lack of 'outdoors' experience. Luckily for her, though, he didn't seem to think it was all that strange. "Maybe Pippin wasn't such an outdoorsy person himself" Karla couldn't help but think to herself.
"But it is time for you and I to take our watch."
Moving closer to Aragorn, Karla and Aragorn spent a long night watching over the rest of the fellowship.