LotRs not mine. Everything else is. Even the Sues, unfortunately.
"You have got to be kidding me." This was actually spoken by Arty. The four girls were standing in a small room about ten by ten feet which contained a single bed big enough for two people, a washstand with a pitcher of water and a chamber pot that was under the bed. "We're supposed to share this room?"
Alec, who had come up with the girls, looked at her funny. "It's big enough."
"Where are we all supposed to sleep?" Ori asked.
"In the bed…?"
"But it's only big enough for one person!" Chloe protested.
Giving her a disgusted look, Alec said, "At least you're not sleeping in the stables. Be thankful for that." He then turned on his heel and stalked off.
The four girls looked at each other and the room that they had been given. "The stables couldn't be that bad, could they?" Jenny asked.
"I don't know. So… what do we do?" Ori wondered.
"Try to get in the bed?" Arty suggested.
"All of us together? Isn't that…weird?"
"It has to be better than the floor." This caused some grumbling but it was better than the floor.
"This never happens in the stories." Ori complained, as the four of them tried to get into bed. There were two on one end of the bed and two on the other end. The blanket was thick and warm however, smelling of dried flowers.
"Maybe it'll be better once we get to Rivendell." Chloe said. "And we'll get those new clothes."
This caused a sigh of delight from Jenny and Ori. Though Jenny said, "I won't wear a dress."
"I can't wait to wear an elven dress." Ori said.
"Could we go to sleep? I'm tired," Arty said, not really wanting to listen to their wishes for new clothes. There were a few grunts of ascent and some shifting as they tried to get comfortable.
Somehow, they all did fall asleep. If Arty dreamed, she didn't remember any of it. The next thing she was aware of was some one coming into the room to wake them up.
"Time to get up girls!" a willowy woman said bursting into the room. "The Troven boys have been up and waiting for you and Mystra Melfin wants them out as soon as possible."
"What time is it?" Arty asked with a cracking yawn. The four girls struggled to wake. It seemed like they had just fallen asleep.
"Late, hour past dawn." The woman said. "Come on now. It was too kind of them to let you sleep this late. But it's a walk to the city and you want to get there before noon, don't you?"
Jenny muttered something about it being too early to get up, but the woman ignored her. She shooed them out of bed and sent them yawning down the stairs. The smells of cooking bacon greeted them. Alec and Greywolf were sitting at a table, Alec working his way through a bowl of some sort of porridge, occasionally grabbing at a loaf of bread and dipping it in egg yolk. Greywolf appeared to have finished eating. He was reading something occasionally drinking from a mug.
They sat down next to Alec and Greywolf. Alec smiled at them while biting through a piece of bread as Greywolf called out for four breakfasts.
Within minutes four more bowls with porridge were set in front of them with crusty warm bread and a bowl of berries that Arty didn't recognize. Mugs of some hot and spicy smelling drink were set down for each of the girls. When Alec reached for the bowl of berries, Greywolf whacked him with his book.
"You already ate two bowls worth. Let them have some before you eat everything in sight."
"What'd he say?" Ori asked.
"Nothing important. Just that Alec was being greedy." Arty said poking at the stuff in the bowl. It looked like it could have been oatmeal at one time. She picked up one of the berries and looked it over. It was purple and shaped almost like a blueberry, but with the little seed things that strawberries had. Taking a bite, she found it sweet and tangy with a lot of pulp. Seeing that she didn't die automatically from eating the strange fruit the other girls tried it too.
The cereal was rather sweet as well and the drink was an apple cider with some sort of unfamiliar spice, but whatever it was it woke her up as sure as that triple espresso coffee did.
"So where do we go now?" Ori asked. Arty translated for her.
"To the city," Greywolf said, putting down his book. Alec had wandered off to try and chive more food from the kitchen. "We're lucky though. I talked to a merchant and he said that he would take us in one of his wagons so we can get there that much quicker."
After Arty translated that back, Jenny asked, "And then what?"
"I don't know," Greywolf said after Arty had once again translated. "Two options. The Oracle or Mystra Kindess. She's the leader of the city council."
"Oh! Let's do the Oracle!" Chloe said, and Arty could almost hear her thinking about how they could find out if Legolas was really destined to marry one of them. "He can tell us our destinies."
"I highly doubt that," Greywolf said, looking at her, after once again Arty translated. "An Oracle's gift, from what Alec tells me, doesn't work like that. But if it's to the Oracle you wish to go, I suppose that's where we shall go." He sounded a bit sour about something as he spoke, but it disappeared as Alec came back with a pair of apples, one half eaten.
"Are we ready to go? Master Ketchen is waiting for us."
Jenny shifted on her seat and whispered something. Arty had to lean over to hear what she said. She then turned to Greywolf and asked him, as he seemed to be the more tactful of the two.
"What?" He paused, "Oh! Yes." He pointed up the stairs, "It's the last room on the left." With that all four of the girls ran up the stairs to the bathroom, or local equivalent there of.
"They're strange, aren't they 'Wolf?" Alec said as he and his brother walked along side wagon. The four girls were in it, sitting on sacks of wheat and other grains. The merchant seemed to think that the two men were strong enough to walk, while the girls needed to ride. Alec and Greywolf didn't mind too much.
"I suppose they are, I wonder where they come from?" He replied, hand on the edge of the wagon as the walked. Alec shrugged. "They want to go see the Oracle."
Alec stumbled, almost falling to the ground before catching himself. "They want to see Jono?"
"Yes. They seemed to be quite eager to do so." Greywolf frowned, "Is everything okay between the two of you?"
"Yeah, yeah," Alec muttered, not looking at his brother. "We're fine. He'll be glad to see me."
"He seems to get worried when he doesn't see you for a couple of days."
"He just cares about me."
"Over protective of you. Like you're going to break. Though you have been rather clumsy lately."
Alec shrugged "Can't help you there." He plucked a grass strand from the side of the road and started to chew on it absently.
Arty listened to the two brothers talking for a while. Something was going on between Alec… and Jonah? Was that the name? To be certain, but she couldn't say what. The ride in the wagon was pleasant though. The sacks of grain were a bit on the lumpy side, but still cushioned them from the jostling movement of the wagon. Jenny had fallen asleep, but Ori and Chloe were up and talking. At first they talked about the horses. They had horns, like unicorns. But when Arty had mentioned this to Alec and Greywolf, she had gotten a blank look of confusion.
"Why wouldn't a horse have a horn?" Alec had asked.
This had led the two girls to speculate why Tolkien hadn't put the unicorns in the books. Or Peter Jackson put them in the movies. They had seen cows that looked like long horns, but with bony plates on their shoulders and haunches and goats with four horns and spiny ridges on their back. No one seemed to think this was odd at all; besides the three of them.
"Ohmigawd! Is that a dragon?" Ori cried out, pointing to the sky. Arty looked up and saw a creature with webbed wings fluttering in the sky. It did look like a dragon, but it was the size of a humming bird. It darted quickly back and forth, humming rapidly, between the girls.
Alec hopped onto the wagon and snatched at it.
"Don't hurt it!" Chloe cried out.
But Alec sat on the edge of the wagon and opened up his hands. Inside was the dragon, unharmed. It was like someone had taken a humming bird and turned it into a dragon. Its scales were iridescent and it had a long tail, which wrapped around Alec's fingers. Its eyes were like jewels and it had a long delicate snout, a wisp of a tongue flickering out. Its wings were almost transparent.
"Oooh!" Ori cooed. The three girls hovered around Alec. Arty had to admit the dragon was beautiful.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's a hummer," Alec said. He petted it gently with a finger. "They're good luck."
"You aren't going to keep it, are you?"
"What? No… no…I couldn't keep it." He looked at it sadly, "Keeping wild things like this caged up is cruel." With that, he raised his arms, spreading his palms to the sky. The hummer rested on his hands, looking out and about before zipping off into the grasses. It met a second one and the two of them began to chase each other.
Alec then smiled at the girls, and lept back down off the wagon to continue walking with his brother.
"How come Tolkien didn't mention those in his books?" Chloe wondered.
"Could it be because they don't exist in Middle Earth?" Arty said.
"But we're here! And so is it!"
Arty sighed in frustration. She wasn't getting through to them at all.
The wagon ride took about six hours. Six very long hours, in the sun. After a while the lumpy bags of grain were too lumpy to sit on comfortably. Alec and Greywolf had hitched themselves to the edge of the wagon, Greywolf reading a book of some sort. Alec had fallen in some sort of moody slump and didn't seem to want converse about anything.
Ori, Chloe and Jenny talked eagerly about what they would see in the city. The list seemed to consist of elves. Elves, new clothes, elves, Legolas, and elves. Alec was the closet thing to elves that they had seen, and he wasn't that elven at all.
White walls surrounded the city, gleaming with a stone that Arty couldn't recognize. It didn't looked like any sort of stone that was traditionally used, at least back in her world. Despite being plain and white it had a definite feel of magic. The road went from dirt to cobble stone as the wagon passed through a large gate, guards on either side, tall pikes in their hands.
People hustled and bustled past them wearing bright and colorful colored clothing that was loose fitting. There were very few greens in the clothes, but lots of blues and reds and oranges. The buildings the past seemed to be homes, with large gates and larger gardens behind them. An island in the middle of the road had a strip of greenery in it occasionally broken up by trees, sculptures or fountains. It was the fountains that were astonishing. Not only were there fountains with water coming out of them, but some also had liquid fire. And no one thought this was strange!
As the wagon progressed the street got wider and the homes became shops. Traffic became thicker as more wagons, coaches and people filled the road. The merchant seemed to know where he was going and lead the horses at an easy pace. Alec had gotten off the wagon and was walking along side of it, looking about distractedly.
Their destination was a tall building in the middle of a street square. It had steps going around the entirety of the building, but only one entrance made of tall bronze doors with sigils carved into it. Tall columns flanked the door and went down the stairs, but supported nothing. On the top of the building leaves from trees could be seen.
"This is it." Greywolf said, as he got off the wagon. The four girls followed him, climbing somewhat sorely and stiffly off the wagon.
"This is it?"
"Yes, the temple of the Oracle."
"I wonder what he's like," breathed Jenny.
An auburn haired young man with wavy hair wearing a vest with nothing under it came bounding out of the temple, several men in official looking robes chased after him, calling out for him to stop. The young man paid them no heed and instead dashed up to Alec and pulled him into an embrace, with a long passionate kiss.
"That," Greywolf said.
Next: The Oracle + Alec Hawt Gay Guys!