Celebwen Telcontar: Okay, I do not own National Treasure, or the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. I only own the plot. Oh, by the way, one of the lines isn't mine either, it's Joss Whedon's. Yes, I did use some BtVS lines for a couple scenes.
Balrog: Which ones?
Celebwen Telcontar: You'll just have to find that out for yourself. The lines are from "Surprise" and "Becoming II", from the Second season. Another BtVS thing is the Hell that one character goes to. Joss Whedon, who also owns the Fyarrl demon tormenting that particular character, created the Hell for the Buffy series. Everything Middle Earth-y is Tolkien's, everything National Treasure-y is… er… Who owns National Treasure, anyways? It doesn't belong to me. Silence does though, as does Mariah.
Balrog: Windbag. This is supposed to be a LOTR/NT crossover, not a LOTR/NT/BtVS crossover!
Celebwen: This is not a LOTR/NT/BtVS crossover! They're just lines! And a Hell dimention! Silence says the "Surprise" line, and Silence and Ian both say the "Becoming II" lines!
Balrog: (groans) Bye. This is a waste of time.
Celebwen Telcontar: Excuse me?
Tarichar: (Hisses at Celebwen and saunters off.)
Celebwen: Tarichar! Watch your language! And by the way, thanks, Elenhin for being such a great Beta!
The helicopter lowered to the deserted town square, the whine of the engines drowning out the masses fleeing from the Naples area. The golden-haired woman Riley once thought was God, now known to be Galadriel, bearer of the Ring of Adamant, descended from the chopper, ever graceful. Her grandsons, Elladan and Elrohir, followed, as did Glorfindel, and Riley followed, tripping on the helicopter's threshold and nearly sprawling himself face first in the church's courtyard as Elrond fluidly leapt from the pilot's seat.
Cars streamed from the cities and the airlines were full. A mass evacuation was obviously underway from the cities surrounding Vesuvius; apparently the Italian government hadn't thinned the populous enough to keep a huge traffic jam (and cars driving on both sides of the roads and beside the roads) from being created with their cash incentives to move.
"What's going on?" Riley asked, staring at the cars clogging the freeway like cholesterol in an overweight person's arteries.
"Vesuvius' magma chamber has been filling from its last major eruption, in 1944, and thus the pressure created by the increasing viscous molten rock is putting a strain on the basalt blocking the volcano's main vent," Elrohir said, sounding like a page out of a geology textbook.
"Huh?" Riley asked, playing with his semi-melted lump of vaguely circular gold metal.
"The volcano's about to erupt," Elladan translated.
"The-the-Could you repeat that?"
"The volcano's about to erupt. Would you like me to write it down?" Elladan asked contemptuously.
"Uh… no. But shouldn't we… uh… be headed… uh… that way?" Riley asked, pointing away from the volcano.
"U, yrchion." (No, son-of-orcs)
"Elladan! Hen le pedo!" (Elladan! Watch you language)Glorfindel snapped, swatting the Elf-twin upside the head.
"Adar!" (Father!) the abused Elf whined. Elrond ignored him.
"Met-uva raen I vilya-pata," (We will wander the sky-way) Elrond said, re-entering the helicopter.
"Would it be too hard to speak English?" Riley asked, exasperated.
"Cait-u, yrchion-gondol," (Not to lie, stoneheaded son-of-orcs) Elladan said, smirking. Glorfindel sighed.
"Hen le pedo, Peredhel," (Watch your language, Half-Elven) the Gondolin Elf grumbled. "If you wish to insult him by calling him a stoneheaded son-of-orcs, then say that to his face instead of insulting him in a tongue he does not understand," Glorfindel said in English.
"Hey!" Riley cried, insulted. Elladan smirked, and entered the helicopter, followed by Glorfindel, who was apparently going to play mediator between the two.
"A le a hinith-adan, Elladan?"(Are you a child of Men, Elladan?)Elrohir asked his twin, who stuck his tongue out at him. Glorfindel rolled his eyes in exasperation as the chopper began to rise with the whining of the engine.
Below them, the ground rippled as a quake struck. A ringing explosion was heard, and Riley, terrified beyond actions, shrank against his seat. Elladan snorted contemptuously, and Galadriel glared at her grandson, apparently irritated.
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Elrond cursed as he saw that the volcano was erupting. Maybe they should have chosen Mt. Aetna instead of Vesuvius, since the latter was now very valiantly attempting to recreate it's A.D. 79 disaster.
Smoke, pyroclasts and flying rocks wouldn't do much to melt the Ring, since Orodruin wasn't hot enough to do any more than misshape it. But it may be, if the immense weight of the evil thing bore it down the bowels of the magma chamber.
"Get ready!" he called in Elvish. Elrohir opened the door as Elrond flew perilously close to the eruption. Riley screeched in panic, and Elrond got as close as he dared. "Riley, now! Throw it in the fire!"
"No!"
"Men! Damn them all to the lowest of Morgoth's realm! Useless idiots!" Elrond grumbled in Elvish, recalling how close in actions Isildur was to Riley. Elladan snickered. "Now!" the ancient Elf-lord roared at the stubborn human, who squealed and refused again. "Elrohir?" Elrond called. Elrohir gripped Riley's arm, and held the hand that held the Ring out of the open door.
"What are you doing!" Riley cried in a panic. Elrohir grabbed a long knife and swiftly sliced Riley's hand off of his arm, effectively severing the contact the Ring had with its bearer.
"The chopper's engine is going to fill with ash!"Elladan cried as Elrond turned the helicopter. Elrohir closed the door with a grateful sigh and Elrond pushed the vehicle to its fastest. Below them, there was a colossal explosion as a new vent opened. Viscous magma poured from the hole, skyrocketing.
"Men," Elrond grumbled as Riley continued to shriek over his lost appendage. "Make sure to tie off the arteries and veins, then wrap his arm in sanitized cloth. Give him a good blanket, we need to keep the idiot from going into shock."
"We are your sons, Father," Elladan replied, a grin in his voice. A feeling of being dominated over slowly vanished from Elrond. He glanced at the now-merely-decorative Vilya, the Blue Ring of the Elves, and heard his mother-in-law's sigh of relief. The One Ring was gone, hopefully forever this time. Men couldn't afford another rerun of Sauron's attempt at power. They would fail.
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The president of the United States had been very sure of his success as president. He stood, and then a blinding flash of pain shot from his heart through his entire body. He fell, struggling to breathe as his secretaries and security ran about in a panic. Like a landed fish, he gasped for air, then fell to his side and curled up in a fetal position as agony racked his body, every nerve ending on fire.
Then there was nothing, save pure darkness.
Slowly, firelight lit the area. He was chained to a wall, an uruk-hai like creature with horns, a square jaw and grayish skin with a whip before him. He struggled, to no avail, as the whip-demon raise his weapon and struck it across Sauron's chest.
The pain was unbelievable. It was like pure fire racing across his flesh, leaving raw wounds into which were pored raw acid. Sauron screamed, loudly, adding to the horrendous din of demons and humans in chains.
"Get a move on there!" a demon snarled in Orcish. A whip was brought down, and a woman screamed then whimpered. "Move, or I'll give you something to scream about!" Chains rattled as prisoners staggered across the area.
"Mercy, please!" someone whimpered. He was met with a whip. Sauron would love this place, if it had not been that he was chained to the wall and being tormented.
"Do you like it here?" his horned captor asked.
"Eh…" Sauron couldn't speak more than that from the pain.
"Good! Welcome, Sauron, Maia of Aulë and Morgoth, to Hell. I hope you like your stay!" The lash fell.
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It was relatively warm for the beginning of October. Silence lay on the platform, slowly drifting out of conscious thought into dreamland.
It was cold, too cold to even think. Silence rubbed her bulging abdomen through the think robes of state and multiple petticoats and waistcoats, glad for the warmth they offered. She tried to sign her name of the food distribution document, but found that the ink had frozen in the pen. She held it in the water heater to thaw it, and then signed her name quickly, before the ink re-froze.
Ian came up, his dark robes and thick slippers muffling his footsteps.
"Isn't this supposed to be summer?" he asked her.
"It's the first summer after the big eruption. This is summer, and winter will be –" An aging Laura was cut off by Silence.
"Brutal. Positively brutal."
Silence sat up on the dock, the cool night air and the light breeze very welcome after the icy cold of the post-Yellowstone summer.
A dream. It had all been a dream, even her being married to Ian-why?- and being the Queen of Gondor and Arnor, Uncle Derek the King of Dale and his wife, Mariah, Queen of Rohan.
"Len?" Derek called softly over the sounds of Phil and Gregor's snores, and oddly enough Sulin's, though how a horse could snore was well beyond her.
"I'm awake," she stage-whispered back.
"You alright?"
"Well enough. My dreams have been odd of late."
"We do have the blood of the Evenstar and of Numenor flowing in us. They could very well be prophetic. What was your dream?" Silence shuddered, not wanting to think of the icy cold summer.
"It was cold, cold enough to freeze the marrow in your bones. I was pregnant, married to Ian, and the Queen of Gondor while you were the King of Dale, Mariah was the Queen of Rohan, Ian was the Steward of Gondor, and Mother was holding Annuminas for me."
"It could very well be prophetic," Derek repeated. "What else did you dream?"
"That-er-you and I opened an office supply warehouse in Las Vegas Nevada."
"That one probably isn't prophetic," Derek chuckled. "Me, in an office supply warehouse? It's a nightmare."
"I agree. But the first one? It was in summer. Summer!"
"Don't worry so much about it, Silence. If it does happen then it will, and there's nothing we can do about it. Sometimes these things take skewed perceptions of things."
"Sauron was controlling the Palantir that Denethor was using to scry Sauron's actions," Silence pointed out. Derek smiled.
"I know, Silence," he said softly. "But Sauron, we don't even know if he's around anymore."
"But if he is—"
"You're overreacting. If he is, we'll deal. We've always dealt. We're Bardred, for Illuvitar's sake, Dinnen! The Heirs of Bard. Mariah is the Heir to the Throne of Rohan, while you could contest for the Throne of Gondor itself."
"So parts of my dream really are true."
"Some, such as the lines of ascension. If you do become the Queen of Gondor, then Ian would indeed become the Steward, for lack of another possible candidate. He is directly descended from Barahir III, the last Steward of Gondor."
"I see. And you would automatically become the King of Dale?"
"And Eryn Lasgalen by default. I hate the thought; I'd make a horrible King."
"Nonsense!" Ian called. "You'd make a fine ruler!" Derek sighed.
"You wish," Derek called back. Ian laughed. "Go to sleep, you'll need it," Derek's voice was less than happy about the dream and possible future.
"See what I mean? You're ten times better a leader than me!" Ian called. But they all pulled out their pallets and curled up to go to sleep.
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The horses were panicking, and Ina was trying to rouse Silence.
"Wh-what?" she asked groggily.
"Something's happening."
"A man Eru!" Mariah gasped. "I uruloki, i uruloki!" (Oh good God! The dragon, the dragon!)
"What!" Ben cried, scrambling up. "What the Hell—oh God." He promptly passed out.
Silence turned and saw the great green-and-gold dragon racing for her.
The dock faded out to a church. The pews were shaken when the door came crashing down as well as the entire front wall. A small dragon stood there, his nostrils and eyes lethally red against the black beady hide. Patrick grabbed a gun from someone, and shoved everyone towards the boiler room. He brandished the gun, and fired, hitting the dragon's eye, but only enraging it. The beast spat fire a Patrick, searing his left side. Patrick yelled and fired again, completely infuriating the dragon. It opened its mouth to breathe flame again, and Patrick fired multiple times into the yawning cavern. The beast thrashed, belching fire everywhere and finally died, leaving Patrick with third-degree burns over his entire body.
Suddenly, Derek lifted her up and carried her to the dock's edge, throwing both her and himself into the water.
The cold water shocked her into wakefulness as she followed her uncle down and under the dock to an air pocket meant to buoy the raft. Ten full minutes later, the dock swelled with the leaping waves, and the water became almost too hot to bear, due to the now-dead dragon's body heat cooling down. Silence and her uncle swam back to the dock and Victor and Gregor helped them, Phil, Ian, Ben and Mariah up to the dock. Tarichar wound about Silence's ankles, before Silence hoisted the cat onto her shoulder and going to Ian. She gently brushed his hair from his eyes, gazing into their grey-green depths. "Ian, I-I remember. I remember everything!" She gently touched his shoulder, snaking an arm about his neck.
"Silence?" he asked. Tarichar purred.
"I feel like I haven't seen you in months. It was the dragon that gave me my memories back."
"I love you," he murmured, stroking her cheek.
"I love you," she said back, before kissing him soundly.
"Silence!" Ben cried, apparently irritated.
"Ben, let them be," Gregor snapped in reply.
"But-I-that's my sister!"
"So? You don't own her!" Derek growled at him. "come on, we need to get to Eryn Lasgalen with the information from Silence's dream."
"What about the treasure?" Ben asked in his whiny voice.
"No time," Mariah replied tersely. "It'll keep a bit longer. Let's go. Ian, Silence? Let's go!" Everyone got into the ferry and rowed back to shore, Gregor and Victor coiling up their bowstrings.
"Are you sure the dragon is dead?" Derek called to the two men.
"Positive. Gregor's arrow hit a soft spot in the left side of the chest. It roared and fell to the water. We were afraid you'd been boiled to death because of the heat!"
"It was close. I'm glad it's dead. Now let's go." Derek pulled his oar again, sending the raft closer to the sore.
"Just like Smaug," Victor commented.
"Just no Black Arrow," Gregor replied. Victor smiled grimly. "And the dragon dead means only no menace up here. Only one in the South." He lifted a paddle and began to help guide the raft to the shore. Away to the West, the sun was setting, painting the sky an ominous scarlet.
Celebwen Telcontar: How was that?
Balrog: (Looks bored.)
Tarichar: (Hisses at Balrog.)
Celebwen Telcontar: Ahh, why do I bother? I know, because I like to bother with this! Please review, people!