Disclaimer: I don't own any familiar characters, and or anything pertaining to the world of the Hobbit. All, but my ocs, are owned by J.R.R Tolkien
Devil in the Details
Chapter 14
The background of the nothingness was a color beyond black, something so vast and consuming it couldn't truly be comprehended by a creature such as Claudia. In the distance between the nothing were colors that illuminated the black, their shapes were undefined and in multitudes. But in the center of the nothing was the most breathtaking star Claudia has ever laid eyes on. Eight long blue spikes shot out of an irradiated belly of pure light. The star pulled Claudia from the void. The cool touch of what felt like water snaked up each leg. The star warmed her icy skin wrapping tightly around her. She sank further into its depths until her feet touched solid ground. A voice — that reminded Claudia of the gentle rains after a summer's storm — spoke from the darkness.
"The days are changing, Áre. I can feel it in the air, the stars are looking toward our lands. Something is coming."
Soft fingers brushed the side of Claudia's hand, setting her soul on fire. The fingers curled around her hand pulling her from the void. Claudia blinked, the blurred shapes of gold and blue melded together a tall dark figure stood against the colors.
"What?" Claudia asked, but the words couldn't seem to leave her mind as the figure continued.
"I'm called beyond these walls, Áre."
The figure took a step closer, her features sharpening. Deep brown eyes stared up at Claudia, love deeply ingrained in them. She ignored Claudia's question as if reciting a predetermined dialogue.
"He cannot keep me within these walls forever. I cannot deny what calls me."
"And what would you have me do?" Claudia nearly jumped out of her skin when the deep voice slipped from her lips.
"Convince him to let me go, he will listen to you."
An invisible icy serpent wrapped around her body crushing the air out of her lungs whispering in her ear to move. And her body listened to its command, jolting forward, moving against her will. Claudia could now make out the smooth texture of the woman's flawless tanned skin. She could count the long black lashes that covered oak eyes. Pointed ears were covered with delicate silver cuffs. She was the most captivating creature Claudia had ever seen.
Armored hands, what must have been her armored hands, cupped the high cheekbones of the woman. The rose flush of her skin was stark against the blue-ish silver metal. "I only wish to keep you safe, and I cannot guarantee that safety if you leave these walls chasing a feeling."
Even with fabric separating their skin, Claudia's body was consumed with an embarrassing fire as she brushed across the elf woman's face. The full petal-colored lips grew into a smile as she took a step forward. Her hand covers Claudia's breastplate. Her lips, soft and silky, blessed Claudia's own undeserving mouth. Claudia was a vagrant at the doors of her sanctuary.
"Come with me," she pleaded in a sweet song.
Her warm breaths stinging where her lips had touched moments ago. Resting her head underneath Claudia's chin, the woman tucked herself neatly into Claudia's body.
"It knows my name, my destiny. I must go, I know it."
Claudia snapped from her trance. "You've heard it does it say to you? "
The woman said nothing looking out, at a now clear, open window. Ahead of them, a city of blue and white stone held hanging gardens and calm rivers that divided the buildings. Life sprung from every inch of the magnificent city. And at its center was a beam of light that was just as bright as the star that had pulled her in. The power it radiated was palpable even from a great distance.
The ground beneath their feet rumbled quietly, the only indicator that it had happened at all were the birds that flocked the various rooftops of the city.
"Did you feel that?"
The woman once again said nothing, humming a song that sounded familiar but she could not place it. The bright blue beam went out for only a moment, but it seemed in that moment the world held its breath. An earth-shattering clap of thunder broke the stillness. And the beam of light lost its blue color, corrupting into the color of blood. Screams filled the streets as fire rained from the sky. The jagged outline of a dark beast appeared over the stronghold's walls.
The woman's hand sat against Claudia's forearm, the graying skin pulling her attention away from the light. Claudia's head snapped to find no longer the beautiful face of the elf but the remnants of a corpse. Claudia screamed, backing away from the decaying creature. The eyes Claudia thought she might lose herself in were gone, leaving behind two black holes. The skin that was like silk was now broken and losing color rapidly.
"G-glo.." The woman screeched between shallow breaths.
Her hand reached for Claudia, skin wore and gone in several places. Maggots crawled from greened wounds.
"Glorfindel…." The woman wept crawling toward Claudia.
Her tears were falling freely now, loud sobs escaping her dry throat. Nausea swirled through her as the zombie's hands reached her living flesh. She backed into the lip of a low window. Abnormally twisted fingers racked over Claudia's body, finally reaching her face. Forcing Claudia to take in the face of the dead woman, the creature spat one last message.
"You were supposed to save me…" The words died on her cold lips and she pushed Claudia out the open window.
Every nerve in her body burst as her soul anchored back to reality. A desperate gasp for life roared from her lips as Claudia shot upright. Her skin blazed with an invisible fire. Unable to control the pain that ripped through her now conscious brain, she screamed. Flashes of shapes danced through her blackened vision. She blinked as hard as she could bring herself to, forcing her vision to come back to her.
"Stop moving," grunted a voice from the black.
Claudia thrashed trying to break the hold the void had on her. With every twist a new piece of herself caught fire.
"Claudia, stop it. You're hurting yourself." A voice snapped above her.
Her eyes burned as the light of the world. Frost covered her bones as her soul anchored into her body once again. Green, the color of the forest after heavy rains, was mere inches from her face. Glorfindel. The woman in her dreams had called his name, screamed it in fact. Deep set with worry the eyes of Glorfindel frantically searched her face. His chest heaved as he hovered inches above her face.
Her palms found the bedding underneath her, and Claudia pressed herself up in a sheer force of will. Startled by her sudden movement, Glorfindel jumped out of her path but still stayed close to her. Like the well-trained soldier he was, his surprise settled into his usual stony persona.
"You look terrible." He said, breaking up the silence.
"I loathe you." She gritted through her teeth. Her hands meet the hard plains of his chest ignoring the sharp tug at the bloodied hole in her side, pushing him out of her space. Glorfindel moved away the moment her hand touched his skin.
"And I will loathe you even more if you make that awful healer come in here and fix your bandages again."
He gently shifted her back into a comfortable position on the small bed, though all of his gentlenesses was lost as he shoved the blanket back into Claudia forcing her to stay still.
"I don't need them snipping at me in dwarvish. I'm sure the rest of the lot is accessing me of doing this to you as we speak." He grumbled.
Satisfied with his work Glorfindel's hand retreated, his finger grazing the top of Claudia's arm. Claudia stilled when Glorfindel's words sank in.
"Where are we?" She whispered her voice, sounding like it had dragged itself through the desert.
Her eyes raked over the gray stone walls that surrounded her. There was very little to the room, having only a small chair beside the wooden frame of the bed. Glorfindel's body took up most of the limited space. Tracing over the room, she paused when she noticed the green runic script carved into the doorway.
Protection given in life. Peace given in death.
This was the oath of a healer. Her lung turned to iron, struggling to give her breath life.
"Claudia, you were dying. Whatever kind of arrow they shot you with was strong than anything I've ever seen. You lost a lot of blood and I- we thought you were going to die. We had to get you help."
Tears blurred the room around her. Frustration bubbled in her throat.
"Where are we?" She demanded.
Glorfindel ran his hand over his face. "We found a dwarven outpost about two hours away from the river."
Claudia's shoulders deflated her hands catching her face as she fell. "They were able to stop the bleeding, but you need more help than they could give you. They moved you to Ered Luin so their healers could keep an eye on you."
"How long have we been here?" She asked
An unusual silence fell on the opinionated man.
"A wee-"
"A week!" Claudia threw aside the blanket, swinging her leg off the bed. Pain rewarded her movement with another burst of fire. Ignoring pain's call, Claudia looked up at Glorfindel with narrowed eyes.
"Where's everyone else?"
"Theo and Enna are in a meeting with Prince Throne."
Claudia couldn't help but laugh. Glorfindel's head snapped to her, his expression bewildered. "I'm sure the 'prince' has been welcoming."
"You need to lay back down-"
"Where is King Arone?"
"You are going to-"
"Are Dag and Alma okay?"
"Claudia!" Glorfindel raised his voice, stopping her babbling stream of questions.
Claudia shifted in her bed at his tone, she openly glared at the elf. Raising a brow she waited for Glorfindel to answer her question. But the muted voices behind the laughably small door behind Glorfindel caught their attention. It took only a moment for Theo's face to morph into pure joy when he took in Claudia's waking form. Theo wrapped his arms around his cousin, pressing her in close.
An odd wave of grief rolled off him and caused tears to form in Claudia's eyes. She ignored her body's warning and held him as tight as she could. From the plains of her shoulder, she saw Alma and Enna watching in silence at the tearful scene.
"You're awake," he finally spoke — relief filling his voice.
He pulled away, still keeping Claudia at arm's length. Claudia brushed away a stray tear, before punching Theo's arm.
"Ouch!"
"How stupid could you have been to lead us to Arone!" She yelled.
Theo looked back at Alma for help. Alma — who had been right behind Theo — unfolded her arms and walked to Claudia's side. Before she said anything, Alma caught the princess's hand, giving it a small squeeze.
"You were dying, Claudia. We had to save you."
Claudia sighed, squeezing her friend's hand back. "Has he been terrible?"
Alma shared a glance with Theo, who answered. "Arone has been away and is returning today. Throne is ruling in his place, it seems things are just as bad as Erebor feared."
"How can you say such things about the people that saved you?" Glorfindel interjected. "They have shown enough compassion."
"Their compassion will quickly run dry when King Arone returns." Claudia fought back.
Theo rubbed the back of his neck, working out an invisible knot.
"Claudia, he will be back within the hour. Prince Throne has requested a meeting as soon as you wake. They will be sending handmaids to prepare you now they know you are awake." Theo muttered, pacing the room.
Claudia groaned letting her head hit the pillow beneath her.
"She is in no shape to be moving, surely they will understand that." Glorfindel spat, obviously appalled at the idea.
"That is exactly why he wants to call on her now," Alma said, "he wants to see her in a position of weakness."
"And why would he want that?"
"He doesn't care for the princess," Dag finally spoke from the edge of the doorway.
Glorfindel raised a brow looking from the guard to the princess, waiting for an explanation.
"Because Prince Throne once courted Claudia, she very openly refused the offer and embraced the prince." Theo supplies finally.
"Okay, this is not all my fault. Lord Arone has long objected to the Durin rule over the dwarven clans."
"I don't think starting a fist fight with his elven-year-old son helped our case, Claudia." Theo pointed out.
Claudia rolled her eyes, folding her arms. "Claudia, you will need to be on your best behavior. The situation here is volatile, it will do neither us nor Erebor any good to anger King Arone further than he already is. If we want to get back to our quest then we will have to play by his rules." Enna said, stepping fully into the room.
Rolling her head on the pillow, she straightened up and looked at Enna. "I'm not my sister, I'm not a politician. I refuse to be something he can play with, we should leave now while he's not here."
"There is no leaving, my lady." Theo lowered his voice, "Dag has been watching Arone's guards. It seems they have been keeping close tabs on us. I doubt that they will let us go so easily."
Claudia swallowed the dry lump forming in her throat, "I'm not ready to face him."
"Then prepare yourself, can't keep a king waiting," Theo said wearily exiting the room.
AN. Language warning
Hi guys thanks for the lovely reviews and messages I've received from almost everyone.
However, to the fucking freak who keeps commenting on this story and the story on ao3, do you think I'm as stupid as you are? I know it's you. I have tried to be nice, but you've pushed me too fucking far. I could care less if you think these fictional characters are going to hell. I don't think shit about god, I'm writing fanfic. You aren't going to evangelize anyone on a fucking fanfic website. And as for fucking Sodom and Gomorrah you've doubt you've ever fucking read it. Because if you had you would know out of the more than 20 references to S&G in the rest of scripture, none mention same-sex behavior as even part of the reasons for Sodom's destruction. It mentions gang-forced sex, but I'm sure you can't use context clues as to why that's bad. Or you would know that in Jude 7 it refers to S&G 'giving themselves to sexual immorality and perversion" or in the literal translation sarkos heteras meaning different flesh referring to the attempt to force sex with an angel and that context comes from the previous passage about the Nephilim. Or or or do you want to talk about Ezekiel 16:50 where the word abomination appears, I'm sure that's where you've sunk you're homophobic teeth into (and don't give me that shit about pitying them), did you know (which I'm sure you didn't) that of the 783137 words in the bible abomination is used 117 times and of that 117- 111 of those uses have no connection to being gay. Now I'm sure you couldn't give a fuck about anything I just said, but others who are already decent humans will see all the flaws in your argument. You are a hypocrite and loser. You've made me stoop to the level of arguing online with a freak, and I hate doing that. But I will do it every fucking time in support of my LGBTQ+ siblings because I am of the world. I actually love humanity and I think people are good, even without a god to tell them how to be so. If I'm going to hell then so be it, I'd rather be in the depths of hell than go to heaven that god deems your hate as good.
