Chapter Four

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Verity entered into the balcony where dinner was being served the others were already underfoot and speaking to themselves about the food that was brought out to them. Greens, Verity felt amused, it would appear as if the dwarrow didn't understand what the stuff was actually meant for. She almost laughed as Dori tried to get his younger brother to try some of the green lettuce. "I don't like green foods!" Was Ori's reply, looking at the romanian leaf as if it was the most disturbing and dangerous thing on the planet.

"I don't like green eggs and ham, Sam I am!" Verity quoted from one of her childhood books she liked having read to her. Dori and Ori both looked at her in confusion at the way she spoke it and the way she smiled bitter sweet at the memory.

The Dwarrow and the elves and magi turned at the sound, all watching the woman that was standing as rigid as she had the moment that they had met. "Come, come Verity. You must be starving." Gandalf stated, stepping up to that of the host as Elrond leaned over to ask one of the she elf's why his guest was not wearing the dress that was brought to her.

"Yes, I am pretty hungry." Verity stated, moving over to sit down at the only empty place at the table, near Bilbo. The sound of the mechanical devices in her limbs whirling and rotating was barely heard under the sound that the dwarrow made about the lack of meat. Verity stayed quiet, digging into her own bowl of salad with no hesitation, she closed her eyes in response to the flavors of the crisp greens crunching beneath her molars as she chewed and savored the meal that wasn't from a package or from the mess hall.

The dwarrow stared in shock at the woman's reaction to the food watching as she didn't even glance up or around while chowing down on the green vegetation with a vigor that confused the dwarrow to no end. Bilbo cleared his throat before he spoke, "Did you not get a lot of greens where you come from?" He asked, curious about the woman. She looked up one eye narrowing into a pinprick of a hole at she examined him to see what he was trying to pull.

She set her fork down and leaned back on the stump. "Not really, the planet, I was born on, was mainly red and had red vegetation that tasted like heavy chemicals, and were rough to consume. They had to be cooked and filtered several times before they were even edible in part from the high radiation the binary suns let off and the fact that it was very high in copper." Verity answered truthfully. Bilbo looked shocked at the news.

"How did you keep from becoming sick?" He asked.

"We took supplements and had rations of other food in space tight packages." Verity told the hobbit. Who looked around the area that they were sitting now.

"Did you have water on your planet?" He asked.

"Yes, it was also red, tinted that color from the algae that grew in it, the animals were just as bizarre in coloring as well." Verity stated, fondly remembering the planet that had been destroyed.

"It sounds like an awful place?" Bilbo stated. Verity nodded with a small smile on her face.

"Yes, it was an awful place when you didn't know anything about it or how to live on it, but we adapted quickly and were thriving on the planet." She said, pulling herself out of the memories. "If you will excuse me, I have to go." She stood up, nodded to Gandalf and strode away from the rest of the group.

Bilbo looked shocked, he thought the two were getting along very well up until she left. "Was it something I said." Bilbo pondered out loud and the dwarf near him huffed out a laugh.

"Who knows?" He stated, smacking Bilbo on the back and going back to the argument at hand with the other dwarrow.

Verity watched the group as they continued on happily eating and drinking, even got a little smile back as they started getting up to sing drinking songs and throw around the food that hadn't been eaten. "My dear lady, I thought your conversation was going very well with master Bilbo." Gandalf said, coming to stand beside the tall woman.

"It wasn't his fault I left. The memories of the planet and the people who lived there became too much, a haunting of the dead so to speak." She said, turning her head slightly to look at the magi out of the corner of her eye.

"Whatever happened to make you seem so old and wise?" Gandalf asked. Verity smiled bitterly and turned away from him, heading back to her room.

"A war against humanity started and I needed to grow up or die." She answered as a parting shot. Gandalf watched her go, pondering the information that he had been given.

It was the middle of the night a few weeks later when Dori came to her room whispering about them getting ready to leave in secret that the magi had told them to move out and wait for him by the misty mountains. Verity nodded her head in agreement, she hadn't gotten very comfortable here anyways, her worry for her crew and the radio silence had started to give her the notion of leaving on her own anyways. She was anxious to get back to her ship and access the damage that was done, this place made speaking to her crew very difficult, the area must have a natural electric magnetic field that screwed with technology.

She met the dwarrow group and the hobbit at the entrance to the road they would need to take, her weapons and armor back in place, helmet on and looking as mysterious as they had first seen her. She didn't look human with all that gear, and they had not been able to tell that she had been a female or not until after she had taken off the helmet and spoken to them. She was intimidating to say the least but none of the dwarrow would admit it out loud, especially to her. They started off on the secret passage, her in the back with Bilbo beside her and Dori and Ori in front of them. They stayed quiet hardly making a noise, and the dwarrow were surprised that the robotic limbs of the woman didn't make any heavy clumping sounds as they moved. They had been sure that those limbs would be heavy and would make noise alerting anyone of her presence, but so far they only heard the soft whirring of machines working inside the metal constructs as she moved or idled standing up. They made it past the barrier of the cave that lead outside of the great city and started toward the misty mountains. Again they were cautious as they were once more in the open and could easily be taken down by the horde of orcs that followed behind them, hunting them.

Verity stayed quiet, the radio chatter from her helmet had kicked back in about two miles out of the city and she could hear the Rok was arguing with one of her officers about setting up more contact points so that they don't lose her connection again. She explained quietly that she had been in an area that likely had a natural magnetic core that stopped or disabled any technology from working. She even had a hard time with the limbs that were robotic. They gave her frequent headaches from the device that was attached to her brain stem and it did very little to calm her nerves.

Rok suggestested other modes of communication and she shot him down, asking him if he knew how to read smoke signals or knew of any birds here that would be helpful to deliver messages for them. After that Rok became more moody, snapping at any of his or her men that were lacking in their jobs for being 'lazy' while on duty. Verity had to remind him that the ship was damaged and it would take awhile to repair it with the little tools they had and the middle age metals that were around them. Also not to include that all the men were tired and worried and that his badgering them like an angry lion would get them nowhere. She was left with radio silence once more as she assumed that Rok had gone off to sulk somewhere after her argument with him. She didn't have time to deal with that and had to stay focused on the task at hand, getting back to the ship in one piece. The journey to the misty mountains was almost quiet, they had a few points that they had to cross where Verity ended up carrying the hobbit as they were passing through a heavy stream that came up to her waist or chest, and Bilbo had panicked stating that hobbits were not very good at swimming but rather sinking to the bottom.

After those events, the group had a more peaceful time along the way, stopping near dusk to set up camp and continue to watch for any enemies in groups of two. Sleep was hard as Verity was unsure what was happening back at the ship, was everything alright? How many casualties had they suffered when entering the atmosphere of the planet? She fretted over these things while listening to the wild life around her. This place seemed far to peaceful for her state of mind, used to battle zones and areas surrounded by enemy forces that could sneak into camp invisible. She came awake at every sound and movement, her robotic eye scoping the distance and around the campsite to see what had made the noise. Before she settled down once more unto the hard ground.