WOOHOO! Sorry to keep y'all waiting, but here's the moment you've all been waiting for. The next chapter when the journey begins as they're now departing from Rivendell. And I seriously couldn't resist having a little fun with this chapter before I get into the action that takes place in Moria. I hope y'all enjoy this fun chapter. I know I had fun writing it out. :p

Disclaimer: I think it's obvious that I still don't own anything, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this story now would I?


Chapter 7 The Journey Begins

The next day, the newly formed Fellowship got an early start in making preparations for the long journey they had ahead of them. Team Natsu each ended up being equipped with weapons so they were not always constantly relying on their magic, although Natsu still kept the sword Gandalf had given him when they were still just leaving the Shire. He was now beginning to have a better attitude towards wanting to learn to use a sword, even with Gray's smug "I told you so's" always being constantly rubbed in his face about it as well. And Gray, too, was also given his own sword to use as well. Lucy's weapon she chose to use was a bow and arrows, though she knew she may have to ask Legolas to teach her how to use it since she really had no idea how to use a bow. Or if not him, she could always resort to learning from Sagittarius instead. Wendy had a sword that was much like the ones the hobbits have, much to Carla's disapproval of it though she eventually relented after a while of arguing it out with the Sky Dragon. Happy and Carla each had a small dagger that was just their size as well, while Erza politely declined saying that she had plenty of swords and armor in her requip storage.

The Fellowship was now prepared to depart as they began making their way out of Rivendell, with Frodo leading the way nervously. "Gandalf...which way is Mordor?" Frodo asked the wizard behind him quietly.

"Left." Gandalf said back. They made their way across hills and valleys, finally coming to rest on a small hilltop and making camp. "We could go through the mines of Moria, Gandalf...my cousin Balin would give us a royal welcome." Gimli suggested, puffing on a small pipe.

"I will not enter those mines..." Gandalf said eerily.

Natsu, Lucy, and Gray began to wonder just what it was about these mines Gimli had mentioned that seemed to make the old wizard nervous about entering them, though they were unsure of whether they should ask or not incase the old wizard ended up whacking them on the head for even daring to ask about it.

Erza, meanwhile, could be seen with Boromir, sparring with Merry and Pippin to help better their skills with a sword. Legolas had unexpectedly pulled Natsu aside to ask questions about if it was true about how he was raised by a dragon, Gimli joining in as well.

"Yeah, of course it's true," Natsu was explaining to them, though he was remembering to at least try to keep his temper under control. "The Fire Dragon Igneel's my dad. But hey, if ya feel like hatin' me for bein' the son of a dragon then go right ahead. But just so ya know, Wendy was also raised by a dragon too."

This seemed to surprise both the elf and dwarf, considering the blue haired girl was a lot more sweet and gentle compared to the hotheaded pink haired pyro. And not to mention she said she had healing magic, something they knew all dragons were incapable of possessing.

"The little girl?" Gimli questioned with a look of disbelief, though he was probably just as surprised as Legolas at hearing that. "Now that's something I find hard to believe."

"Actually that's also true too as well," Wendy spoke up from behind Natsu, and nearly scaring the life out of him by accident. "Sorry, Natsu," she apologized to him.

"Geez Wendy, you trying to scare me to death or what?" Natsu said, slightly teasingly.

Gray couldn't resist snickering at that. "Nice reaction there, though, dragon breath. You really should have seen your face."

"What was that, Ice Princess?! I dare ya to say that to my face!" Natsu challenged.

"Natsu, Gray!" Erza said sternly, making the boys freeze in their tracks before a fight could start up. "Since you both seem to have free time fighting one another, why don't come over and join the sparring circle?"

"Sure, got nothin' better to do right now anyway," Gray replied, as he got out his sword and went over to join Erza, Boromir, Merry, and Pippin for sword practice.

Natsu, however, was a different story to that. "No way!" he muttered.

Erza turned her fierce glare upon him. "Come again?"

"I said no way, and ya can't make me!" Natsu stubbornly declared, giving the Titania a fierce defiant stare-down much to the surprise of the rest of the Fellowship -except that of his friends, of course. Natsu's stubborn hotheadedness really knew no bounds sometimes.

WHAM!

Erza had gone over and hit him over the head with the hilt of her sword before dragging him off by his scarf for sword practice, while Wendy had now begun telling Legolas and Gimli about her mother the Sky Dragon Grandina and how she was actually more of a kind and gentle dragon compared to the fiery-tempered hotheads. And unlike Igneel, or Smaug for that matter, Grandina was a dragon with healing magic and breathed air -"Um, no pun intended to that, of course," Wendy timidly covered up.- and not fire, much to their surprise. Legolas had even commented that Middle Earth could use dragons of healing like Grandina around, to which Gimli gruffly added that it would put those greedy gold-loving firebreathing ones in their place -though Wendy was grateful Natsu hadn't heard that, otherwise who knows how he'd react to that considering Igneel was never gold-obsessed like that despite still having a hot temper.

"But doesn't everyone breathe air, though?" Happy commented as he snickered at the pun about breathing air, while Carla simply just rolled her eyes at him and muttered something incoherent about immature tomcats. "Wow, I think Natsu really is as useless as a Vulcan when using a sword," the blue Exceed suddenly commented, as Natsu was indeed just wildly swinging his sword around during their sword practice as well as trying to throw few flaming punches in as well which earned him punch in the face and a lot of reprimanding from Erza that he was strictly not allowed to use magic in this practice.

"Right, last I checked I don't seem to remember ever seeing a Vulcan even using a sword," Lucy sarcastically muttered to the blue Exceed, as she somehow found herself watching as well. She, Happy, and Carla had also been explaining to the Fellowship more about themselves and about where they were from and about their guild as well. They also explained to them how wizard guilds functioned, as well as taking on job requests to earn money, and Lucy ended up mentioning the job request written in a foreign language -which was still back at the guild- that brought them to Middle Earth in the first place. Both Aragorn and Legolas were thinking this over carefully as they somehow assumed that this 'foreign language' they mentioned could have been written in Elvish, though they couldn't exactly be sure without actually seeing this job request for themselves to confirm it. They were soon interrupted by the sparring circle when Natsu and Gray suddenly began bickering with each other...again.

"Geez, would ya calm down already, you pyro? It's only practice," Gray said.

"No way, Frostbite! I gotta keep givin' it a hundred percent if I wanna have a chance at beating Erza in this fight!" Natsu shot back, as he continued to charge forward wildly at the Titania. "I've been waitin' forever for this challenge, so I ain't gonna hold back!"

"Yeah, but somehow I get the feeling you're gonna be the victim of another round of whack-a-mole sometime soon if you don't cut it out already," Gray told him, just as Gandalf had indeed suddenly came up and whacked Natsu on the head with his staff.

"Aw come on, gramps, you only said restraint when using magic. You never said anything about going all-out in a sword match," Natsu protested.
Gandalf whacked him again, and then proceeded to continue to repeatedly whack him multiple times more. "Are you ever going to learn the meaning of the word restraint one of these days, Natsu Dragneel?! Even using a sword as recklessly as you have been demonstrating can end up causing major damage and destruction!"

"Yeah, like maybe just to a town or somethin', but not an entire world," Natsu mumbled irritably, rubbing at the rather large bump he now had growing out on his head.

"Aye, and restraint's not even in his vocabulary either," Happy stated knowingly.

"Well he had better have learned at least some restraint by the time this quest is finished!" Gandalf huffed, whacking Natsu on the head again before leaving them to continue with their sparring.

Though Natsu could now be seen rubbing at a rather large bump that was beginning to grow on top of his head after being whacked that many times. "Man, I think the only thing I'll end up with by the time this quest is over is major brain damage. And lots of it too," he grumbled.

"Well, gee, it serves you right for getting him after you like that," Lucy muttered from where she was sitting and watching, though she chose to ignore them after a while and had picked up her bow as she had decided to get a little training in herself as well. "Well, I guess I'm gonna get a little target practice in while I'm at it." She then pulled out one of her gate keys. "Open! Gate of the Archer: Sagittarius!" she called out, as a man wearing a horse costume appeared before her.

"What can I do for you, Lucy?" Sagittarius asked her.

"I was just hoping I could get a little archery practice since I don't really have anything better to do at the moment," Lucy replied, which the man-horse spirit obliged to help with that.

"Gee Lucy, here I thought you were gonna ask Legolas for help with that or something," Happy pointed out.

"Well, I was considering asking him too," Lucy admitted a bit sheepishly. "But I was just thinking of asking Sagittarius at the same time...and, well, I was kinda torn about who to ask first."

"I actually don't see why you can't have two teachers helping you," Legolas suggested.

"Well in that case then, I'm all fired up!" Lucy determinedly declared. "But not literally like Natsu, though," she quickly clarified sheepishly. She then introduced Sagittarius -who had brought over a few targets from the Celestial World for his wizard to practice on- and Legolas to each other, as well as explaining to the elf that the man-horse archer was one of her Celestial Spirits, before beginning her archery practice. Sagittarius had gone and set up the targets, while Legolas was instructing her on how to properly hold a bow and notching an arrow to it before taking aim at one of the targets. Lucy paid close attention as she then did the same.

"Careful you don't miss the target, Lucy," Happy teased her, and actually causing her to accidently miss the target.

Lucy turned to glare at him. "You better shut it, stupid cat, unless you wanna be the target!" she threatened, before grinning slyly when the blue Exceed suddenly freaked out and hid behind Carla who only rolled her eyes at his immature behavior as Lucy then resumed practicing with Legolas and Sagittarius helping her out.

Meanwhile, the sparring circle had somehow taken a different turn when Boromir had accidently cut Pippin's hand with his sword which resulted in both him and Merry wrestling the man to the ground as their way of getting payback for that. Erza had to hold Natsu back from wanting to join in -apparently the pyro thought that they had started some sort of brawl that he wanted to be in on as well- as she and Gray quickly got out of the way to avoid being caught up in it as well.

"Aww come on Erza, I wanna join 'em too!" Natsu protested as he was struggling to break free from her grasp.

"No way, Natsu!" Erza told him sternly. "We all know how rough you can get, and hobbits are smaller than us so you might end up hurting them by accident."

"But Erza, no I w-" before Natsu even had a chance to finish, Pippin suddenly grinned mischievously and whispered something to Merry and pretty soon both hobbits had reached over and pulled the pink haired boy's feet right out from underneath him and began laughing as he fell over backwards.

Even Gray couldn't resist snickering at that. "What's the matter, dragon breath? You just gonna let two hobbits get away with that?"

Natsu was suddenly back on his feet and cracking his knuckles while giving off a feral grin. "Alright, whose idea was it to start pullin' cheap shots like that?"

"Merry, quick, run before the dragon gets us!" Pippin yelped as he jumped to his feet, Merry quickly following suit, as they both soon took off running leaving Boromir to finally be able to pull himself up off the ground and watch with amusement as Natsu charged off after them.

"Oh, yeah? Bring it on, 'cause this dragon's all fired up!" Natsu challenged as he playfully chased Merry and Pippin around with some devious plan in mind to get back at them.

Meanwhile, Aragorn looked out into the sky and Sam tugged on Lucy's sleeve. "Miss Lucy? What is that?" he pointed to an ominous black swarm of dots coming closer and closer in the sky towards them.

Lucy suddenly looked up from her archery practice and over at where Sam was pointing. "Huh? I'm not sure," she admitted honestly.

"Rain clouds, maybe?" Happy suggested. "Maybe Juvia found some way to get here, and now she's here to stalk Gray because she loooooooooooooves him."

"Right, I somehow doubt it's Juvia's rain," Gray sarcastically told him.

Natsu suddenly paused and began sniffing at the air with his dragon senses. "Doesn't even smell like rain...or Juvia for that matter," he pointed out, just as Merry and Pippin suddenly took advantage of his moment of being distracted and jumped out at him attempting to pin him down to the ground as Merry had then declared that the dragon had now just been captured. "Yeah, don't get too cocky you guys," Natsu dryly stated. "But next time I'm gonna be the winner here, and I ain't gonna be lettin' my guard down again next time either."

Before either Merry or Pippin had a chance to reply to that, that was when they heard the cawing of the Crebain...spies from Saruman...swirling around in a black cloud of feathers and red eyes. "Crebain! Spies of Saruman!" Legolas cried out.

"I guess this means archery practice is over for right now," Lucy said dryly. "Though somehow, I think I would have preferred Juvia's rain over evil black insects any day."

"Actually I think they look more like crows than insects," Carla pointed out to correct her on that.

Natsu and Gray both suddenly looked ready for a fight at the mention of Saruman, well Natsu ended up having to pull himself free from Merry and Pippin first before going into 'all fired up' mode.

Gandalf used his magic to destroy the crows...but two got away and flew into the distance.

"The White Wizard will know when they report to him what we are up to!" Boromir cried out.

"Then we must take the pass of the mountain Caradhras!" Gandalf gestured toward a snow covered mountain peak near their location.

Team Natsu all looked up at the snowy mountain as well.

"It looks like a Middle Earth version of Mt. Hakobe," Natsu commented. "I wonder if there are any Vulcans to beat up!" He eagerly ignited his hand on fire to show that he was all fired up, at least until Gandalf whacked him on the head with his staff and reprimanding him about recklessly going off to start a fight like that as well as also adding that Middle Earth didn't have any such creatures known as 'vulcans' much to Natsu's added dismay.

"You gotta be kidding me," Lucy mumbled. "And I'm not even dressed properly for sn-" She was suddenly cut off by something warm being wrapped around her neck...wait, something warm? Around her neck? She spun around only to see that is was just Natsu behind her...but there was something she noticed that was suddenly different about him. "Uh, Natsu? What happened to your scarf?"

"Gee, Lucy, what'd ya think I was doin' behind you?" Natsu pointed out, motioning towards his scarf that was now around her neck. Lucy looked down to see that she was indeed now wearing her friend's scarf, which came as a surprise to her considering how he would never let anyone have his scarf to borrow before. She smiled and nodded to him gratefully. "Thanks Natsu," she told him, and receiving his usual trademark grin in reply.

Boromir had been watching the scene between them and couldn't help adding a comment in there just to tease the two teenagers a bit. "So it would appear that the dragon can be tamed after all, so long as he has his princess alongside him."

"Great, way to kill the moment there," Natsu muttered. "Whoever heard of a dragon having a princess anyway?"

"Yeah? Then how come you're blushing, Natsu?" Happy asked him teasingly. "You loooooooooooooove Lucy!" he teased, as both Natsu and Lucy could now be seen sputtering protests at that.

Gandalf only sighed at the trio, as he then began to lead the Fellowship up the Caradhras.


Well I hope this chapter was fun and entertaining for you, my readers/reviewers. Read and review, and next up is Caradhras. Lol! Who wants me to randomly have one of Team Natsu start singing Let It Go as the Fellowship is passing through Caradhras? It's a hilarious idea I just randomly came up with, so review to let me know if you want me to have someone from Team Natsu sing Let It Go. ^_^