"Let there be no inscription upon my tomb; let no man write my epitaph: no man can write my epitaph."
-Robert Emmet

Amelia bore her pain valiantly, nearly tripped on it twice, and felt like singing in relief when the enormous, dark gates of Moria finally took shape ahead of them. She was in too much pain to be impressed by their intimidating shape, sheer size and dark forebodingness, but refused to acknowledge it, even as her face grew as pale as had it been cast in cold marble.

She didn't stay around to see Gandalf attempt to open the doors, as her blood roared in her ears and she dumped down on her rock, resting her head in her hands and breathing heavily.

"You look exhausted." Aragorn's voice came out of nowhere and Amelia jerked her head up to see him looming her over, a frown on his features. She mustered up a brave front, obstinately refusing to let others see what she perceived as weakness on her part, even if it would benefit her in the end.

"Well, I am." She forced the words out and made them seem light, but Aragorn was not fooled.

"Boot." He mumbled, though quite clearly, as he knelt and Amelia got the feeling that there was no arguing with him. She reluctantly pulled the black boot off her foot, though each wiggle made her want to beat her head against a wall to distract herself from the pain of it, and finally, Aragorn pulled off her sock to see her foot beneath it. At the sight, he mumbled an elven curse lowly to himself.

"You've been walking on this for hours." He mumbled, pulling forth a pouch from his belt.

"You don't say?" Amelia's ankle was swollen to the point where it looked like she was wearing a thick sock beneath her skin. It had begun to bruise and Aragorn gave her a dark look.

"Why would you keep this from us?" Amelia blew out a harsh breath through her nose.

"Why do you think?" She winced as he dabbed something cool and numbing on her foot, though it felt good as the pain faded to a dull, constant thumping. "I'm the weak link here. The girl in a group of men. I don't like feeling… I mean, I don't want you to… Well, I'm enough of a liability as it is. I shouldn't even be here."

"So you hid your injury." Aragorn sounded immensely unhappy, but not unkind either, at the same time. "Have you had the thought that we travel with four hobbits and you'd most likely best them in a swordfight?" Amelia blinked at him and he sighed lowly. "You may not be a strong warrior… but you have a strength about you." Amelia saw Legolas and Boromir looking their way and she avoided their eyes. "You have a wry wit and some skill with a sword, even if you are still a beginner." Amelia shook her head.

"You don't get it." He didn't answer and managed to produce a roll of bandages. Amelia resisted the urge to roll her blue eyes. Her best conclusion about him so far had been that the man was a walking hospital.

"You have an injury?" Legolas approached them, as graceful as ever, and Amelia looked away from him.

"Normally, I would forbid you to walk on your foot…" Aragorn began and Amelia glared at him.

"But we're nowhere near 'normal' at the moment. And I've been walking on it this afternoon, I can do it again." Aragorn didn't look happy with her, but couldn't find fault with her logic, even if it was crude and basic.

"We will enter the mine soon enough." He answered instead and Amelia winced. Though she knew what awaited the others in the darkness, she had no guarantee that she herself would make it through in one piece, but she knew that she felt no worse about that than the rest of the Fellowship and refused to let her fear shine through.

"Yeah, and that's gonna be so great." She heard Gandalf attempt another elven password. "Because it's real cheery in there."

"What do you know?" Aragorn's eyes seemed to pierce her and she felt momentarily stunned by the abrupt question. She reminded herself, once again, that the people of Middle-Earth were not as slow as she thought them to be.

"Too much." She glanced over at where the door was supposed to be again. She fiddled nervously with the ends of her sleeves. "Look, I might not be able to tell you… everything, but… the mine, it's… it's dangerous. Poor Gimli. Don't tell him I said that." She heard the wet sound of something being thrown into the water and she gulped.

"Has some ill come to Moria?" Legolas asked her and she nodded, slowly, her eyes still resting on Pippin.

"I guess. Though it's not just 'some' ill, it's, well… pretty bad, and someone make him stop throwing rocks into the water!" She hissed, her nerves getting the better of her at last, and Sam grabbed Pippin's arm, just as he was about to throw another rock into the water. She shuddered.

"Water-mellons!" She heard Frodo suddenly shout and her eyes snapped to him, her eyebrows confusedly knitting together.

"You think about elven jokes now, lad?" Gimli exclaimed incredulously and Frodo shook his head.

"No, no, it's a riddle… the elvish word for friend, it's…"

"Mellon." Gandalf's voice was deep and resonating and, at the exact second the word had left his mouth as he realized it, a pair of stone doors into the mountains themselves opened for them. They were carved with a silvery substance, words elegantly inscribed in the rock.

"About damn time." Amelia pulled her boot back on and stood on it, grateful for the stiff support the bandages gave it. Aragorn looked none too happy with her moving around, but couldn't protest as he surely wanted to due to their circumstances. "Inside. Now. Before that thing in the water comes up for dinnertime." Legolas looked alarmed and bounced ahead, with that elven grace of his that Amelia envied, and she took a long, trying step, trying to get a feel for what she could take. It certainly hurt her, but whatever herb or ointment Aragorn had given her was as strong as any painkiller and with a quick effect. She grasped Gimli's shoulder for support, something he seemed to misinterpret as excitement.

Then, Frodo screamed behind them and they spun, having come halfways into the mine.

A long, slimy tentacle, coming out of the water, had wrapped around his leg and was dragging him, kicking and screaming, towards itself, its intents clear. Sam sprung towards him with a yell and, to Amelia's shock and surprise, gave the tentacle a solid whack with the frying pan he held like a sword.

Something large and grey began to emerge out of the water and Amelia stared at it, at a loss for words at the sight of it.

"What the hell is that?!"

"Into the mine!" Gandalf cried and he, Merry, Pippin and Gimli dashed forwards, while Aragorn, Boromir and Legolas ran towards the creature, to assist Sam, who was still raining blows with his frying pan. Amelia twitched, as if to help the hobbit, but then, she knew he would be fine as whatever that thing was screamed in pain as a fine arrow lodged itself in the folds of its thick hide.

She trotted into the cave, mindful of her ankle and stood in the darkness, alongside Gandalf, and looked towards the entrance, where Frodo, Sam and Legolas sprinted inside, with Aragorn and Boromir following closely, trying to ward off any more tentacles from following them.

Then, the doors slammed behind them and a deep rumble echoed from somewhere deeper in the mine, their attacker's angry roar echoing dully from the other side of the thick rock.

"Ah, don't you worry your heads about that." Gimli clapped Frodo's shaking shoulder. "My cousin Balin will set you right in no time! These halls were made for grandness, for housing guests getting nothing but the finest. And they call it a mine. A mine!" He laughed as they all took a few steps further into Moria, into the black darkness of the entrance.

"This is no mine." Boromir breathed darkly, as their feet scraped over something on the ground. "This is a tomb." A dim light from the tip of Gandalf's staff illuminated the small entrance room and she heard Gimli gasp.

The floor was littered with skeletons, short and stocky, with all the meat and muscles having rotted away long before they arrived. Only the bones and the cobwebs covering them were left. Amelia held up a hand in front of her mouth, to keep herself from gagging. A rotten smell, of dust and decay wafted through the room and Gimli fell to his knees.

"Now that we're here…" Amelia frowned, pretending that she was thinking hard and trying in vain not to let the smell and sights of the mine affect her expression. "We can risk a little more light than that. But, whatever you do, keep quiet, and I mean it. No loud noises!" There was an uncomfortable silence.

"You were right about Caradhras." Aragorn sounded tired. "Perhaps you will be right about this as well." Amelia gave Pippin a stern look.

"And that goes doubly for you two." She gave him and Merry a hard look and they nodded hastily. She let out a breath. "Good." She turned towards where Gimli was shaking on the floor in shock and walked over to him, slowly, and stood behind him, close enough that he would know that she was there, offering her silent support.

"There is only one way we might take." Gandalf spoke louder than Amelia, to draw the entire attention of the Fellowship to him. "Forwards. It is a four day trip through Moria." Amelia's eyebrows shot up into her hairline. Then, she remembered that film producers had to be wary of pacing and simply showing the Fellowship hanging out in a big cave probably wasn't going to be a thrilling experience for the viewers. She clasped Gimli's shoulder as he rose up and he patted her arm, firmly, before soldiering on, deeper into the mine that had become a graveyard.

Amelia quickly lost all sense of the passing of time. Without daylight, they could only judge the time of the day from how tired they felt and Amelia felt exhausted in truth when the Fellowship finally halted in a room twice as big as the one they had entered when they walked into the mine, but thankfully with no bodies on the floor. Cobwebs there were plenty of, but no skeletons or bones. Amelia wasn't sure her comfort would be enough if Gimli suddenly spotted an aunt Margaret on the floor or an uncle Robert pierced by one of those black spears littered throughout the rooms.

Her foot welcomed the rest and she had become to not care whether the Fellowship saw her injury or not. She let her foot rest on the floor as she used her backpack as a pillow, looking over at Frodo, who seemed skittish.

"Frodo." She called lowly, no more than a whisper, but in the absolute silence it seemed like a roar. "Come over here. I want to show you something." He hesitantly approached her and dumped down beside her. The others in the Fellowship tended to their own concerns and Merry and Pippin began chattering amongst themselves, though they still kept their voices to a whispering. Amelia stuck her hand in her backpack, dug around a bit and finally, pulled out a stiff piece of paper. Then, she dug around some more and pulled out the small flashlight. Frodo jumped when she pressed on it and his eyes stared at it.

Then, Amelia saw that the others were staring at the small, sharp light as well. The hobbits in particular looked on with rapt fascination.

"What?" Amelia cocked her head at them, "You meet a girl with the mouth of a salty sailor, finds out she knows stuff about the future and you find a flashlight unusual?" The Fellowship slowly turned away, though Gimli eyed the light wearily. She saw Gandalf's eyes twinkle and knew he found it all terribly amusing.

"Look here." Frodo scooted closer and Amelia lit up the picture on the back of the old postcard. "This is where I grew up." That wasn't entirely true; Amelia had never been to the Golden Gate Bridge herself, watching San Francisco bustle in the background, but Amelia figured that since it was in the same country, it counted as such to Frodo. The hobbit looked impressed. She spent a short while attempting to explain the things in the picture, but then turned it over to see the old greeting on the other side.

Greetings from San Francisco! It read, in Tobias' sloppy handwriting. Seb says to tell you hi. Wish you were here. Well, most of the time. Give us a call sometime, will you? Then, as an afterthought, scribbled at the bottom where there was almost no space left, it said PS: Happy birthday, Amy!

"Just a reminder." Amelia shoved the postcard back into the darkness of her backpack, but hesitated with turning the flashlight off.

"Of what?"
"That we've all got something to come back to." Amelia finally said. "Something to… not to fight for, cause I'm terrible at that, but… well, it's a reason to keep on going." Amelia didn't feel like that was exactly what she had wanted to say, but it would have to do. Frodo nodded his curly hair with a pensive expression and then, Amelia turned off the flashlight with a click. The sudden absence of light only made the keen darkness that much heavier around her.
Amelia slept terribly, not because she dreamt, but because sleeping in a place filled with so much death ensured that she couldn't let herself relax completely. Legolas, Boromir and Sam seemed to share her sentiment. She stretched, looking around, able to appreciate how pretty the place had to have been filled with golden light and the smell of food even as it was dark and deadly and abandoned, its glory lost to time.

"We should move on." Sam shuddered. "This place is… unnatural." He said the word like it was everything wrong with the world.

"I wouldn't use that word myself, but I find myself inclined to agree with you." Legolas agreed. Amelia felt a tiny pang of sympathy for him. If she found it suffocating, Legolas had to feel ten times as bad as she, since he had grown up and always lived among the trees and animals of Mirkwood.

"Agreed." She mumbled. "This place creeps me out." She glanced towards Gimli's stirring form. "Even if it is kind of impressive, in a way." Amelia tried to get to her feet but her right leg buckled under her and she cursed as she fell down again. Gandalf frowned at her. He didn't look like he had slept at all. Wordlessly, he approached her and Amelia tensed. Then, he bent down and held a wrinkled hand over her foot, mumbling nonsense to himself. The pain slowly drained out of her foot, like pouring water from a bucket, and Amelia couldn't resist letting out a stifled hum of satisfaction.

Gandalf didn't say a word as he turned towards their companions.

"We should move on." He spoke, with a worried streak in his words, and the Fellowship scrambled to get on their feet. Amelia wiggled her toes, stood up on her legs and found that her foot was back to the way it was.

"Wow. Thanks." She remembered telling Gandalf and he nodded briefly at her before turning and leading the Fellowship onwards, deeper into Moria. Amelia followed suit, sticking close to Gimli and, as they emerged onto a narrow pathway along the cave wall, the rest of the floor fell away to a dark chasm. Her foot was still sore and weak, but the pain had ebbed out of it.

"Let me risk a little more light." Gandalf mumbled and the brightness from his staff increased. Amelia remained deep in thought until the wizard spoke again.

"The wealth of Moria was not in gold or jewels, the toys of dwarves," He spoke, pointing his staff down to the cave wall continuing beneath their feet. "Nor in iron, their servant… but mithril." And then, Amelia saw them, the veins of silvery white metal running through the stone, branching out and reminding Amelia of the ithildin that had appeared on the door, to give the Fellowship the riddle to enter Moria. Rotting scaffoldings and mining equipment covered in dust hang forgotten in ropes.

"Damn." Amelia couldn't find anything else to say in the moment.

"Bilbo had a shirt of Mithril rings that Thorin gave him." Gandalf sounded weary, but also quite conversational. Gimli gasped in awe.

"That was a kingly gift!"

"Yes," Gandalf smiled to himself. "I never told him, but its worth was greater than all the Shire." Amelia glanced at Frodo, whose eyes had widened at the realization that his uncle's gift was worth more than the place he had grown up in. Amelia caught his eyes and winked conspiratorially at him, a small smirk playing at the corners of her lips.

The pathway finally started to widen, after they had walked on the narrow path for far longer than Amelia had expected them to and though her foot no longer pained her, it was still difficult to walk with for longer than a few minutes and she was grateful for the opportunity to take a seat when three separate corridors offered themselves. Gandalf stopped, completely stumped as Amelia rushed past him to sit and lean against the boulder in the middle of the rough, natural plateau.

"I have no memory of this place." Gandalf muttered to himself with a worried face and a frown on his brow. Amelia rolled her eyes, but cocked an eyebrow at the wizard when he looked at her.

"What?" Then, she realized why he was looking to her and she sighed irritably. "Look, I can't remember the exact way. Details like that are… foggy, at best. I can tell you that…" She bit her lip, "It's probably not the one farthest to the right." Gandalf seemed satisfied with her answer and sat on the boulder she was leaning again as the Fellowship shifted on their feet. Amelia patted the ground and winced when the sound echoed back at her.

"Come on, guys. We're going to be here a while." Amelia was surprised when Merry, Pippin, Sam and Frodo huddled around her, but grateful for their silent company and she glanced over at Legolas to find him watching her. Her mouth quirked upwards.

"What?"

"Would that I had a challenge of numbers for you." He breathed and Amelia raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps that would take all our minds of our circumstances." Then, she snorted softly, taking care not to have the sound echo again.

"Yeah, I mean… it's a nice thought, a really nice thought, but in any case, it'd be harder without anything to write on…" Amelia smiled cautiously at the elf, who showed her the barest hint of a smile before he turned away again and Amelia looked down at her hands, studying them in the dim lighting from Gandalf's staff. She shuffled, leaning back against her backpack with closed eyes, attempting another moment of rest while she could still get it. The rest of the Fellowship followed suit, attempting to wring some comfort out of the cold, hard rock beneath them.

Amelia woke with a start, but her eyes remained shut, for she heard Aragorn talking with Boromir and figured that she would repay him the favor of listening in on a private conversation. She did not recall the conversation between them from book nor movie, but also knew that they had far from showed every interaction in the Fellowship. They had quietened their voices when they had seen her twitch, but then continued when she didn't open her eyes or move again.

"Long have the people of Gondor stood against foes from Mordor." She heard Boromir argue softly, but his voice didn't sound aggressive. It sounded like he was caught up in a daydream. "I would see their courage strengthened, their fear calmed. Gondor returned to its golden age." He spoke of it so reverently and Amelia thought she could hear a soft undertone in his dreaming voice, one she had never heard before.

"Sounds nice." She muttered aloud without thinking and screwed her eyes shut tighter for a second before blinking them, as if she was disoriented. Boromir had stiffened, his face an unreadable mask once again and Aragorn looked calm, a bit uncomfortable perhaps, but not enough for him to bolt. "I mean, I've ne-e-e-ver," Amelia yawned in the middle of the sentence, "Been there. Sure sounds nicer than…" Boromir stood up and walked away, to the opposite end of their makeshift camp, ignoring her. Amelia watched him go with a bitter expression as she finished her sentence, her mouth twisting sourly, "What I'm used to."

"Keep trying. There comes a time when he'll come around." Aragorn reassured her and she made what could only be described as a shrug with her face.

"No, I really think he just is that big of an ass." Aragorn didn't answer and Amelia glanced over at Boromir, who had turned away from the Fellowship entirely. "Have you ever been there?" Amelia couldn't remember whether he had. "To Minas Tirith?"

"Once. It was a long time ago." Aragorn answered flatly and Amelia didn't press him further. She wanted to get up, but felt that it would be unfair to disturb the four snoring hobbits huddled around her merely because her legs were going numb. Instead, she leaned back, wondering just how she would be able to stomach watching two of her companions sacrifice their own lives for their cause and their friends, despite her earlier resolve to simply let events play out as they had always been meant to.

A/N: Don't be afraid to leave a review behind, folks! This story is a real labor of love and, as an amateur writer, I am always STARVED for feedback! Thanks for reading!
Edit: Chapter 9 Teaser is now up!