I walked in the back with the hobbits. Legolas, Aragorn, and Gandalf were walking up front; planning which routes we were going to take. Borimir and Gimli were shooting suspicious looks and me and then talking amongst themselves quietly. I sighed and went back to listening to the hobbits argue about what we should have for lunch.
"I say we go for some nice stewed rabbit and a mushroom soup," said Sam, who was by far the best cook out of us all.
"And where in the world are you going to get a rabbit to stew?" smirked Merry.
"Just look around," Sam cried indignantly, waving an arm around, "We're in the middle of the woods! There's got to be plenty of rabbits running around here.
Pippin almost collapsed with laughter. "Oh I can just imagine you trying to catch a rabbit. You'd trip over your own two feet and land right on your arse!"
"Hey now see here-" began Sam, but he was drowned out by Gandalf yelling, "Stop your inane cackling you foolish little hobbits!" Everyone froze. "Do not make me regret bringing you three along." Aragorn was still smiling at the hobbits, though the poor little things were scared out of their minds and were silent for about another five minutes. Gandalf walked on and the rest of us followed. Legolas moved to the back with Gimli and Borimir moved up front to talk with Aragorn. I was bored out of my mind and said so out loud.
"Perhaps if we are lucky, lirimaer, we will stumble across a pack of Orcs. Would that interest you?" he teased. I was surprised. Since that day when I yelled at him and Glorfindel, he hadn't bothered to talk to me. It was nice to have someone to talk to on the way. Well, someone to talk to that I didn't have to look down at. He was walking right beside me, so I had to lean my head back to look up at him.
"Ugh it's just all this walking," I groaned, "Usually back home if I got this bored I could go to the mall or watch TV or call my friends or go to the movies. Here it's just walking. All day. Every day until we reach Mordor." Legolas looked confused for a moment. Then I suddenly realized why he was confused. "Sorry. Those are things people my age do for fun in my world."
"I would like to know more about your world," he said.
"Like what?"
He paused for a moment to think of something to ask me. "What would you be doing today if you were not here?" he asked.
"Well, first I would get up. I would get dressed and put on my make up-" I began before he interrupted me.
"What is make up?" he asked, once again looking confused. I sighed as I tried to think of a way to describe it to someone who had never seen make up before in their life.
"Well make up is what women and some men use to make themselves look better. It's sort of like face paint but not as dramatic or thick as that," I explained.
"I see," he said, nodding, but I could tell that he still didn't quite get it.
"So then you must be wearing face paint right now," he said slowly. I was startled and didn't know whether I was being insulted or complemented.
"Umm…no actually," I said uncertainly. He was confused again.
"But you say that this make up makes people look more beautiful, but you look beautiful right now and you're not wearing make up," he said.
"Okay so what's your point?" I asked, flattered but still very confused. He was silent.
"If you already look so radiant, then why would you wear make up?" he asked.
"Um I don't know," I stammered, "I guess it's because I don't think I'm very radiant and putting on make up makes me feel better about the way I look." No one had ever been that bluntly honest with me before.
"Why?" he asked again.
"Why what?" I was getting incredibly exasperated and being unintentionally psychoanalyzed by an elf wasn't really making me feel any better. If anything it just reminded me that by going along with this thing I was proving that I was getting more insane by the second.
"Why don't you like the way you look?" he asked.
"Well, you know, everyone has little imperfections that they're kind of embarrassed about," I said. Legolas waited for me to go on. "It's not that I don't like myself. It's just that in my world looks are everything. People try to tell you that it's not true but you are always judged and labeled by what you look like. It's like, if you don't like something about yourself, then you're a loser with no self esteem, but if are happy with the way you are, then you are considered a snob and nobody wants to talk to you because they think you're too stuck up."
When I was finished I didn't hear an answer from him. Finally he spoke up. "Please go on telling me about your world." I went on to describe to him a normal day in my life, and he interrupted every five minutes to clarify or have me explain something. It was dark when we finally stopped.
"We shall make camp here for the night and set out in the morning after breakfast," Aragorn called. It was getting cold out, even with my warm elf suit on, so I reached into my bag and pulled out my jeans and my sweatshirt, slipping those on over my elf clothes. I pulled the hood over my head and snuggled against a tree trunk, burrowing my face into the sweatshirt. It was an old Harvard sweatshirt of my dad's. He gave it to me after he divorced my mom and was preparing to move to New York with Nissa. We didn't see each other often because my mom didn't like me visiting him, so he gave me the sweatshirt to wear whenever I started to miss him too much.
I wore it almost every night.
I looked across me. Everyone had gathered around the fire except for Frodo, who was hovering around the circle but not joining it. I could see him mindlessly playing with the ring. He looked worried and I felt sorry that someone as innocent as that poor hobbit had to bear the burden of all of M.E. I felt myself getting tired, but before I could fall asleep something was shoved into my hands. Pippin looked at me expectantly.
"It's very good. I made it," he said proudly. I was holding a bowl of soup.
"Oh thanks. Um what's in it?" I asked. I was starving and was going to eat it anyways, but I wanted to make sure of what was in it before hand. After all, I didn't know what people in M.E. ate and I didn't want to be going to bed with a stomach full of twig soup.
"Mushrooms, onions, carrots, cabbage, and a bit of basil leaf," he said. He was still watching me, so I just smiled and lifted the bowl to my mouth. To my surprise it was really good and I chugged the entire bowl without pausing to taking a breath. Pippin seemed pleased, so I handed the bowl to him and said good night. He glanced at me once more, and then turned away with a slight bounce in his step. I smiled, thinking that he was such a sweet little hobbit. Too bad he wasn't my type. Although I could definitely name one of these guys who was…
I let that thought trail off as I felt my eyelids grow heavier and heavier until I finally fell asleep.
The first thing that caught my eye when I woke up was that I was the first one awake. I looked around and then looked down at myself. I felt filthy and I desperately needed a bath, but first I needed to go pee. I went as far as I could into the woods while still making sure I wasn't too far from the group, but I soon heard water running. I stepped a little farther into the forest and saw the most amazing thing in my life…
"A hot spring!" I cried joyfully. There was a small pond right in front of me. The water was clear blue and there were large rocks around it that kind of closed it in. I could see the steam rising form the water. Now I have never skinny dipped before in my life, but understand that I hadn't bathed in two days and I felt like seriously gross, so I ran back and found that Gandalf, Aragorn, and Sam were awake and cooking breakfast.
"I found a hot spring!" I cried.
Looking at me Aragorn slowly repeated, "You found a hot spring?"
"Yes! You know! Like a pond filled with hot water!" I said incredulously. People could be so stupid sometimes.
"So?" Sam pressed.
"So I'm going to take a bath. I'll be right back," I cried, running off into the woods. I heard Aragorn calling after me but I didn't pay attention. Reaching the spring, I stripped down to nothing and slowly eased myself in. It was scalding at first and I jumped out, but I decided that I would just go in slowly and soon I was used to the water, swimming around and singing "Over My Head" at the top of my lungs.
Back at the camp, Lena had been gone for 10 minutes and everyone was awake. Aragorn would have been worried, but everyone could hear the steady stream of laughter and singing coming from in the woods. They were all starting to get annoyed and thought she might be coming back, but they heard another burst of singing.
"Were you right? Was I wrong? Were you weak? Was I strong?"
Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Borimir, and Legolas all smiled as Aragorn let out another impatient sigh.
"Please someone fetch the girl so that we may start walking again?" he asked, but was interrupted by a burst of laughter as Lena started a new song.
"DON'T LET NOBODY TELL YOU YOUR LIFE IS OVER! BE EVERY COLOR THAT YOU ARE!"
"I will be driven mad before the day is done!" he shouted, but then smiled in spite of himself. "Borimir please go get her," Aragorn said, turning to him.
Borimir stood up and held back another burst of laughter. "Of course, Aragorn." Borimir pushed his light brown hair out of his face and handed his last piece of bacon to Frodo, who took it with a smile and went back to conversing with Sam. Legolas looked disappointed and Aragorn, noting this, laughed as he said to Legolas, "Mani?"
Legolas glared at the ranger, who was grinning from ear to ear as he watched Legolas think of a proper response. Without a word, Legolas turned his back to the man and threw himself into conversation with Gimli
I heard someone walking not so gracefully through the woods as I ran out of songs to sing. At least, the songs that I knew all the lyrics to. Pulling myself to the edge of the spring, I waited to see who it was. I almost groaned out loud when I saw Borimir step out from the shelter of the trees. Compared to him, I would've preferred a roaming pack of Orcs.
"You must come back to camp and eat so that we may move on soon," he said, looking uncomfortable.
I rolled my eyes as I replied, "Whatever," and pulled my clothes towards me. Without another word, he turned around and waited until I told him he could look again. My clothes clung to me in wet spots because I hadn't dried off before I put them on. I sighed. I was going to have to put on my jeans and sweatshirt or at least change into my dance outfit that I had put in my bag also so this one could dry off. I adjusted my pants quickly while Borimir had his back turned. I had decided a while ago that I could get away with going commando. Hey, it wasn't very comfortable, but it was better than getting some sort of virus from constantly wearing dirty underwear.
"So how far do you think we're going to be able to get today," I asked.
"I'm not sure," he replied shortly. So I'm guessing our unspoken truce wasn't as friendly as I'd first assumed. Then again, accusing him of trying to murder Frodo soon might make him a little, shall we say, cranky.
"Okay," I muttered, rolling my eyes. "I beg your pardon," he said, turning around.
I gave him a smile that could make an angel cry and quickly said, "Nothing that would interest you I'm sure." He looked suspiciously at me, but turned around and continued to walk back to camp. The smile slid off my face once he had turned his back to me and I stuck out my tongue childishly as we entered camp. Aragorn grinned and chuckled at my immaturity and Legolas smiled, although Pippin joined in by pointing at Borimir and making a mean, serious face. I laughed and Pippin beamed, though Merry and the other two hobbits merely took one look at his shining face and rolled their eyes. Borimir of course, didn't think it was too funny and snapped, "What's so funny?"
I pasted on my angelic grin and said, "Nothing." Borimir gave me a dirty look and went to talk with Gandalf and Aragorn. Gimli and Legolas were in debate in something stupid. From what I heard it was: which environment is a better place to live? A tree or a cave? I vote neither of them. Try a brick house with heat and a freezer full of phish food ice cream. I decided that it was probably better not to offer this option and swerved away from the odd pair. Sam and Frodo were huddled together and it looked like the conversation was fairly serious, and I couldn't find Merry and Pippin. Typical. I knew they were around here somewhere and would hear me if I called out to them that we were moving, so I didn't worry too much about it. Instead I walked over to where Aragorn, Borimir and Gandalf were talking. Timidly, I tapped Aragorn on the shoulder. I had zero respect for Borimir so I didn't really try to pretend that I was afraid of him. Aragorn and Gandalf, though gentler and quieter than Borimir, were a lot more intimidating to me and I didn't really talk to them.
Aragorn turned around and smiled at me. "Yes?"
I glanced at the ground and met his eyes. "Um, when are we going to be moving?" I asked. Aragorn smiled again and looked at Gandalf. Gandalf took another puff of his pipe while he watched me.
"Thirty minutes," he said genially.
"Okay thanks," I said quickly as I spun on my heel and ran back to my bag. I took the bag and quickly changed into my dance outfit and put my jeans and sweatshirt over it. I left my boots on.
I sat near the fire as I hugged my bag to my chest. I sat my bag down next to me and opened it, pushing aside my clothes until I found what I was looking for. A picture of my family before my parents had split up. I was 7, my brother Tony was 12, and Alex was 17. Both of my brothers were the spitting image of my father with longish, dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and the darkest complexion you could ever imagine on people who were 100 white. I was sitting on Tony's lap and smiling as big as I could to show off the missing spaces where my two front teeth had fallen out. Even at 7 I was tiny for my age and looked more like I was 4. My parents had their arms around each other. My dad had been tickling mom in the side while the picture was taken and when the timer on the camera went off it caught them looking like the happiest people in the world. It was hard to imagine that the man in the picture who looked so in love with the woman beside him could be the soon-to-be father of another baby girl and the woman in the picture would be tired and stooped from crying so much, her face starting to wrinkle and pale even more from pining over that man sitting next to her. They had both made each other so happy. What could have possibly gone wrong?
My cheek felt cold and I realized that I had been silently crying, the tears falling in small rivers down my cheeks. It was hard to believe that I would never see them again. I felt a tap on my shoulder. Legolas bent down on one knee, still not even close to be level with my face, and looked at the picture. He was fascinated.
"It's a picture," I explained, "It's a small little box and when you press a button on it and it freezes the image of whatever is before it."
"But how does it capture this image?" he asked.
"Um I don't really know exactly how it works. They explained it in my science class, but I honestly can't remember how they explained it. The best I can tell you is that the camera, which is the little box, captures and bends light and freezes it onto a special roll of glossy paper called film and then you take that film to a special place where they make that teeny little piece of film into this," I finished, holding up the picture.
"But how does this camera capture light?" he asked.
"I told you I have no idea. What I just told you is the best way I can explain it. I know it's confusing but I'm not an expert on this," I said. Legolas opened his mouth to ask me something else, but Aragorn stood up and yelled for Merry and Pippin to come back because we were going to start moving now. The two hobbits came running out of the woods, grinning mischievously. I had no idea what they were up to but it was bound to make this trip a whole lot more exciting.
I knew what had happened as soon as Sam called out, "Now what did you two do with it?" he asked angrily.
Merry wiped the grin of his face and asked concernedly, "Why Sam? I don't know what in the world you're talking about."
"You know very well what I'm talking about!" he yelled.
Pippin adopted Merry's same tone as he said "Why Sam! Could it be that love letter that Rosie gave you? Or is it the one of the letters that you've been writing to her?" he asked.
"Give it back!" Sam yelled, his face turning red.
"No Pip. I think he's talking about the poem," Merry said, nudging Pippin in the ribs.
" 'My delicate rose how I wish you were near'" Pippin began, as he grabbed Merry's hand and Merry pretended to swoon.
"Oh my Sam! Do read another line to me!" cried Merry.
Sam had turned beet red and even Frodo was smiling as he called out, "That's enough of that you two. Besides, if I hear anymore poetry by Sam I might have to throw myself into Mount Doom along with the ring."
Merry and Pippin cracked up and Pippin pulled a crumpled piece of paper. Sam grabbed too hard and accidentally ripped a small hole in the middle.
"Now look what you've done," he snapped as he stalked back to his things. Pippin and Merry stopped laughing and stared after him.
"We were only having a bit of fun," he said in shock at Sam's extreme reaction to their prank. I looked at Sam who was trying to smooth the poem of a rock. I understood how embarrassed he was right now, so I walked over to him. He saw my shadow and turned around.
"Need any help?" I asked as I knelt beside him. He cupped his arm around the paper so I couldn't read it, and I slipped off my shoulder bag until I found a small tube of super glue. It had been in my backpack and I had decided to bring it along, thinking it might come in handy.
"May I?" I asked, holding out my hand. Sam looked at my face and, after deciding that I wasn't trying to humiliate him further, handed over the poem. I looked around and found a flat stone and spread the paper over it. Pinching together the hole and then flipping it over to make sure it looked okay, I opened the tube and carefully poured a little drop of super glue on it, then spread it around. I waited a bit, and then did the same thing again. When the glue had dried, I turned it back over. It was sort of smudge and there were a few letters missing, but you could still read it.
"There! Good as new," I exclaimed proudly as I handed it back to him. He gave me a smile as he muttered thanks and continued to pack the rest of his things.
I walked back over to Legolas and said, "That is my first and last good deed of the day." I laughed to let him know I was kidding, but he had already walked away. Rude much. Everyone was packed and we were all standing in a small group. Straightening into a long line, we started moving again.