A/N: Cookies to whoever can correctly guess what the Map is for!
"That's our cue," Tolkien said placidly, arriving behind them unexpectedly. Gandalf met his eyes, and the old wizard gave a curt nod. The Fellowship swept off, leaving the Authors alone in the hallway. Tolkien's walking stick rapped against the stone floors twice and he marched over to a small doorway set into the sheer rock cliffs. The door had once been thick, deeply grained oak, but years of moldering underground had reduced it to a mere soggy sheet of wood. It crumbled in his hands as he pried it open without much difficulty, and then he gestured inside. "Ladies first," he said, flicking his walking stick impatiently. Madison, naturally, was the first one to dive headfirst into the opening, closely followed by a smirking Isabella. Daphne gave a lingering look at the Fellowship, wishing she could fight with them, and reluctantly followed the other girls inside. Melody and Michael, however, point-blank refused.
"Why can't we fight?" Michael asked, spluttering, chocolate brown eyes blazing. "They need our help, you know what happens in that tomb!"
"I ought to know, I created the tomb." Tolkien said crisply. "And as I recall, the Fellowship do just fine on their own. I do not think the unexpected arrival of a few Sues will kill anyone. Now, I need your help. Both of you, quickly, come inside!"
"We should help," Melody said, looking longingly at the disappearing Fellowship. "We can help, we can find weapons!" In answer, she wrenched an axe from a nearby corpse and waved it under Tolkien's nose. He plucked it deftly from her grasp.
"Put that down, dear, before you hurt yourself. At this moment, you will be more of a hindrance than a help. Now, I need you both to go inside and help me." Tolkien said firmly, cool blue-gray eyes blazing. "This is more important than helping your friends - this is helping your world. Now, get inside."
Grudgingly, Melody and Michael stepped inside the room. Low ceilings made the place feel cramped and stuffy; the walls were unnaturally shaped, a ragged circle instead of a square, following the natural swells of the rock. Here and there, gouges marked where pickaxes had hewed away some particularly valuable lump of gem, and there was a slight twinkle in the walls, speaking of more gold to be mined. Huge, sagging, blistering bookshelves were propped against the walls, filled with books and scrolls. The carpets had once been a rich crimson, but years of decay from insects and disuse had all but ruined them. In one corner, the corpse of a dwarf was clutching a book in both hands, his grinning skull laughing horribly. Insects writhed in the scant pockets of dying flesh, and the bones which clutched the book seemed frail and ready to break. Several bookshelves had been pushed over, and books were being flattened underneath the weight of the oaken bookshelf. Scrolls, cracked and torn with age and maltreatment, were layering the floor. Tolkien wasted no time; he dropped to his knees with a swiftness and grace men his age should not have. "Look for a scroll," he said impatiently as the drums began to grow louder. "It is a map, with everything outlined in gold. You'll know it when you see it."
The Authors slowly crouched down and began to sift through the scrolls littering the floor. Daphne worked on getting a few flat scrolls from underneath the fallen bookshelves; Madison was flipping through old, dusty tomes, trying to see if a slip of paper had been wedged between the pages. Isabella was looking through the scrolls on the standing shelves, sometimes not even unfolding them, knowing that a map would be roughly larger than the rest. Michael was griding his teeth unpleasantly, and irritably jerking open maps and letting everyone know he would much rather be fighting with the Fellowship. Melody, on the other hand, had pretended to search the areas near the dwarf corpse's feet for scrolls, acting as though she had seen a scroll placed between the body and the wall. In reality, her swift, slender fingers were prying a leather pouch free from the dwarf's hip. It seemed to be in relatively good shape, and it jingled encouragingly when she slipped it in her pocket. Finally, she thought to herself. It's about time I had some money of my own.
"I think I found it," Daphne said, rocking back on her heels. Tolkien described the map as being outlined in gold, but he had left out a few important details. It was beautifully drawn on leaf-thin paper, the edges slightly ragged from constant opening. Three creases marred the otherwise fairly clean surface, yet they didn't take away from the sheer beauty of the drawings. Every detail of Middle Earth was drawn out in fascinating gold pen, filled in carefully with colors that seemed to glow. The Misty Mountains were a smoky gray, capped with irregular peaks, and Mirkwood was dark and lush, eerily beautiful with olive green paint and navy blue. Gondor was a beautiful ridged spiral, the outline of the tiny city glimmering, minute roads leading out the sides. The plains of Rohan were sketched with a loose wrist as it captured the exact vivid green which carpeted the grassy hills. Around the edges of the map, runes written in shining silver had been imprinted, or somehow punched into the paper, for Daphne felt the ridges on the other side. It could have been the dim light, but the symbols seemed to move slightly, shifting subtly like butterflies waiting to stretch their wings and fly. But before she could drink up more details of the map, Tolkien snatched it from her hands.
"Excellent," he said, stuffing it into his vest pocket with a cursory glance. "We need to go."
Indeed, the drums had grown almost deafening, and Tolkien bolted out the door with a speed that surprised everyone. The Authors scrambled to their feet and began to follow him quickly, the sound of the drums harshly slamming through their heads. The Orcs were close enough for the Authors to hear the rasp of their armor, and the distinctive, enraged grunts of their captive troll. Tolkien folded himself into a crease in the wall, and the Authors wriggled in after him, noticing that a narrow path hardly a foot across had been carved into the wall. Daphne found it especially hard, with her plump hips, but she managed, leading the way behind Tolkien. Madison, naturally, clung to Daphne like glue. Isabella followed them gingerly, twitching slightly whenever the thought of spiders crossed her mind. She shut her eyes tightly and clenched Madison's hand in a surprisingly strong grip. To distract herself, she glanced behind her to see how Melody and Michael were doing. She then swore, very carefully and precisely, as if she had never sworn in her life before. This, of course, attracted the attention of Daphne.
"Oh, shit," Daphne said, her vocabulary failing her. "They're gone."
Tolkien let loose a string of expletives that were rather interesting but unrepeatable in present company. "Idiots," he growled. They began forging their way back, trying to find where Melody and Michael had disappeared.
09
Michael wrenched a short Goblin sword from the ribcage of a slaughtered dwarf and swung the rusty blade through the air. Melody swiped hair from her eyes and picked up a shield, strapping it harshly to her arm and testing her choice of weapon, an unusual looking scimitar. It was hammered quite thin and flat, no doubt the careful craftsmanship of some bored dwarf, but it was light and felt balanced. Michael looked at her. "You sure you wanna do this?" he asked. Melody winked, and the two of them headed towards the sounds of battle, running towards their doom.
They arrived at the tomb during the frenzy of the battle, and they threw themselves in the frantic movements with aplomb. There were no terrible shrieks or wild war cries - there was simply the savage clash of metal against metal. Low grunts spoke of when Orcs had been killed, and the echoic tomb bounced the noises back to them, making the battle seem larger than it really was. The troll was wreaking havoc, bulling its own captors aside as it thrashed, throwing itself bodily at walls, making the whole cavern shake and small rocks dislodge from the walls. Michael was on the Orcs right away, his short sword slicing spirals through the air; Melody discovered the blunt edge of her shield was perfect for butting into Orcs wiry necks, and she decided she liked this the best. A lump of lead had been melded onto the bottom of this, forming a blunt spike that was obviously designed to ram into things. Aragorn caught sight of them and swore explosively in Elvish. "Go back!" he shouted over the muted din of battle. "Go back, now!"
"No!" Michael yelled back, flipping his short sword. Aragorn noticed distantly that the boy had a natural fighting pose; fast, agile, light on his feet and perfect for darting back and forth. Michael had the blade pointing inwards, a very peculiar fighting style that was working for him splendidly. Aragorn realized that Michael was knife fighting, and a rather inelegant form of it at that, but he was working wonderfully. Melody, on the other hand, was using brute force that was probably liquidizing all the bones in her arms. They were both...grinning? Was that possible? They were grinning in battle? This set of Authors were very strange.
Tolkien, Daphne, Madison, and Isabella came thundering into the room, shouting for Melody and Michael. Madison stopped dead as soon as she saw the Orcs and, more importantly, the troll. Their shouts attracted its attention, and the huge beast swiveled his head and sniffed the air brutishly. He loped over, landing on his knuckles like some huge primate, and cuffed Isabella through the air with one large swipe. She shrieked to the heavens and slammed against the wall with a muffled thud. Her jaws clicked together, and Daphne saw a stripe of blood trickling down her neck. The dark-haired girl slumped to the ground, eyes closed, and Daphne roared in outrage. She probably would have sailed through the air and attacked the troll with nothing but her bare fists, but a huge purple shape came bounding through the gap. Shonji, catlike smile twitching his muzzle, darted out and slashed at the troll with his extended claws, hissing nastily. A ridge of fur was spiking between his shoulderblades, and his ears were laid flat on his back. The troll, having never seen a tiger, purple or otherwise, wondered thickly if it would be good to eat. The troll soon discovered that cats - especially large tigers - do not appreciate being hoisted into the air by their tails. The troll was rewarded with ten long, deep scratches on his cheeks.
Ethwein launched herself through the air and single-handedly began tackling the troll. She had two long, elegant rapiers which twitched and cut ribbons through the air at the slightest jerk, and they soon incapacitated the troll. The gigantic beast fell with an earth-shattering thud, squashing the remainder of the Orcs. Looking bewildered and slightly disappointed to this blunt, anticlimatic end, the Fellowship slowly lowered their swords. Tolkien wasted absolutely no time; he was already yelling at the top of his lungs. "Do you have any brains? Either of you? Do you realize you are vital to this quest? If you die, we shall fail!"
Melody jutted her chin forward determinedly. She had a small, well-shaped, willful little chin, and her lower lip was trembling with anger. Michael was seized with a mad desire to kiss that wobbly lip, but he reined himself in and turned forcefully to Tolkien. "Look, man, I know we're important 'n' stuff, but we want some action! What's the point of bein' in Lord of the frickin' Rings of you don't fight a little? Am I right?"
Daphne was kneeling by Isabella, and she looked up angrily, pouting lips twisted into a scowl. "You idiots! Look! Look what happened to her!" she was crying as she cradled Isabella's unconscious body. "If you had just listened, and come with us, this wouldn't have happened!"
The fight went out of Melody and Michael when they saw Isabella's bleeding gash and limp body. Daphne picked the child up with little difficulty - she was, after all, only fourteen, and small at that. She speared Melody and Michael with a glare. "You have to stop thinking of yourselves! You guys are so selfish it's disgusting. You can't be running off to fight every stupid Orc that comes charging at you! We have something bigger to deal with - we have this whole story to save. This story, our friends, even this floor we're standing on, won't exist if we don't work together!"