The language starting here is getting coarser. I hope that the F word doesn't offend you.
A/N: As usual, I own nothing.
***Chapter 6***
***Deirdre's POV***
I groaned, there was something trying to bring me back to the world of awakeness. And I was doing my very best to hold onto the tendrils of sleep. It felt nice, sleeping. And with my muscles starting to feel a little tight from the previous day, I wanted to hold onto sleep a little while longer. So I shut my eyes even tighter and tried to burrow my head back into the pillow.
"Go 'way." I mumbled, having pillow in my mouth I was sure that it didn't come out clearly.
"Deirdre, wake up. You have to go for a run with me this morning." I heard Aragorn's voice saying.
"Aragorn, since this is your first offense trying to wake me I will only say this once." I said, keeping my eyes shut and turning my head so that he could hear me. "Fuck off, it's sleepy time."
Aragorn's shock was so tangible that I could feel it. He may not have known what 'Fuck' meant, but he would have to be reasonably dense in order to not take it as a swear word. However, in place of Aragorn's polite attempts at awakening me, I got Saffy. Who not only took the pillow from underneath my head and pulled all the blankets away from me, causing me to whimper, but she also roughly shoved me. Needless to say, I fell off the bed. This only made me groan once more, though now my eyes opened and the searing light pierced my retinas.
"Agh, too bright." I said, shutting my eyes to block out the light. "I guess I forgot to tell you Aragorn. I'm a vampire and am allergic to sunlight."
Which only cause Saffy to throw one of the pillows from the bed at me. However, what she did not expect was that I would take it and use the pillow to block out the bright light, that was really brighter than it had any right to be.
"DiDi, get up or we will find a nice cold waterfall to throw you into." Saffy informed me, her voice still thick with sleep.
" Saffy, has anyone ever told you that you're evil." I asked knowing that I had in the past.
"Yes, you have." She replied almost sleepily.
"Then I shouldn't need to repeat myself." I muttered from underneath the pillow, however between the fall from the bed and all this arguing I was as conscious as I was going to get.
So I stood up from the floor and smacked Saffy with the pillow that she had thrown at me. Then stretched my arms and back out, causing a lovely crack to sound. I sighed as soon as it did and slumped back into my lazy, it's morning position.
"Aragorn, there had better be something very sweet at breakfast for me." I told him, opening one eye to look at him with.
Aragorn only smiled. I yawned once more and decided that this was going to be the best that I was going to do on alertness until the afternoon.
"God, I miss caffeine." I grumbled. "What I wouldn't give for an energy drink right now."
Aragorn just shook his head at my morning ramblings. While they made perfect sense to my half-asleep brain, I'm sure that he was confused.
"Do I at least get a bath after the run?" I asked him, to which I received a nod. "Great, now get out. I need to put clothes on."
Aragorn smiled and began walking out of the room. Only to stop and turn around to look at me for a moment.
"Don't you dare fall back asleep. Or I will come back in to drag you to a waterfall." Aragorn threatened.
"And what if I fall asleep naked?" I asked, only half joking, sadly, falling asleep while changing my clothes had happened to me before. I had often gotten dressed curled up under the covers in the winter when I was younger, which is not very conducive to staying awake.
"Then I will make sure to leave you where everyone can see you." Aragorn said with a laugh as he shut the door.
I laughed a little at his response, he was going to be a lot of fun. He at least didn't take everything too seriously. At least not yet, when he would be fighting for his life and those he cared about he would be dead serious.
"Saffy? Can you fasten my corset?" I asked her, only to turn around and find her laying on the bed falling back to sleep. "Oh no, missy. You are not going back to sleep. Not when I have to wake up and go for a run."
"Hey, you are the one who wanted to learn archery as well as sword fighting. Personally, I think it's just a way to get close to Legolas." She replied, her words beginning to drift off.
"Saffy!" I said harshly, causing her to sit back up lazily. "Please fasten my corset?" I asked with a puppy dog pout.
She rolled her eyes then gestured for me to turn around, which I promptly did. She laced the corset up my body, pulling it tight enough that it would do it's just but also loose enough to let me breathe. Which I was very grateful for, trying to run without oxygen would be entertaining to watch not to try. Once she had finished, she let go of the lacings and smacked my ass, quickly followed by falling back onto the bed with a whump.
I rolled my eyes at her and found myself a tunic which would suit for running today. It seemed that I would be wearing less dresses for training than most women, well at least for running. However, when searching through the closet I could find absolutely no pants. I let out an angry sigh and instead of pants or breeches or whatever they were called in this world, found a skirt that could work as a bottom. Considering the option of running without a skirt on underneath and just hoping that the tunic would be long enough during my run, I slipped the skirt on. Thankfully, the skirt had slits up either side which made it so that I could move more freely. I moved over to the vanity and pulled the brush through my hair and quickly tied it back into a ponytail with a strap of leather.
A knock on the door made me jump slightly only to rush over to it with leather boots in hand. Once I pulled the door open, I saw Aragorn standing on the other side with an impatient look on his face.
"Women take a longer time to get ready than men." I responded as I pulled on my boots while standing up, which I must say is not the easiest thing to do.
"Are you done then?" he asked a little impatiently.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm done." I answered as I shut the door, leaving behind my sleeping friend who I would love to trade places with right now.
Aragorn led the way and together as the sun rose fully over the horizon, which I complained once again about the time, we ran through the forests about Rivendell. It was a beautiful run, reminding me of races through the trees back home. We both kept rather quiet, I especially needed to save my breath. Although I had all those nice happy feel good chemicals rushing through my body, I was still getting tired. When it came to me falling behind Aragorn every few steps after catching up again, I did what I always did when I grew tired but still had to run. I sang lame songs as I went, the first of which being pulled from an anime that I had watched years ago with my brother. It was a drill sergeant tune that I found highly amusing and somehow always got me to be able to run just a little bit longer.
"You wanna be an airforce ranger/ You wanna live a life of danger/ You don't wanna get raped by a stranger." I began singing quietly as I went, repeating the lines over and over again until I was maintaining a steady pace with Aragorn.
The song kept me going through our run, though towards the end I was coughing as I sang. Aragorn had laughed a little at the beginning but once I started coughing, unable to get air properly flowing into my body he stopped laughing. But I kept jogging right by his side, whether coughing or not.
Our run finished after about what I felt like was an eternity, but was probably only about half an hour, which was essentially an eternity when I didn't have a lot of stamina built up.
"Aragorn? Do I need to wear tunics all the time now? Or should I wear dresses?" I asked him, which made Aragorn laugh.
"You are asking me what you should wear?" He asked me unbelieving.
"I'm going to be fighting and training most of the day, is there really going to be a significant difference in what I wear?" I asked, annoyed that he wouldn't give me a straight answer.
"It shouldn't matter that I can think of. After all, either way you are wearing a skirt." Aragorn told me, still not believing that I was asking his opinion on clothing choices.
"Thank you, Aragorn." I said with a smile and then gave him a nice, big sweaty hug.
Much to my disappointment Aragorn wasn't really grossed out at all. Having people used to lack of hygiene was really lame, if he was going to make me run every morning than I wanted some way to get a little bit of payback for it. But apparently, it didn't seem likely for me to manage that.
So instead I walked back to my room and started removing my sweaty clothing, it's weird I was stickier today after running then yesterday when I had been sword fighting. But I decided that if I wasn't going to be able to get at Aragorn with gross, sweatiness than Saffy would pay for getting to sleep in later than me. So as I took of my tunic I tossed it onto the bed and managed to hit her with it. I smiled to myself as I unlaced my corset and slipped out of the remainder of my clothing and sunk into the nice hot bath that had been prepared for me. While I was relaxing and cleaning away all evidence of recent exercise the door to the bathroom opened and Saffy walked in. She glared at me, holding the used tunic up as evidence. I just smiled back innocently.
"Was that really necessary?" she asked me.
"You got way more sleep than I did. It's only fair." I said, noticing how Saffy put the tunic down on the same chair that I had placed the rest of my discarded clothing on. She then promptly walked out of the room, leaving me in the solace of my nice warm bath.
I washed up rather quickly after that and wrapped a towel around my body as I left the bathroom. Once out in the main room, I grabbed a fresh corset, dress and undergarments and began dressing. When I had the corset in position but had yet to lace it, I looked over at Saffy who was sitting on the bed.
"Saffy? Corset?" I asked, deciding that there was no real use to more words than that, since she knew what I meant.
"You want me to lace your corset after you threw your used tunic on me?" she asked, feigning anger.
"Hey, you know the agreement. You lace me into my corsets and I lace you into yours." I told her, reminding her of the deal that we had struck up on the first day that we were here together.
She rolled her eyes at me but motioned for me to turn around nonetheless. She laced me up for the second time today, and I knew that she was going to utilize the deal that we had made and make me lace her corset as well. As she was finishing up Celebiel arrived and began preparing the usual second bath for Saffy. Our days had become so similar that this regimented schedule felt right. I chatted away with Celebiel as Saffy bathed. My hair was in the twin braids once more only this time all my hair was gathered at the nape of my neck and flowed down into a ponytail.
Saffy and I walked to breakfast together once again, and took our seats with the four hobbits. While the hobbits smiled at us, there was some sadness in their smiles as they knew there was no time left for us to go adventuring with them. Making the quest seem just that much more real.
Once again after breakfast, Saffy and I left the dining hall with Aragorn and Boromir. Aragorn had insisted that we not take our swords back to our room just yet, as he thought we would kill one another, and so our swords awaited us when we arrived at the practice field. Our training session today was similar to what it was yesterday. We both sparred a match or two with both Aragorn and Boromir, and then to shake things up a bit, we faced off against each other. We weren't sure exactly what the results of our match was, considering it ended with me only holding one sword, which happened to be pressed against Saffy's neck. Overall, I think it was a draw. I relished the times that Saffy was fighting and I got a breather, the training was very intense and I was hoping that archery with Legolas after lunch would not be as straining. Though I was sure that it would be making entirely new muscles want to cry. Aragorn actually let Saffy and I take our swords with us after the training session today.
Lunch was a rather happy affair, both Saffy and I were eating like normal people, which made the hobbits make all sorts of jokes about how we were finally being human. Just when I was finishing up with my food, I felt eyes on my back. Turning around, there was Legolas with his perfectly clean and straight blonde hair. Just looking at him in person I could easily tell that he was definitely going to be all neat and clean throughout the entire trip.
"Are you ready for your first lesson?" Legolas asked me, his voice was rather calm but wasn't harsh or cold like Boromir's always was.
"Yep, definitely." I said brightly, I had been wanting to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow for a while. Guns I could do, but I had only tried using a bow and arrow a few times.
He lead us out of the dining hall after I had waved goodbye to everyone. I followed with a smile on my face, I was really excited to be learning archery and it didn't hurt that my instructor was kinda hot.
At the practice field, Legolas had a bow and quiver of arrows waiting for me. It wasn't as intricate of a bow as what any of the elves used, this was meant entirely for learners.
"I trust you know the form for archery?" Legolas asked.
"Uh, I think so." I replied, thinking back to how I had stood in the past with a bow and arrow in my hands.
"Take the position, please." Legolas instructed me.
I placed the bow in my left hand and notched an arrow, then pulled back and stood in the stance that I had always associated with archery. Legolas circled around me, finding out how he needed to reset my position. He shifted my hold on the bow, stating that I was holding in the wrong place. Then grabbing my hips, shifted the angle that I was standing at. His hands corrected my form until I was in the correct elven position.
Standing just behind me, he pointed to a tree in front of me about 100 feet away. His breath was warm on my neck and I could barely hold in the shudder at the sensation.
"That tree is your target. When you are ready fire." He instructed carefully, then I could feel him moving away to give me space.
I took a few deep breaths, lining my arrow up with the tree and tried to make sure that I had the arrow taught in the bow. However, when I tried to release the arrow my fingers slipped on the angle of the arrow, which caused a very unfortunate mishap. Instead of the arrow flying over at the tree, the front of the arrow popped up and hit me in the forehead.
My eyes flashed shut in reflex. There was a sharp pain hitting me in the forehead, which I realized was the arrow striking me in the face. Then a warm liquid began sliding down my face from the original spot that the pain erupted from. I opened my eyes and looking at my nose, there was blood running down the length of it. The blood even took a side track and began streaming into my eye.
"Ow, ow, ow. Blood in my eye, blood in my eye!" I cried, putting my hand up to my forehead in hopes to stop the blood flow.
Glancing over at Legolas I could see the remains of a smile on his face, as much as he was trying not to laugh as it was rude to laugh at someone else's pain, he was having to bite his lip to keep the laughter in. I frowned a little at him, but then winced when that caused my forehead to hurt even more. His smile disappeared as he realized that I may have really hurt myself.
"Are you alright? We need to get you to a healer." Legolas began saying.
"I'm fine. I'm fine." I told him, keeping my hand on my forehead. "Head wounds just bleed more than anything."
"Come on, let's get you to a healer." He said as he grabbed my hand that wasn't pressed to my head.
"No, Legolas. I'm fine really." I said, though I'm sure that I wasn't sounding very convincing.
"You are not fine, you are bleeding profusely." Legolas said.
"No, please. I'm fine. If I got to a healer than Aragorn and Boromir might not let me train tomorrow. Can we just go back to practice?" I pleaded.
"Deirdre, you need to have your head looked at. If the healers say you are up to it then you can go back to training, but not until you don't have blood streaming down your face." Legolas reasoned.
"Fine, but as soon as the healers say it's alright I want to go back to practice tonight." I told him, to which he only shook his head.
When we walked into the house of healing, the healer who had taken care of my arm yesterday spied us. His face was slightly amused and rather agitated.
"What did you do this time?" he asked, probably amazed that I had managed to get hurt again so soon.
"I shot myself in the head." I muttered, trying not to speak very loud after all it was kind of embarrassing.
"You shot yourself in the head?" the elf asked unbelieving, a slight smile appearing on his face when he asked this. Was everyone amused by my pain?
"Uh, yeah. Can you just bandage me up so I can go back to training?" I asked, mildly annoyed that he was finding this so amusing.
The elf nodded with a smile on his face, then pulled me over to a nearby bed, he sat me down and began cleaning the blood from my face. I scrunched my face up a bit when he hit my injury but other than that he got no reaction as the blood was slowly removed from my face. When he had bandaged my head, he rose from the bed and looked over at Legolas who had been waiting patiently through the entire procedure.
"I don't think that she should be fighting for a few days." The healer told Legolas, which bothered me.
"Can I use a mirror?" I asked them, irritation seeping into my tone.
The healer nodded to me with confusion clear on his face. But nevertheless he led me over to a mirror, and let me look in it. My face was much the same, only now there was a white bandage wrapped about my forehead. But that wasn't what I was looking for, I looked at my eyes.
The color was still blue, but I focused on the pupils. There was no significant difference in pupil size, which put a smile on my face. Legolas and the healer behind me were sure to be confused at what I was doing. So I turned around to face them.
"There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to fight." I informed the healer.
I was met by confused looks on their faces, I was guessing that healing in middle earth was not quite as advanced as in my world. Or at least not advanced in the same way, typically the worry with a head injury would be damage to the brain. But there was no pressure being put on my brain, as could be determined from the lack of significant change in dilation, therefore having no concussion I had no reason not to be able to fight.
"You shot yourself in the head, you could have internal injuries that could lead to problems later if you overexert yourself." The healer reasoned, trying to convince me that fighting was not possible right now.
"The likelihood of having any internal injuries from merely being hit in the head with an arrow is low. Besides, there is no pressure being put on my brain, so there is no problem. Trust me, I can fight without a problem. The only thing that could be potentially problematic would be dizziness caused by blood loss." I told the healer, then looking over at Legolas. "So can we go back to you showing me how to use a bow and arrow?"
After a hesitant look over to the healer, Legolas consented to resume our practice. Though he was much more careful with me and released the first few arrows along with me, holding my hands so that I didn't shoot myself in the head once more. Then again, I wasn't going to be complaining. It was nice having his arms around me and him pressing against my back. Through our close proximity I could feel just how sculpted his muscles were, and there was one word to describe it "yum".
By the end of the session I could successfully get the arrow to fly in the direction that I wanted it to, sans injuries. Best for me, was there was no more pain other than the random throb of blood flow to the cut on my forehead. After the first time that I managed to hit the tree, far from where he wanted me to, we called it a day. He had me leave the bow and quiver with him at the training grounds. I was starting to think that people really didn't trust me with sharp objects. But I ended up with my dual swords after the practice today.
There was about half an hour left before dinner, so I said my farewells to Legolas and headed off to my room. I deposited my swords there, having kept them with me because there hadn't been time to run back to the room after lunch. It took a lot of will power not to remove the bandage from my head and see what was left behind. Resisting the urge, I walked out of my room and found a garden to relax in before dinner.
I walked into the garden and was met by the sight of Saffy laughing with the hobbits. I started sneaking up behind Saffy, putting my finger up to my lips to tell the hobbits not to say anything. They looked away from me and back down at Saffy almost immediately, so she didn't suspect anything. When I finally got right up behind her I lowered myself closer to the ground and tackled Saffy from behind. She squealed and automatically started fighting back. I may be able to fight with martial weapons, but when it comes to wrestling, I sucked. Saffy quickly pinned me to the ground straddling my waist and pinning my arms on either side of my head. I pouted at how easily she had pinned me, while I should be used to it, I was still annoyed.
"Merry, Pippin. Tackle Saffy." I said, asking them to help me.
Both hobbits smiled and jumped into the fray, once they were tackled Saffy I looked at her with a grin as she made eye contact. I nodded my head with a great big smile on my face and jumped back into the fight. Only this time instead of attacking Saffy, I went after the hobbits. Together we pinned the hobbits to the ground and with another shared look between the two of us, began tickling their sides. However, I grew tired of harassing the hobbits, and tackled Saffy once more. I had managed to pin her to the ground with my skirt rising up high on my legs, when she flipped me over straddling my waist. By now, my skirt was baring most of my legs, the skirt pooling around the ground and part of it lay between my legs covering me at least a little. I squirmed beneath Saffy, she laughed until the sound of a throat being cleared made her turn to look. I shifted my head to see who Saffy was staring at, only to find Legolas standing a few feet away. His eyes roamed both Saffy's and my forms. While she was distracted, I shifted my hips and managed to swing it around so that I had her arms pinned down.
"Hah!" I cried out, proud that I had switched the position around.
Saffy merely rolled her eyes and relaxed on the ground. Deciding that I was bored I pulled away from Saffy and sat back, fixing my skirt so that it covered my legs as I settled.
Before anything else could be said, the bell signaling it was time for dinner sounded. I rose from the ground and walked to the dining hall in the company of the hobbits, Legolas had somehow vanished during the time it took me to pin Saffy and settle myself down. Dinner went in the usual fashion of meals in Rivendell, with the addition of being made fun of for shooting myself in the head. There was laughter and good times had. After dinner the sun was sinking on the horizon, so I went to one of the gardens to watch the sunset with Saffy and the hobbits.
Later that night, Saffy and I returned to our room once more and collapsed on the bed in exhaustion. Our conversation light before I fell into darkness.
***End Chapter 6***
Alright that's Chapter 6. Read and Review as always.