Tilly Unlivale: Well, that was quite the impassioned tirade. One, Gandalf, Elrond etc don't actually know that Harry was sent to help by the Valar. Gandalf just said that to piss off Boromir and get him to back down. Two, as mentioned later, Dumbledore really doesn't have any choice in the matter, and manages to secure some help for Harry. Never fear, things look up for our hurting hero. And you're being a little harsh on the Valar. Sure, they can be jerks, but they do what they have to so they can protect their world.
It was a long trek through Moria, in utmost silence and minimal light. Legolas looked thoroughly uneasy, occasionally hugging himself when he thought no one was looking. It was patently obvious that the Elf was not used to caves aside from the large and roomy ones that formed the palace of Mirkwood, which were less caves and more a natural… well, palace, making Malfoy Manor look non-descript. Harry stopped and listened for a moment. Nothing.
He walked a little further and then stopped sharply. Something was following them, and doing it well. There had barely been a slight discrepancy between him stopping and the creature stopping, meaning that for a moment he heard its footsteps unmasked by his own. Pre-Middle Earth Harry would most likely not have picked up on it. However, if you hunt dark creatures for long enough and your senses sharpen and you develop a 6th sense, Harry mused. Boromir was giving him an inquisitive look.
"Something's following us, and I have a shrewd idea what. I just wanted to hear its footsteps. I'm going to have a word with Legolas."
Boromir raised an eyebrow. "Why not Gandalf or Aragorn?"
"Both almost certainly know that it is following us, and both probably know exactly what it is. Plus, it will keep Legolas from his acute claustrophobia."
Boromir gave him another odd look, and once he deciphered the meaning behind the words, nodded. "What is it Harry?"
"I'm not entirely sure. I want a second opinion from someone who knows it, if it is what I think it is, and it will distract him from his surroundings."
"Or make him more aware of them."
"That's a risk I'm willing to take." Harry said, catching up with the faintly glowing elf.
"Legolas." He said softly. The elf did not change his pace, but cocked his head slightly to indicate that he was paying attention.
"There is something following us, and it's been doing so since about 15 minutes after we arrived here. Can you hear it or sense it?"
Legolas turned his head around, listening carefully in the direction of an ill-intentioned presence on the edge of perception.
"Aye, it is the creature Gollum." He said flatly. "The one I was sworn to imprison and escaped, causing many of my comrades to be killed."
Harry winced. He hadn't heard about that particular incident, and doubted Legolas's father Thranduil would have been particularly amused about that. And Thranduil was not an elf to cross, as many had found out to their peril. Even Smaug had been unwilling to bother him, though that may have had something to do with him being occupied by his enormous treasure horde. He had met Thranduil briefly whilst recovering from a poisoned wound caused by an ill-advised close range fight with one of the 9, and assessed him as 'old, powerful, dangerous, intimidating, not to be flippant at'.
"I thought so," Harry said, nodding, "He's drawn to Frodo and the Ring, isn't he." That was not so much a question as a statement. Legolas nodded, then spoke quietly:
"I hate dark caves."
Harry eyed him, surprised. "You live in one. It's big and decorated, sure, but it's dark enough in places."
"No, the Palace is never dark, or at least, not like this where the darkness feels malevolent. As if it has come to hate all those who walk under the sun with an unknowable intensity." Legolas said sombrely.
Harry raised an eyebrow, and narrowly avoided tripping over a stone, causing Legolas to snicker softly. Harry shot him a dirty look, then asked, "Why do you hate caves so much?"
Legolas sighed, and looked around him for a moment, then at last spoke with a degree of reluctance in his voice. "When I was a young elf, barely old enough to learn the arts of war, I was gifted a pair of knives by my father." He gestured at the two well maintained and lethally sharp weapons that framed his quiver in an x shape.
"As all young ones do at some point, I sought to test myself in real combat, against a mighty foe to prove my strength, but my father sensibly kept under close observation. One evening my father's butler, Galion, was the one keeping an eye on me, and had, and still has, a reputation for not being one for holding his drink very well."
"You mean like when my father and Bilbo Baggins snuck past yon wee butler because he was drunk out o' his skull?" Gimli interjected, smiling smugly, though it was tempered with his ever present grief for his family and friends.
Legolas favoured him with a half-hearted glare and said, "Indeed Master Dwarf, but your father and his friends were the ones who had the lack of sense to be caught in the first place."
Gimli nodded, and surprisingly didn't seek to escalate the argument, though he had been decidedly subdued since they had entered Moria for obvious reasons.
Legolas shot him a surprised and sympathetic look, then continued. "Galion got deeply into his cups on Dorwinion which I had given to him saying it was a weak wine flavoured with Dorwinion, and I was able to sneak out while he was singing something about '4 and 20 maidens down from Imladris'."
Harry stifled an outburst of laughter. He had heard something similar when he and Aragorn had got drunk with Glorfindel, Erestor, Elladan and Elrohir. Glorfindel in particular made very amusing hand gestures to accompany the singing.
"I take it you know the song," Legolas said, amused. Harry just grinned and nodded, so Legolas continued.
"I armed myself and wandered into the lower caves, the ones untamed by my people where orcs and giant spiders still resided. In my arrogance I was ambushed by a party of orcs supported by spiders which cocooned me in their silk. They talked of doing things…"
Legolas shuddered, "horrible things, to me. Even nearly 3000 years on I cannot speak of them. Soon my father started searching for me, and when he arrived he singlehandedly sent at least 40 yrch to the Void, along with countless spiders. In the chaos I escaped, and managed to dispatch a few unwary yrch and spiders, and to be truthful I was more worried about my father's anger and disappointment. Instead, he just hugged me very tightly, and told me never to scare him like that again. I was confined to my rooms for a while, but my father seemed to think that I had learnt my lesson." Legolas smiled slightly.
"And you still haven't learnt it Thranduilion." Gandalf grumbled. "I hear tales of you taking on 20 orcs with naught but your bow, five arrows and a fruit knife."
"A fruit knife properly applied is a deadly weapon in its own right." Legolas replied loftily, to muted laughter from the rest of the Fellowship.
"Is that why I caught you fighting an imaginary enemy with it one night?" Aragorn said dryly. "You defeated your enemy soundly I'm sure, but I doubt that real orcs would be so obliging."
Soft laughter once again infused the air as the tension of the last few days was released. Even Gandalf was smiling, albeit somewhat grimly.
"As amusing as this is, we must be silent. There are dangerous things in these mines." Gandalf said ominously.
"I'll be one of them if I don't get to eat something soon." Harry muttered in a carrying tone. The Hobbits suddenly perked up at the possibility of food, while Aragorn rolled his eyes.
Gandalf skewered the young wizard with a glare, then looked at the well-practised and maintained pitiful looks on the hobbits faces, and then said, "There is a fork in our route up ahead. We can stop there for rest and refreshments." The Fellowship let out a collective sigh of relief. They had been marching for 8 hours without rest and Pippin in particular looked as if he was on the point of collapsing from fatigue and hunger.
The Fellowship arrived at their appointed resting place. One thing Gandalf had neglected to mention was that the path forking at this point meant that he wasn't sure which fork to take, because, as he testily pointed out when Pippin and Boromir loudly wondered if he had forgotten the way, come through in the opposite direction.
Harry was roused from his deep slumber to see if he knew anything.
"I've never been here before." Harry said flatly, "How the hell would I know?"
"What's Hell?" Boromir asked, puzzled at Harry's choice of idiom.
"The Void." Harry said shortly.
"Anyway, the only spell I know that might points where the exit is from here, not which route to take. So if it pointed down the right fork because that was roughly where the exit was in relation to here, it could still be a dead end."
"Try it anyway." Aragorn said reasonably.
Harry looked exasperated, but said "Point me exit." His wand spun and pointed back the way they had come. Harry flushed slightly, and amended, "Point me eastern gate." The wand spun for a moment… then pointed straight in between the two.
"Well that wasn't helpful." Pippin said after an embarrassed silence.
Harry just sat back and apparently went straight to sleep. The awkward tableau of the Fellowship continued, each relaxing in one form or another, except for Gimli who was brooding, Gandalf who was trying to remember his path through the mines and Frodo who had yet another reason to be paranoid when he looked over the edge of the Fellowship's outcrop and saw the unmistakeable pale shape of Gollum crawling slowly but surely up the cliff face. He backed away sharply, and turned to Gandalf anxiously, saying, "Gandalf, something is following us!"
"I know. It is the creature, Gollum. As Harry and I had noticed, he has been following us for some time, from when we entered Moria. He follows us because he loves and hates the Ring as he loves and hates himself." Gandalf replied slowly, without turning his head.
Frodo's expression took a darker turn, "Bilbo should have killed him when he had the chance. He is a pitiful creature."
"Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. I feel he still has a part to play for good or ill in this quest. If he needs to be killed, I have no doubt that Legolas would gladly do so, and I doubt Harry would object to doing the deed. Not yet though. Among other things, it took Aragorn's full skill and concentration to find Gollum last time when he chose to hide, and it was not in a dark and deadly mine. We cannot waste that time or risk disturbing the creatures that most likely infest these caves."
Frodo looked a little unhappy, but understood, as Boromir broke the tension suddenly let out a loud snore, which was met with a stinging hex from Harry, who appeared to operating on automatic in his sleep. As Boromir rubbed his arm where the hex had hit in a bemused fashion, Harry rolled over and continued his slumber. Boromir looked at the surprised Fellowship and asked plaintively.
"What did I do?"
Rohan
Eomer struggled into his finest clothes, and glared at his cousin, who, unlike him, was perfectly at ease in what Eomer saw as frivolous, impractical and uncomfortably tight clothing and was enjoying himself at Eomer's expense.
"Remind me again. Why are these clothes necessary?"
"Because, dear cousin, as I have explained a thousand times before, formal wear will impress upon the King the need for action. Especially if you, who are renowned for favouring armour and practical shirts and breeches, are wearing it. If you do not like your current clothes, I'm sure Eowyn could lend you some. Mind you, the sight of you in a dress that's bursting at the seams may cause father to die of shock."
Eomer turned and glared at his dryly amused cousin. "Unlike you or Master Potter-" he grunted suddenly as his arms got stuck in his shirt, eliciting a snicker from Theodred. "I am not as thin as a new born foal. Or as gawky." In his heart Eomer knew that this was an unfair description of both parties.
Theodred had the powerful muscles of a horseman, and the build of a particularly sinewy blacksmith, wielding unexpected strength. Harry had the lean, dense muscle of a runner and one skilled in hand to hand combat. The dense muscle and unusual haunted green eyes that sparkled when their owner was happy, had caught Eowyn's eye, and those of many other women, both noble and common, until he had politely explained that he was 'with' someone, and as beautiful as each and every one of them was (since at least one of the noble women had a face like a horses arse, Eomer presumed that Harry was a much better liar than he let on), he was not interested and that they should direct their attentions to other, young, handsome and elegible bachelors.
Since he had made this announcement in public, he had pointed to Theodred and Eomer who had been previously laughing riotously at his predicament. With a wicked grin he had said that both were looking for female companionship due to loneliness, and apparently 'needed some love'. Both had promptly been the subject of a number of worryingly calculating stares by the womenfolk of Rohan, then deluged by potential suitors while Harry watched, merrily taking bets from the Palace guards and eventually the King himself, who looked reluctantly amused by the spectacle. He had later, with a twinkle in his eye and a smile struggling to break free, told them sternly that they were poor military commanders if they could not escape such an admittedly ingenious ambush, while Harry counted his impressive winnings and eavesdropped. According to his own testimony, he'd had practice at spotting the most likely victors.
Eomer worried about his friend. Few men took such terrible injuries without dying or being crippled permanently. He finished dressing and strode out the door, to see his sister waiting patiently in full regalia. Both for the sake of his sister and for Harry. And to see that Wormtongue squirm like he was a true worm on a hook and return his uncle to his full faculties. But they were secondary concerns by comparison. Eomer son of Eomund, 3rd marshal of the Mark always protected his friends. If he couldn't protect them, by the blood of his ancestors he would avenge them. As his cousin joined him, he rolled his shoulders to stretch tense muscles. He recalled an odd word Harry had used once that seemed rather appropriate. Ah yes. Showtime.
I originally planned one big Moria chapter, but it would have been ridiculously long, especially with the Rohan subplot tacked on. So blame the Rohirrim. It's all their fault. Also, since does not like line breaks, I've had to make do with a make shift solution. Sorry.