When In Middle Earth: The edited, revised and face-lifted edition:
When in Middle Earth, do as the Middle-Earthlings do. Sakura finds herself in the midst of Middle Earth, immersed in a war she has no part in, saving a world and people she doesn't know, and why? Because Naruto would be disappointed in her if she ever got back and told him she hadn't...
Chapter Twelve:
In which there is angst. Also in which there is banter, fisticuffs', and nobody appears to act their age.
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Disclaimer:
The Lord of The Rings, it's associated characters and components are copyright and property of its author J. R. R. Tolkien, the actors that played them, and the director of the trilogy of films of the same name, Peter Jackson. The character Sakura and any components associated with the manga and anime 'Naruto' are property and copyright of Masashi Kishimoto
This took ages to write, not because I have a good reason for taking so long, but because I kept changing
my mind about what I wanted to happen in it.
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Warning: Chapter contains frequent use of the word b*****d. Just fair warning, if nasty language like that upsets you.
The story continues:
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The elf guard, a young fellow by elf standards who went by the name Farahad, stood meekly in the centre of an empty room. Empty, that is, except for himself and two of the most respected figures in Rivendell, both of whom were currently staring him down in the most scathing, disbelieving and furiously aghast manner possible. The young guard quaked. Glorfindel's face had never been so flushed as it was in anger – one could almost have thought to fry an egg on his forehead – while the Dúnedan Aragorn was staring daggers at the poor young elf, with his fists clenched and his eyes alight.
"What do you mean 'you lost her'?"
"Forgive me, Dúnedan. I took my eyes off the young lady for but a moment…"
"You shouldn't have taken your eyes off her at all!"
Farahad flinched. The Dúnedan was as much a son to the Lord of the House as Elrond's own and it was well-known that he was a powerful man with all the strength of his blood behind him. He did not know from whence came this attachment to the strange-looking human child, but Farahad was neither disrespectful nor stupid enough to ask. It was obvious though, that his anger stemmed from worry for her welfare. The thought might have made him feel better if Farahad had not indirectly compromised her welfare by allowing her to give him the slip.
"I am most sincerely sorry, my lords," he said meekly, bowing his head and averting his eyes, silently praying that his head would still be attached to his shoulders when he lifted his neck.
Aragorn made a sound like the snarl of a she-lion with her cubs endangered. The young guard watched wearily as he took to pacing the room with sharp, angry steps.
"Perhaps," came the cold drawl of the healer, "you would like to tell us exactly what was so distracting as to misdirect your attention?" The tone implied that it had better be good. The guard had no doubt that, if they thought his reason inadequate, or that he lied, he would be in for a severe tongue-lashing if not a worse punishment. Thankfully, he had a good reason.
"The Lady Arwen, my lord," he told them earnestly, sensing a fleeting glimpse of redemption. "Her ladyship knocked at the door, requesting to speak with the young lady, but as per your instructions I respectfully informed her that the young lady was not to be disturbed 'til she had adequately rested."
"And what did Arwen say?" Aragorn asked suspiciously.
"She accepted the explanation, my lord, and inquired as to the young lady's health. She left after I reassured her that the young lady would recover."
"Immediately?"
"She…required some convincing. My lord?"
"I bet she did," Aragorn growled under his breath as he stalked from the room without a further word to the guard.
Farahad watched him unsurely as the man marched past, no longer affording the young elf any of his attention. Confused, and hesitant, he turned back to the distinctly unimpressed Glorfindel. Farahad wilted a little more.
"My lord Glorfindel?" he ventured meekly.
Glorfindel gestured irritably.
"Come, young fool," he snapped harshly, "You have failed us, and you must now make amends. You shall help me find her, and woe betide you if we do not. I have not yet lost a patient, though I see my record may not remain so untarnished for long."
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Gimli wheezed, leaning on a tree for support. His shoulders shook, and he was hard fought to get the air into his lungs. He could barely get the words out through his laughter.
"And then, the old elf-lord goes almost as red as my hair," he fisted his beard and shook it at her, "a-and says, calm as a tornado: 'You were outwitted by a woman with a pebble?'…and the two guards stammered like schoolboys about to face a whipping!"
Guffaws erupted from Sakura's throat. She pressed her closed fist against her lips in a fruitless attempt to stifle them, only to choke ungracefully on her own spit with the force of her laughter. She bent over her knees, breathless and rosy-cheeked, chest heaving and sore. The unnatural force of laughing and choking at the same time grated on her throat and she was forced to deliberately slow her breathing in an effort to recover. Chuckles quieting, Gimli began to wipe the tears from his eyes with the end of a braid, with little more than the shaking of his shoulders to mark his hoarse sniggering. It took all of a moment for the two meet eyes, the barest look from one to the other; and they fell about themselves all over again.
"To-too easy," she mocked, eyes sparkling as they watered, and ran down her aching cheeks.
The teen allowed her elbows to take the weight as she fell backward, giggling merrily from the ground as Gimli once more re-enacted the 'Grand Elf Embarrassment' as he'd witnessed it, before he'd ducked into the trees in the interest of elf-avoidance. Complete with ridiculously exaggerated facial expressions. He flapped his hand girlishly under his chin, widened his eyes comically and even trembled his lower lip.
"Oh I'm soooo sorry Lord Elrond," he affected in a high voice, completely unlike the deep voices of the guards and yet infinitely more fitting, to his personal opinion. He grinned at Sakura's appreciative, if unladylike, snort.
Schooling her features into an appropriately blank expression was difficult with the grin tugging at her lips, but she managed it just long enough for a completely straight-faced: "My, Master Dwarf, what an incredibly accurate impression."
Her lips twisted and she bit the inside of her cheek trying not to smile as he bowed theatrically in thanks.
"Indeed, if not for the beard you'd never have known the difference, I dare say."
"Oh, without a doubt. Certainly not."
The third, unlooked for and decidedly un-amused, voice interrupted with an abrupt sarcasm that made both Girl and Dwarf jump. Gimli spun on his heel with a speed Sakura hadn't expected from him and it was with near-morbid fascination that she watched the friendly Gimli suddenly morph into a bristling, glaring porcupine of a man, and plant himself firmly between the elf and herself.
Sakura's groan was audible. So audible in fact, as to echo quite distinctly around the little terrace, and draw a look like a rotten lemon from the third party. The Bastard had found them.
Glorfindel stood in the centre of the pavers, arms crossed, eyes like firecrackers and cheeks flushed with mixed parts indignation and fury. She supposed he might have looked a fearsome sight to anyone that actually respected him. Sakura, however, was singularly unimpressed, almost to the point of taking offence that he wasn't trying harder. After all, anyone who'd seen Ino at the wrong time of the month without chocolate ice-cream… well, short of Tsunade herself most blondes kind of lost their intimidation factor in comparison.
Therefore, instead of quaking in her boots (figuratively speaking, being as she was currently barefoot), she merely cocked her head like a curious spaniel at Gimli's back. It was quite sweet actually, she found herself thinking (much to her internal surprise), the way that Gimli had moved in front of her. She briefly contemplated telling him that the likelihood of Glorfindel actually hurting her was practically zip – he'd spent too much effort bandaging her up already for it to be worth it – but given the way lightning was practically crackling in the air between them she decided suddenly that it was wisest not to interrupt.
She stifled a groan as she realised that she was going to be dragged into it regardless.
"I should have expected a dwarf to have no respect for the injured," Glorfindel sneered nastily, and added something in elvish that smacked of something unpleasant.
The dwarf glared.
"Respect? And who is it that canna' keep track of their own patients, hmm?" He spat on the ground and crossed his arms insolently. "Elfish healing, pah! A bunch of nonsensical rubbish."
"Rubbish?" The elf sputtered. Sakura was almost expecting to see his long hair fluff up like a spitting cat…but alas his locks remained obnoxiously straight and glossy.
"Hard of hearing as well, elf?"
"How very like a dwarf, to make a mockery of his betters merely to assuage his own self-worth," Glorfindel raised a derisive eye-brow, affecting a tone so un-disguisedly condescending as to make even Sakura flinch. "Pathetic," he spat.
Gimli covered the paces between them faster than a blink, his angry, jousting finger almost jabbing up the elf's nostril with its force.
"We'll see who is the better of us when I smear ye' pretty face across the ground, ye' effeminate lackey!" His moustache quivered with rage.
A light appeared in Glorfindel's eye at the insinuation. If Sakura hadn't have known to look underneath the underneath she might have missed the sudden tension in his neck and jaw, or the barest sound of grinding as the elf gnashed his teeth.
There was no mistaking a ninja's sense for a brewing fight, not that anyone couldn't have foreseen it with the thick and furious tension clouding the air.
If Sakura had had her chakra, she'd simply have punched the ground out from underneath them and that would have been that: end of fight. If she'd had two fully functioning arms, she'd have grabbed each of them by the collar and smacked their heads together. But Sakura had neither of these. She looked from one to the other, irritably jerking at the restraining sling.
"Threatening an unarmed foe? How very dwarfish a trait."
Surely they weren't actually going to fall into a fist fight in the middle of Lord Elrond's garden, and in the precense of a lady and all that rot? Glorfindel surely wouldn't….he was too proper…too-
"Posturing and stalling for time? How very elfish."
Glorfindel's fists immediately tightened. With a fluid movement that made the weapon seem virtually weightless Gimli drew his axe from his belt. He tossed it to the side, as if it weighed nothing. But the dirt flew up in a tremendous cloud as it landed, with an unmistakeably heavy thud, blade down and sunk an inch at least into the flowerbed. He raised his curled fists, the ginger hairs that decorated them swaying a little as, meaningfully; he waved them in the air.
"A dwarf needs no weapon against such a skinny, feeble foe."
Glorfindel growled. If it weren't so far beneath him to do so, Sakura was certain that he might have bared his teeth or raised his own fists to match the dwarf's. Instead, he pasted an expression of barely restrained derision of his face and sneered insomuch as his stoic façade would allow.
"Idiot," he drawled, lip curled and arms folded.
The word was like a slap to the face. Gimli began to shout, but to Sakura it felt like a bucket of cold water had been tipped abruptly down her back. Her eyes widened; her minds-eye pasting different, more painful, faces across the cold elf and the hot-headed dwarf. A different language to be sure, but still…he'd sounded just like…
"STOP!"
Perhaps that's why she did what she did. Even as Gimli lunged for the elf, Sakura darted forward. The fist swung, and Glorfindel rocked on the balls of his feet, readjusting his weight ready for a counter-offensive manoeuvre…and suddenly Sakura was between them. Startled, it took the two males a second too long to pull their punches. Gimli swung his arm away, veering the blow off to the side, but his position was harder to correct and his foot slid at a jarring angle, throwing his weight forward and accidently thrusting the flat off his shoulder into Sakura, knocking her toward Glorfindel. The elf staggered, throwing his arms in front of himself, only to awkwardly catch the stumbling kunoichi under the arms as she fell heavily back against him. He grunted with discomfort as her elbow dug into his gut and she cried out as the three of them tumbled to the ground together, jarring her injuries with enough force to make her eyes water.
"Sakura!" Gimli cried out worriedly, rolling off of her immediately and hunching on his heels. "Lassie, are ye' alright?"
"Foolish, headstrong girl!" Glorfindel exclaimed, even as he readjusted them so as to be kneeling with Sakura leaning heavily against his shoulder, his arms still supporting her. But the reprimand was lacking bite, and enough genuine worry that Sakura thought she must have misheard.
In response to both, all she could immediately summon was a groan.
"Look what you have done!"
"What I've done?"
"Put a- owgoddammit- sock in it," Sakura wheezed a little, squinting through one wet eye. "There is a lady present," she added half-heartedly.
"And here I thought there was a hopeless masochist present," Glorfindel sighed. She huffed at his comment, in the way women often do when crossed. His keen eyes tracked every twitch of discomfort in his patient, only to find himself once more forcefully suppressing an irritated 'tch' as she noticed, and went still. Why the girl found it so repugnant to show pain in front of others was a mystery to him. She showed more pride and stubbornness than a man!
As if to prove his mental point, she scowled at him and pushed herself upright, out of his hold.
"I'm fine Gimli," she said, ignoring the elf a-purpose as she patted the dwarf's bristly cheek. "It's a little hard to keep my balance with my arms all tied up, is all," this was addressed accusingly over her shoulder, and Gimli obligingly glared at the elf disgustedly.
"Enough."
Finally at the end of his patience, Glorfindel rose. He stared Sakura down even as she scowled at him from the ground.
"You are returning to the house, where you will rest and heal, even if I have to chain you to the bed," he informed her. Her jaw dropped. How could anyone say something like that so blandly? But he cut across her before she could get her wits together for a good answering tirade. "You will. You have done yourself enough further injury these past twenty four hours to last the remainder of your stay, be now satisfied and allow yourself to mend."
So saying he unceremoniously bent and scooped her into her arms, ignoring her yelp of surprise and indignation.
"And you, dwarf," Glorfindel continued coldly, "are a guest at the last Homely House. I would most humbly suggest you remember it. I must now see to my patient."
He strode away, pace and grip unfaltering even as the injured girl began to thrash and shout. Gimli remained, torn between genuine concern for the girl, as he'd grown rather fond of her during their conversation, guilt at having had a hand in her discomfort, and vindictive pride that she still had enough fight in her to wage a war on the elf's eardrums.
Such was the strength of her lungs that she continued to be perfectly audible even to him, long after they'd left his sight. With a murmured word of blessing for her recovery, he touched his knuckles to his lips and forehead, and having done so he made his peace, settled his guilt with an internal promise to obtain her room and visit her, and began to search around for the perfect flowers to yank out of the elves perfect flowerbeds as a peace-offering.
Obnoxiously, he began to hum.
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Aragorn was there. So were the wet-blanket guard, and the two half-wits she'd outsmarted the previous night, for all they thought themselves so clever. They weren't looking half so smiley now. In fact, everyone within the room looked rather like they wanted to burn a hole through her head with the force of their collective glares, possibly leaving her a charred smear on the wall as a reminder to all those who dared to cross the mighty elves in the future.
Sakura stuck her tongue out.
She nearly bit it in half as Glorfindel held his arms out over the bed and promptly dropped her. She moved instantly, swinging her legs over the edge…only to be pushed back onto her back by the blonde healer. He barked something in elvish, and suddenly the three other elves surged forward. She kicked. She struggled. She even bit one idiot who was stupid enough to put his hand too near her head. Their only response was to bodily throw their weight atop her and pin her to the bed. Grunting and growling as her thrashing bruised ribs, thighs and egos, but not giving her the least bit of leeway.
With complete and utter fury Sakura realised that Glorfindel was perfectly serious about tying her to the bed to make her stay put. Something fearsome reared its head in her and she began to thrash in earnest, aiming to hurt with her knees and elbows.
"Get. Off. Me." She punctuated each word with a violent kick of her legs, to no avail.
Glorfindel glared.
"If you will insist upon tousling in the gardens and aggravating your injuries doing who-knows-what in the night, you cannot expect anything less than the consequences."
She upped his glare with a look of absolute venom.
"If you will go picking childish fights with dwarves, you can't expect me not to step in!"
"What?" Aragorn interjected sharply. Glorfindel's lips thinned. He'd have preferred not to have disclosed that information. Aragorn was not to be deterred, he roughly caught hold of the elf's wrist and looked the blonde straight in the eye. "Sakura was injured because you were fighting?" He looked livid. Glorfindel snatched his arm back.
"A minor dispute," he answered coldly. The Bastard – for from now on she would call him nothing else – began industriously knotting the end of a plaited sheet around the frame of the bed.
"You are supposed to be looking after her," he growled.
"I can look after myself," Sakura snarled abruptly swinging her head around like a whip lash to face his. She hated how breathless and non-threatening she sounded, but three elf males pressing her down was putting distinct pressure on her lungs and broken ribs. Surprisingly however, the weight of the elves combined didn't feel much more than that of a single adult man, but she didn't give much thought to it as she fought to free herself. "Don't treat me like a child!"
Aragorn's lips thinned. Glorfindel indicated the second plait and, despite a dirty look in the elf's direction, he obligingly began to tie it on the other side.
The two squeezed their respective ends of rope through the throng of bodies, exchanged them, and moved positions to tie them down firmly on each side. Sakura winced as her struggles caused the material to dig sharply into her skin, rubbing roughly on her sensitive flesh. Tears welled in her eyes involuntarily, but she refused to let them fall. Instead, realising at last the futility in the exercise, she let her limbs go limp. With considerable wariness the elves moved away, taking their hands from her with painstaking slowness as they released her one by one. She didn't move.
Aragorn's face filled with concern as he watched her fall still. There was something gnawing at his gut. His suspicions he still warred with himself over, but there was something else. He couldn't help but feel an over-whelming wrongness about the situation….
"It is for your own good," Glorfindel addressed the girl on the bed. Her eyes snapped to him like a lunging snake.
"Do not tell me what is and is not for my own good," she snarled quietly. Glorfindel wanted to question that. He wanted to ask, if she were such a great and knowledgeable healer – if she knew what was 'good' for her – then why was she deliberately resisting him at every turn? Why did she keep aggravating her injuries against her better knowledge? He wanted to snort derisively and tell her that it didn't look like it from where he stood.
But something stopped him. There was something in her eyes that he had not seen there before, even in the woods when she had thought him her enemy.
Hatred. Of the blackest and coldest kind, hatred burned in that look. It was not a look of anger, nor exactly of defeat. Her face was passive, but her eyes blazed, and in that moment Glorfindel knew that this girl despised him.
Aragorn too, saw this, and shared in the unnerved looks that discreetly flitted around the room. She turned her head sharply to the ceiling, apparently resolved to pay no further attention to anybody in the room. The two gate-guards nodded stiffly to Glorfindel and exited, their job seemingly done, while the younger guard Farahad took up a wooden stool and placed it by the door, where he seated himself. It seemed he was to remain her babysitter for the duration. She acknowledged none of this.
"It is unbecoming for a Lady to sulk about her circumstances," Glorfindel admonished gently, as he began the process of checking over and applying aid to her injuries.
It was with considerable concern that he and Aragorn both noticed her utter lack of response. Sakura's teeth were grinding. Her eyes were glaring, and her fists were clenched. Specifically, she was grinding, glaring and clenching at the ceiling, which was the only thing she could look at from her current position of being strapped to the bed. But she made not one movement, not one twitch, to indicate she'd heard a comment that normally she'd have seethed over. She appeared to have lapsed into a helpless kind of silent fury.
Neither knew quite what to make of it as they left her.
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It was not until Aragorn reached the end of the hallway that the thought hit him like a brick wall and stopped him dead in his tracks.
Sakura could lift a man bodily off the ground with nothing more than a fingertip. She could punch craters in the ground. She could lift a stone pillar from its base.
So why couldn't she throw three elves off her, when she was so violently opposed to it?
She was injured, true. But…Sakura could heal. He'd experienced it first-hand.
So why were her ribs still broken? Why did she give up so easily?
Aragorn's suspicions suddenly took the most worrying turn yet. He had to talk to Gandalf… he stopped again a mere half-pace later, looking unsurely back the way he'd come.
Indecisively, he hovered, his mind whirring.
What happened to you, Sakura?
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'Kakashi-sensei, I will never ever force you to go to the hospital ever again.' Sakura promised the ceiling silently. 'Naruto-kun, I will never again strap you down to the bed, not even if you are terribly terribly injured. If you want to leave and go train stupidly and mess yourself up, no problem. Ditto Lee. I won't even lecture you about it.'
She had never felt more helpless and vulnerable in her life. She hated it. Despised it.
Yes, it was humiliating. YES, it was uncomfortable. But more than anything she couldn't stand this feeling of being useless, of being completely unable to change her circumstances. Her eyes stung as she valiantly fended off bitter tears…again. This feeling…of not having chakra…of not having anything…the yawning chasm of loss that she felt was made yet more aching and bitter and consuming by the knowledge that, had she an ounce of useable chakra, she'd have been off the bed, healed and out of the window in seconds. She'd have been away. She'd have been free.
Sakura had never felt so desperately adrift in her life.
She arched her back, pushing half-heartedly at her bonds. They didn't give an inch. She flopped back onto the bed as the air whooshed back into her lungs, not without protest from her abused ribs.
She bit her lip. Her pain tolerance clearly wasn't what it used to be. Just how weak was she getting?
'Too weak' supplied her mind. Her brow furrowed. This wasn't a productive line of thinking. She hadn't thought like this since…
She strained her eyes to the side so as to avoid drawing the attention of the guard, and looked at the door to the bathroom.
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To be continued…
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All new, never before seen content.
So. In which Sakura is a very unhappy bunny; Gimli and Glorfindel dip a little bit out of character with the fisticuffs' (though it didn't actually come to much more than ruffled feathers and poor Sakura getting squashed) and Aragorn is a suspicious bugger who is finally starting to put two and two together. Also in which Glorfindel is a bit of nasty-pasty, even though its technically for her own good.
The ending turned out a bit more dramatic and angsty than I intended…. O.o
I had a bit more fluffy happy scenes planned, but they'll keep 'til next chapter.
Some epically awesome characters will appear next chapter. We may also find out what actually happened to all those other characters that seem to have disappeared over the last couple of chapters.
I am sure Gimli will have tremendous fun destroying the gardener's hard work by picking a bouquet for Sakura, and she'll probably appreciate the effort he's gone to to piss off the elves on her behalf.
Also, in which we find out: IT WAS ARWEN? Hmmm…intentionally or not do we think?
~Devi1OnUrShou1der~