Not an Elf

Chapter 6

Rin shrugged, staring ahead at Legolas who was near the front but he knew could still hear them. "They reminded me of things from home."

"Demons?"

Rin spun to stare wide eyed at Aragorn.

"That is what you named the Nazgûl when you were unaware of what they were."

Oh. Okay, that's okay.

"Yeah, that's what they're called."

"And they are not simply misnamed orcs?"

Rin bit his lip. Dangerous territory, here. "Some might have been."

Wow, an actual lie.

The ranger looked at him for a few seconds more before nodding.

---

They were walking along the side of a black lake.

"Rin, I think there is a Kraken in the water."

Rin looked at his cat in surprise.

How would you know that?

"They have a weirdly distinct smell."

Do I even want to know?

Kuro shrugged at his question. He jogged up to Gandalf, and told him what his Cat Sidhe had said.

The wizard nodded, and called to the rest of the Fellowship, "Do not disturb the water! An agent of the Enemy lies in the deep."

Legolas quickly caught Merry, who was about to slip into the shallows.

Crisis averted, Rin thought.

Gandalf pointed his staff at the door that had appeared in the moonlight. "It reads, Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak friend and enter."

"What do you suppose that means?" Pippin asked.

Rin laughed. "Well, I bet the password is either friend or enter."

He received wide eyes instead of laughs like he expected.

"What?"

Boromir looked at him with surprise obvious in his features. "How did you make sense of the riddle so quickly?"

Rin stared at him. It was a joke. "I , umm... "

Gandalf turned to him, eyes sparkling, and said, "Would you do the honors? In elvish, I suspect."

Rin blinked at him. -"Umm, friend?"

There was silence, and then a rumble as the heavy doors opened.

Holy shit I did a thing.

"Holy shit you did a thing."

---

Rin kept to the back of the party as they traversed the mines, a small flame lit on the tip of a finger, per the wizards request. The dead dwarves had been less of a shock to him than to some of the others, since he had smelt the decay before Gandalf had lit his staff.

"But the goblins that killed them are still here."

Uggh, don't remind me.

Goblins were something that Rin had experience with.

---

"I have no memory of this place."

Rin stared blankly at the wizard, before plopping down on the cold rock. He missed the sun, and risking a real campfire probably wasn't the best idea. He yawned.