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"What was that?" Aragorn asked me that evening.
He'd pulled me away from the rest of the group, who sat in a huddled mass around a scanty fire, beneath a cliff wall with somewhat of an overhang, the only one large enough to use as a shelter for miles around. Aragorn's head tilted downwards so that his gaze was even with mine, and he folded his arms, his brows knitted atop his troubled eyes. I made a point of avoiding eye-contact, embarrassed at my episode earlier. As though the group couldn't have thought me any more of a liability, I go and do... that. Whatever that was.
"My guess is no nearer the mark than yours," I shrugged.
Without putting much thought into it, my hand lifted to my forearm. To the rune. My thumb grazed the spot where it was, and even though layers of fabric separated my thumb it, a pang of freezing pain shot through my thumb and into my hand. I jumped a bit.
"You seemed almost as though you had to get rid of it," Aragorn remarked coolly, his expression veiled in worry as he watched me.
"It felt that way," I answered, at last allowing my dim grey eyes to meet his own concerned ones.
They stayed there only a moment, however, falling back to the ground as a chill ran the length of my spine, up into my neck when I recalled the way the burning sensation brought about by nonexistent flames had torn through me. My body. Noting my discomfort, he placed a hand under my chin, lifting my head back up so that my gaze was level with him.
"Just take special care to stay away from the ring. For now, at least," he said softly, "Until we sort through this."
I smiled meekly, and he flashed one back, the bright white of his smile much more striking than that of the snow that glittered under the pale light of the stars. He held my gaze, his hand not moving from where he'd placed it under my chin as he looked down on me, the worry in his eyes gone, replaced by something I couldn't quite read. And as the seconds slipped by and his gaze remained fixed on mine, my heart rate sped up. And I could scarcely even begin to understand why.
"Thank you," I broke the silence, long but comfortable, that hung between us, "You've been a friend to me through this, and that's more than I could ask for," I paused for a moment, "Arwen is very lucky. You're... You're a good man, Aragorn."
I smiled again, though this time it felt somewhat forced, and I knew it didn't reach my eyes, another thing the reason for which I didn't know. But this time, Aragorn didn't return my smile, instead breaking eye contacting and slowly letting his hand fall from where it felt so warm and comforting beneath my chin, his arm falling limply at his side.
"I'm the lucky one," he said stiffly, "Arwen is the love of my life. A gem among her people."
"I suppose so. They don't call her Evenstar for nothing," I chuckled dryly, before turning back to the group.
He followed me, and we both returned to where the others sat splayed about around a pitiful excuse for a campfire. I sat cross-legged between Pippin and Boromir, who tensed, I noticed, when I lowered myself to the ground beside him. The flailing flames of the fire danced in untimely rhythm, casting long shadows on our faces, and a longer shadow yet on the path that loomed before us. No one spoke.
And this time, there were no walking songs to lift our capsized spirits, already forgotten wrecks beneath the smothering blanket of the sea.
✶
Shivers crawled up and down my spine and I pulled my cloak tighter around my arms. My hood was drawn, and yet snow still found its way inside, melting into my shirt. I plodded forwards, the heavy snow rising all the way up my numb legs to my mid-thighs, acting like quicksand and holding us all back. We trudged further into the quarreling winds, whipping snow in every direction. I could hardly see ahead of me, Legolas' shape being the only thing I could clearly make out. The others were faint grey silhouettes, obscured by the curtain of snow that barred my vision. I focused my gaze on Legolas' back, the fact that he was there, that I could see him, giving me some comfort. Tiny crystals of snow clung to his hair, looking like stars scattered about in the yellow-sky of dawn.
I looked up. There was no colour - no yellows or blues, reds or pinks - to be seen in the sky. There was no sky to be seen at all, only a thick film of dancing white flecks separating it from my gaze. I'd never seen snow the likes of this before. Never felt the searing, agonizing bite of a substance so cold it felt hot. The blisteringly freezing wind bit at my ruby-red cheeks, punctured my lungs, stung my throat like acid. But still, we pressed on. My feet had long since become numb, and my legs had quickly fallen suit, but still, I forced them to move.
On my back, Sam weighed me down, the heat of his body the only warmth I received. Each of the hobbits was being carried above the snow. If they hadn't been, it would likely reach up to their stomachs, perhaps even chests. But I was in no mood to complain about the only heat source for miles around on my back. Though a scanty heat source it was. We continued on. And suddenly, my ears perked up, having caught a sound carried by the screeching wind. A deep, chanting voice bellowed out, the baritone voice carried by the air. A vile voice, one that knotted my stomach.
"There is a foul voice on the air," Legolas called over the howling wind.
"It's Saruman!" Gandalf belted just as a sickeningly loud crack drew our attention upwards.
Rocks - boulders bigger than carriages - tumbled over the mountainside with deadly cracks and crunches as they struck the walls of the mountain, plummeting to the ground. We made for the innermost rocky wall of the mountain, and I pulled Sam along with me, shielding him with my body as the rocks just narrowly passed us by, creating a sickening creak and rumble in the mountain.
"He's trying to bring down the mountain!" Aragorn said from in front of me, "Gandalf, we must turn back!"
I swiveled around to look behind us. The path over with we'd trod only moments ago was nearly invisible beneath the heavy snow that had already fallen atop it. We'd less chance of going back and managing to survive than we had going forward. But nonetheless, we had to make a decision. Now. Before Saruman succeeded in bringing down the mountain, and us along with it.
"No!" Gandalf refused, moving closer to the cliff's edge, and chanting back at the voice that attacked us from the clouds.
I, in turn, drew closer to the group, feeling unsafe at the tail end. With a sudden surge of power, the grey clouds above us were swept away by foul black ones. Turbulent storm clouds brought about by the voice in the air broiled above us, brewing a brutal attack on us inside its tumultuous dark mass. And all at once, a crack, louder than its precedents, rang out, echoing off the mountains. A bolt of lightning jarred through the film of snow and ice, blighting through the air until it met the peak of the mountain, releasing snow from its bed, and sending it plummeting down on top of us. I threw myself and the hobbit up against the mountain's wall, positioning myself so that I shielded him. Sam cried out, and then Gandalf, but before anyone else could so much as breathe, we were buried in countless feet of heavy white snow.
I gasped for breath under the snow, surprised that I could still suck oxygen into my lungs from beneath it, although it felt as though I was breathing through a rag. My whole body felt frozen, both in cold and under the crushing weight. There was nothing I could see but blackness, the snow ensuring that no light reached my eyes.
Then I felt Sam move beside me, and I knew I had to act fast, or else we'd both remain trapped beneath the snow. Above us, the muffled voices of the group just barely pierced through the snow and reached my ears. Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, the hobbits. I heard them all, their voices panicked and loud as they frantically dug through the snow to reach us. I fought with the weight that was pinning me down, digging at the snow with my hands to no avail. I felt a sick hopelessness spill over me. And then a light broke through the darkness that encased me, and with it, the howling of the wind through the muted silence, and I felt a firm grip wrap around my wrist.
It pulled me up, and my head broke through the surface of the snow. My eyes adjusted to the brilliant grey light to meet Legolas' pale face. He wrapped a strong arm under my own arms, pulling me up so that I was entirely freed from the snow, seated against him, my back pressed up against his chest. Beside me, Boromir extracted Sam from the snow. Legolas gave a soft and reassuring nod, and it was then that I realized how tightly I gripped his forearm. Then that I realized I'd thought that had been the end. That I was going to die.
I cursed myself for my persistent fear - It was truly no wonder that my group found me a liability - I was in a constant state of anxiety over every little thing we faced. I was a pitiful excuse for a member of the Fellowship. I was no hero. Heroes weren't scared. Not like this. And here I was, shaking in my boots over a bit of snow. I scoffed at myself, releasing the elf's arm, placing my hand instead on Sam's shoulder, offering it a gentle squeeze. He nodded back at me reaching a hand up and laying it to rest over top of mine.
"We must get off the mountain!" Boromir shouted over the furious wind that still whipped snow in every direction, "Make for the Gap of Rohan, and take the West road to my city!"
"The gap of Rohan takes us too close to Isengard!" Aragorn responded.
"We'd be waltzing directly into Saruman's grasp!" I added, my voice hoarse, "We could continue on through Caradhras, the path back is no more dangerous than the one forward!"
"We cannot pass over the mountain! Saruman would find we were alive within a matter of hours and finish what he started, only this time we may not survive it!" Aragorn's raucous voice carried over the wind.
"If we cannot pass over the mountain, let us go under it." Gimli growled, "Let us go through the mines of Moria."
As we'd grown accustomed to, our gazes instantly looked towards Gandalf, our group's unproclaimed leader. His troubled eyes reminded me of the ocean back home, its waves tossed about by an angry wind on a stormy day. He pondered for a moment, before fixing his own eyes on Frodo.
"Let the ring-bearer decide," he said.
A look of fear crossed the hobbit's face as he stared right back into Gandalf's eyes, his brow heavily furrowed, incredulous as to why the decision had been thrust upon him. Fearful that it was he that would decide the group's ultimate fate. The same sort of fear that was constantly badgering the back of my mind, I noticed, reflected itself in Frodo's silvery irises.
"Frodo?" Gandalf said, and the young hobbit swallowed back his qualms.
"We will go through the mines," Frodo answered, his eyes still round and fearful, but somehow still steadfast.
A sort of grimness introduced itself into Gandalf's expression, but he nodded his head. Snow clung to his long beard and his bushy brows that stuck out past the brim of his hat, the pulsing vibrancy of the snow illuminating his cool blue eyes that appeared a sickly pale. And suddenly, his voice cut through the air and the snow that was suspended in it.
"So be it,"
✶
"And when you pass through its threshold, you'll see a place the likes of which you've never seen before," Gimli swooned, "Cavern walls bedecked with intricate patterns that rise hundreds of feet above your head, so high that you can't even see the cavern's roof. Pillars of stone that spiral up into the arched ceiling. Halls that span for acres upon acres. And they call it a mine! The Halls of Durin, a mine, if you can believe it!" he chuckled, sporting the widest smile that stretched from ear to ear.
We'd yet to reach the mines of Moria, and yet I'd already learned so much about it through Gimli's intricate painting of its portrait through vivid description. It was obvious he valued Moria like no other place in all of Middle Earth, after all, he was a dwarf of his people, and this was perhaps the pinnacle of their efforts. The greatest dwarven settlement to have ever existed.
"You speak of it so highly, dwarf, one might forget what it truly is, a cave in the mountainside," Legolas remarked slyly from in front of us.
And with that one comment, the two of them were off, engaged in a fight that would last us until Mordor. I rolled my eyes, having learned that there was no use trying to talk them out of their petty squandering. Instead, I fell back with the rest of the group, falling into step beside Gandalf. He nodded in greeting, releasing a grunt that I interpreted as a hello.
"We'll stop and make camp when dusk falls," he broke the fragile silence, "We'll have arrived in Moria come this time tomorrow."
I nodded my head and noticed that the silence that reintroduced itself between us no longer felt comfortable as it had before, and I noted Gandalf's white grip on his staff, his troubled eyes. He was worried, though I couldn't quite tell why.
"You've done extensive research on the ring, haven't you, Gandalf?" I asked him.
He released a deep sigh, letting his eyes fall closed. It was only after a few moments had passed that he answered.
"Yes, I spent seventeen years researching the ring in Minas Tirith," he spoke with an air of fatigue.
"And while you were researching," I pressed on," Did you come across any accounts of anyone who felt, I don't know, repulsed, if you will, by the ring?"
"In the years since its creation, it has passed from its master, to Isildur, to Smeagol, and then from him, to Bilbo, and then Frodo. In the possession of each of its owners, the ring has brought with it only one emotion, Elena, and that is greed. And nothing but."
"You mean to say that no one has felt a sense of repulsion towards the ring?" I asked.
"I don't know why you felt the way you did towards the ring, Elena. Truly, I don't," he replied breathlessly, "I don't."
I didn't answer, feeling a sense of curious dread hanging over me like the black clouds over Mordor. What was wrong with me? What provoked that sort of reaction to the ring inside of me, and more importantly, would it hurt anyone if it came back? If it was worse? I surely hoped not. For now, all I could do was heed Aragorn's advice, and stay away from the ring.
"Best to drop the matter, Elena, there is nothing to be gained but foul anxiety from troubling over it," Gandalf echoed my own thoughts.
"I suppose you're right," I said.
We marched on again in relative silence - relative because of the bickering that persisted between the dwarf and the elf at the front of the group. A gruff insult from the dwarf, a witty retort from the elf, a moment of peaceful silence, and then another snide comment to get the ball rolling full-force once again.
It was a welcome relief when we at last stopped to make camp and the two were tasked with busy work designed to keep them quiet. We followed our regular ritual of sparking a fire, tying Bill off to a tree, gathering wood and setting up bedrolls around the designated camp area.
Gathering wood was an especially difficult task here, where the lands were barren. So, Gimli, Legolas, and I lumbered off into the marshes to cut some branches from what scanty trees we might find.
Our odd group existed only because of this series of events; Legolas had been assigned the task of getting wood. He needed an axe. He asked to borrow Gimli's. Gimli refused to give his axe to an elf with an angry grunt and an I'd rather die. Legolas refused to let Gimli do the job he'd been assigned, so they both paired off to find wood. Lastly, Gandalf ordered me to oversee them so neither ended up dead. And so, there we were, knee deep in marshes, searching for a tree.
As we waded through the water, Gimli abruptly sunk into a particularly deep spot, and Legolas and I had to pull him out by his arms. He growled when the elf touched him.
"Stubborn dwarf," Legolas spat.
"What was that, elf?" the dwarf returned.
"Only that you should leave jobs like these to those more capable of handling them."
"No one in the Fellowship can handle an axe as I can, master elf," Gimli said.
"Yes, but the majority of the Fellowship is a fair bit taller than you."
"You blasted-" he huffed, "Fine then, take the bloody axe and chop down a tree."
He gave the axe with obvious reluctance to me, making sure to eye Legolas as he did so. Then he lumbered back off towards the camp, straining to avoid the deep areas. Legolas and I pressed on.
"You're too cold to him," I said after a moment.
"No more cold than he deserves," Legolas responded.
"Not quite so kind as he deserves, being your friend."
"That dwarf is not my friend," Legolas said.
"If you say so."
We continued on, the sounds of the others talking just barely reached our ears, the most prominent sound being that of the disturbed water as we sliced our way through it. At last, my eyes settled on a mangled looking tree in the distance, and I approached it, Legolas following closely behind.
"Careful, the bark looks tough," he said, "Do you want me to do it?"
I shot him a glare, and he raised his hands defensively. Rolling my eyes and steadying the axe, I took a swing at the base of one of the tree's many twisting limbs. I bit back a yelp, as a stinging pain reverberated off of the axe and up into my arms. Sighing, I tried to free the axe from where it'd been wedged into the tough black wood, finding that it wouldn't shift so much as an inch. I looked back at Legolas who sported an I-told-you-so kind of look on his face, brows raised and mouth upturned in grin. I huffed, turning back to the axe lodged deeply into the wood. Legolas made to grab it, but I swatted his hand away.
Giving the axe one more firm tug, I released it from the wedge, but with such abruptness that I stumbled backwards and into Legolas, the weapon flying overhead and plunging into the water. The force of our collision sent us both sprawling backwards and into the murky water of the marshes, and my head plunged below its surface for a split second. I pulled myself up using Legolas' shoulder, and my eyes met Legolas' cocked brow and smirk. Somehow he'd managed to keep his head above water, and he now looked down at me, who was planted uncomfortably close, hands on his shoulders, and legs tangled up with his like the limbs of the tree.
"If trying to drown me is your way of apologizing, you need to reevaluate your methods, princess," he said, and I felt his hands, ever so subtly, wrap around my waist.
His smirk vanished, replaced by something else, and we stared at each other for a long moment, still tangled together and halfway submerged in water. And suddenly my face was consumed in a fiery blush when I snapped back to reality, pushing away from Legolas, and stumbling back into the icy water. A smirk once again teased at his lips.
"The axe," I said, plunging my hands into the water, "We need to find the axe."
He chuckled, but soon joined me in the search. It wasn't long before my fingers grazed the smooth polished surface of a blade.
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