3. A Kind of Heavensent Gollum

[The Pilot]

And so after the two riders left Rivendell, they came to the southernmost part of the river Loudwater (also known as Bruinen to the Elves), and rode alongside it. The river ran low, Lauren guessed, because it was summer, and the blazing sun that beat on their backs helped further prove this. And wearing leather didn’t help. At all.

After about an hour the path they were following bent sharply to the left and up a steep hillside. They stopped and Lauren got out her map, and shoved it back in her pack with a growl.

"The map isn’t detailed enough to show the stupid paths," she stated with frustration.

"I think the horses can make it up the hill," Nicole said after studying the incline for a moment.

"You think so? If not, we can blaze another trail straight ahead... as long as we stay in the shadow of the mountain, we’ll be fine."

Miril neighed.

"I think she wants to try the hill," Nicole said, and patted Thinroch’s head. "What about you? Want to try the path?" Thinroch snorted and pawed the ground. "I think we should try it before we waste the afternoon picking our way through the brush."

"Alright. You go first."

Nicole gently dug the heels of her shoes into Thinroch’s sides and he trotted up the path. It took some effort to get past the steepest part, but once they were at the top, Nicole shouted down to Lauren. "The path is even up here and it goes for a long time. I’m sure Miril will be able to make it easier than Thinroch."

Lauren sighed, and spoke to Miril in her ear. "If you get a little bit of a start, it might be easier to get up that hill," she said and the horse shook her head wildly. Lauren didn’t need to squeeze the horse to get her moving. Miril had a mind of her own, but she wasn’t wild and wayward. She got herself into a good canter before speeding up the path on the hill with seemingly less effort than Thinroch.

"See? It’s wasn’t too steep. C’mon it’s probably almost four already, and we probably have another four hours to go before sundown if it’s summer."

Lauren nodded and Miril began to trot beside Thinroch when Nicole got him moving again. "Let’s see... four hours won’t get us close to any landmark, but in around two or maybe three days, we should be getting close to the base of the mountains," she predicted, pointing to the bleak rocky wall that reared itself up about thirty miles ahead of them. "But I’m sure we can make at least ten miles today, if the horses keep up this pace."

It was at around dusk when their path veered down to the right again, down a moderate decline into a valley carved out by one of the branches of Loudwater as it scurried down from the Misty Mountains. Now in that small cleft in between two forested hills it was relatively grassy, and Lauren jumped off of Miril’s back to let her graze, somehow knowing that she wouldn’t run off. The horse happily drank from the river at the bank, and continued to munch on the lush grass. Nicole did the same, again without hurt to her dignity.

"How can you get on and of your horse so perfectly when you’re wearing a freaking dress? You aren’t even riding side-saddle!" Lauren complained. So far, though her horse was very well tempered, mounting and dismounting had been little more than an ordeal for her; and she was wearing pants.

"It’s because I’m an elf, remember?" She smiled sweetly, but there was a mocking look behind the grin.

"I’ll deal with your and your ever-growing prissiness later!" she shouted as she jumped from rock to rock across the river to get to the taller hill on the other side. Lauren wanted to get a look around. Perhaps in the morning, she would be able to see as far south as Hollin. She remembered coming back from her Aunt’s house in the mountains, and being able to see Catalina Island far off in the gross, hazy distance. That was sixty, seventy, miles perhaps? And with sickeningly huge amounts of smog choking the air as well. And Hollin was... almost fifty and one hundred miles away.

"Oh great..." Lauren muttered to herself on the hill. "Now I’m thinking like them."

She stood there on the hilltop for as long as she could, and watched the sun bleed in the western sky until all grew dark. Then she made her way back down and across the river to find Nicole sitting on a rock with the horses. She had a small fire going.

"How the hell did you pull that off?" Lauren demanded.

Nicole looked up and smirked. "Looks like our friend Glorfy snuck a few things into our packs along with the dog biscuits and apples." She held up a long knife and it glittered in the orange blaze of the fire, and a bedroll.

"But that doesn’t answer my question.."

"He slipped a tinderbox into my pack. What’s in yours?" She gestured to Lauren’s pack still clinging to Miril’s back. Lauren walked over and emptied it onto the grassy ground. Root beer... CD player... batteries... food... bedroll...

"What’s this?" Lauren pulled out a small pouch from among the pile of things. It was a deep velvet bag with a drawstring; and she opened it, pulling out a small piece of paper. She read it out loud:

"Use in the terrible and unlikely event that wound or illness should befall one of your small company.
-Glorfindel"

[/i]

"What d’you suppose that means?" Nicole asked, munching on a piece of bread.

"I don’t know.." Lauren turned the bag upside down, an it’s contents emptied onto her hand. It was four long sprigs of some sort of plant. The leaves were small, and it bore tiny pale blue flowers on each sprig. "Here. Smell this." She handed one to Nicole, who took it gingerly.

"It smells like rosemary or thyme, or something like that." She handed it back.

Lauren stuffed the plants and note into the pouch and drew the strings tight. "Maybe they’re for healing?"

"Maybe. What else do you have in there?"

"Well, a small wad of linen bandages to go I guess with the healing herbs... and..." she sifted through the stuff a little more. "Hey, look! I got a knife too." She held up the folded steel blade that was barely eight inches long, and placed it in it’s small sheath.

"Awesome. Glorfindel is my favorite elf now. By far," Nicole said, finishing the bread.

"Yea. No wonder Mika liked him so much. He was the kewlest." She fingered the knife a little bit, before thinking up a good place to put it. Grabbing her sword, she began to mess with the leather straps that were bound to the sheath that held it on her belt. Loosening them up a bit, she slid the sheath of the knife in between the straps and the sword sheath on the exterior, so it resembled Aragorn’s original sword. She stood up and showed it to Nicole by firelight. "Nifty, huh?"

Nicole gave her a thumbs-up sign. "Nice."

Lauren sat down, and silence crept over them, as well as a grey mist from the river. She looked into the dancing flames, and suddenly felt tired, and actually wanted to sleep. She wanted to ask Nicole if she was tired too.

"Dude."

"Hm."

"Are you tired?"

"Not really."

"I am."

"Really? I thought we don’t get tired."

"Yea. I know. But I’m like... wanting to go to sleep all of a sudden, even if it’s for like an hour."

"Hm. Go to sleep then."

"Will you watch the stuff?"

"Sure. The horses will help too."

"Alright."

"Good night."

"Night." Lauren unrolled her bedroll, which was little more than a thick wool blanket, laying it down on a relatively flat spot near the fire, and settled down on it. She soon drifted off into a light and peaceful sleep like a feather on the breeze as the chirping of the crickets filled her ears, and the warm night air filled her thoughts.

Lauren woke up from her little nap on the ground with a stiff neck, and looked up at the dome of glittering stars far above them. Just looking at the night sky so uncontaminated from the byproducts of technology made her want to contemplate the mysteries of the universe again. She looked over the dying embers of the fire to where Nicole was, but she had fallen asleep too and was curled up in a pitiful little ball on the ground. Both horses were asleep as well. Just as she was going to have another go at the sleep gig, she heard something on the other hill across the way. Thinroch began to get up, but Lauren whispered for him to stay put, and he settled back down again. Those horses were smart.

Lauren grabbed her sword, and tried really hard not to make any noise with it as she slowly pulled it from it’s sheath. For some reason, it wanted to make more noise than usual. She crept over to where Nicole lay and shook her to wake up. Nicole moaned and turned over, so Lauren had to resort to kicking her to get up.

"Ow!" she said loudly.

Lauren clasped her hand over Nicole’s mouth. "Shhh!" she hissed, and removed it.

"What is it?" Nicole whispered.

"I don’t know... something’s over there... hear it?" They both remained still and quiet for a moment when they heard something walking on the underbrush not too far away. As they listened harder, Lauren heard it grumbling quietly to itself.

Nicole swore in panic, and went to grab her little knife.

"Nono... you stay here. I’ll go see what it is."

Nicole eyed Lauren as if she had finally snapped.

"I’ll be careful, and I’ve got a sword. That alone will keep it a few feet away from me."

"Fine."

Lauren slowly stood up and crept around the fire and to the bank of the river. She peered out into the darkness, but saw nothing save for the vague silhouettes of trees on the other side. She heard it again, and cursed in her head. It was at times like those that she wished she had a ranged weapon to scare her enemies out of the bushes. All she could do now was wait. Come to think of it, waiting in the bushes wasn’t so bad an idea, so Lauren crouched down behind a hedge and waited some more.

As her eyes became more accustomed to the dark, she could barely see the trees on the other side, but something else was there. It was barely lighter than the rest of the landscape; white perhaps, as it stumbled towards the riverbank and began picking it’s way across the ford. What was it? Her question would soon be answered.

The thing made it’s way to the closer shore, and in the faint glow of the dying fire, Lauren could see that it was a person. Without hesitation, she leapt out from her hiding spot at the person, pinning them to the ground with the tip of her sword inches away from their neck. Sounds familiar?

"What the hell!" the person shouted. It was a guy. He tried pushing Lauren off him, but no avail; he would just end up getting his own throat slit in the process. "Get off me!"

It took Lauren a moment before realizing that the voice was familiar, but Nicole beat her to it.

"Quinn!" she yelled. "What in the bloody hell are you doing here!"

"Tell us quick," Lauren snarled. "Or I’ll leave you for the carrion birds."

"I’ll tell you when you get off me," he said poisonously.

With hesitation, Lauren let Quinn go, but she didn’t sheath her sword. He stood up and brushed himself off.

"Your explanation had better be good, or we’ll hand you over to the Elves and let the DERIF deal with you," Nicole spat.

"I thought I was going to be left for carrion birds?" he said wryly.

"The DERIF’s much worse. You’ll get hauled out of Middle-earth for good."

"I don’t think so," Quinn said, folding his arms. "Gabriel HIMSELF gave me permission to come here."

"Oh yea? Well we answer to another holy system," Nicole replied.

"What are you talking about? God rules all worlds; even Middle-earth."

"Nope." Lauren shook her head. "Eru and the Valar have reign here, you moron."

"Well, that doesn’t matter anyways. I can’t leave until I get what I came for."

"Oh no..." Nicole griped. "You are NOT getting any coffee, Quinn."

"And why not! I refuse to live out the rest of eternity without my Starbucks!"

"You want Starbucks? Then you can go back and march all the way back to Riven-" Nicole said, but was interrupted by a kick in the shin from Lauren.

"There’s only one Starbucks in Middle-earth Quinn, and that’s near Esgaroth," Lauren finished with a devious smile, remembering how the Starbucks was little more than five hours walk away from where they were right then and there. "In Lake-Town to be precise." Nicole muffled a snicker.

Quinn glared at them. "Oh? And how far away is that?"

Lauren whipped out her map and eyed the distance from where they were to the Lonely Mountain, which was close enough. "I’d say... oh, around 350 miles North-East-East?"

"What!" was all they got from him.

Nicole laughed. "Since neither of us are going that way, and you don’t know where the hell you are or are going, looks like you’re stuck."

Quinn clenched his teeth in raw anger but said nothing.

"Well, Nicole, looks like the horses are all rested up. Wanna hit the road again? We have a long ways to go before we get to the Gap of Rohan," Lauren said, sheathing her sword and turning from Quinn. The horses took that as a cue to get up and shake the sleep off like morning dew. She put her pile of things that had been emptied onto the ground back into the bag, but picked one more thing off of the ground before strapping it back onto the horse. She tossed it to Quinn. "Fill that up in the river and pour it on the fire, will you?"

Quinn gave one last glare before storming off to the bank to fetch some water.

"What was that?" Nicole asked.

"A cup. One last gift from Glorfindel the Awesome."

Nicole nodded as she began to roll up her bedroll. "What are we going to do about him?"

Lauren sighed. "I really don’t know. Wearing that white robe of his won’t do us any good; it’ll grab the attention of anything that’s near us in the woods, and that could mean orcs too."

"You’re saying that he’s going to come with us?" Nicole asked sharply.

"What else are we going to do? He said he can’t leave until he get’s his coffee. But maybe that’s him just being stupid."

"I heard that!" Quinn said as he came back to their little area. "And it’s true. I can’t go back to heaven unless I get what I came for. Those Archangels have you make weird promises."

"Why would they make you do that!" Lauren complained. "Don’t they realize what exactly you were asking of them? Are they not aware at ALL of how things work here?"

Quinn shrugged. "Guess not."

"Well you can’t go prancing around in that white robe of yours. You need some smelly, dirty traveling clothes while you’re in Middle-earth," Nicole said, and flung him her cloak. "Don’t think I’m being generous. It’s for our own good. I don’t need it anyways."

Quinn gave them a questionable look, but put on the cloak without a word. "So is the nearest Starbucks seriously 350 miles away?" he asked.

"No, but Lake-town is. It’s actually about five hour’s walk back that way," Lauren said, and pointed in a western direction towards Rivendell.

"Then I’ll just go get one and you guys can go on your ‘merry’ way!" he said.

"One problem." Nicole folded her arms. "They can’t see you like that."

"And why not? Seeing an angel should light up their eyes in this ridiculous place."

"Because angels don’t exist here, you buttwipe," Lauren said flatly. "They don’t know about the other fandoms, and just keeping track of all the dead Lord of the Rings fans in their blissful afterlife is enough for this little world." She told him in brief of what the guidelines in the pamphlet were. When she was done, Quinn stood there in silence.

"You had no idea what you were getting yourself into, huh?" Nicole said mockingly.

All he did was glare at her, and dump the contents of the cup onto the smoldering fire. They quickly learned how dark the world got without city lights.

[The Pilot]

After the fire was out, the real challenge lay in mounting up. Even though horses could see just about as well as humans could in the dark, Lauren asked Miril to find somewhere that would make mounting easier anyways. After scrambling onto the horse's back via nearby rock, Nicole decided it was a good idea and did the same.

"You know? I think I'm getting the hang of this," Lauren announced to no one in particular as she adjusted herself in the Elvish saddle. She heard Quinn mumble a few indistinct syllables that she assumed to be a complaint. "Don't be such a ninny, Quinn. Walking is good for you."

Even though it was completely dark save for a faint silver glow behind the mountains, she could tell he was glaring at her. She simply glared back, and he replied with some sort of snide remark that Lauren never caught. Her attention had shifted from him to a strange sort of glow that she barely saw in the gloom. At first she wasn't completely sure that it was actually there, and if it was just her eyes playing tricks on her in the darkness, but the more she looked at him, the more the luminescence seemed to shine where the cloak wasn't covering him up. "I think you need to wrap that cloak around you a bit tighter, Quinn."

"What?" His voice was devoid of patience.

Nicole cleared her throat as a sign that she knew what Lauren was talking about. That was a reassuring thought; now Lauren knew that if she WERE crazy, at least she wasn't the only one.

"Cover yourself up more." She restated her command in simpler words.

"Why? It's too hot to completely wrap this thing around me."

"Just do it, Quinn," Nicole said finally.

"Fine. But the least you can do is to tell me why."

"Because you're, uh..." Nicole began. "You're glowing."

Since it was nighttime, Lauren could only imagine what his facial expression was right then. He lifted his hand and looked at it in the dark for a moment, and put it down with what looked to be a smirk on his face. "So I am."

"Yes, you are. And like we've said twice already, cover yourself up more or else you had better not cry when you find out you've been ditched if we're attacked." Lauren wished he would just wrap the freaking thing up tighter so they could get going. Both her and Nicole had hundreds of miles to go, and the first day of their journey wasn't even over yet.

"Attacked? Do you seriously think that those orc things are really going to kill us? That is if there are any left."

"Oh, don't you worry, Quinn. There are plenty left to go around. Just because Sauron's empire has been destroyed, that doesn't mean his lackeys have resorted to arranging flowers and sipping tea." Thinroh snorted in agreement.

"So in that case," Lauren said. "You need to hide your 'inner radiance' and start walking or we'll leave without you."

"Fine."

"And no complaining either. You brought this upon yourself."

"FINE. Any other things I'm not allowed to do before I'm dealt one of your many consequences?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Lauren said wryly, and took a deep breath. "No complaining, no whining, no crying, no insulting our religion, no escaping, no griping, no scheming, no stealing, no questioning our decisions, no talking bad about Lord of the Rings..." She took another breath. "No running off, no making excessive amounts of noise, no talking, no thinking, and no favors."

"It that all?"

"Uhm... yea. Yea, that's it."

"Are we all done bickering for tonight now?" Nicole said impatiently. Lauren had almost forgotten that she was even there. "Because, like you said Lauren, we have a freaking long ways to go."

"I'm all set," she replied, patting her ansy horse.

"And how are we supposed to see?" Quinn asked.

"If you pay more attention to your surroundings rather than how horseless you are, you would notice that an almost full moon is rising," Nicole said, pointing to the silver glow behind the mountains. Apparently, whilst they were arguing, the glow had given birth to a rather large and bright fruit of Telperion, and He was rising quickly.

"Let's go, then!" Lauren said rather enthusiastically. For some reason, the rising moon had given her a sort of second wind. And with that she was off when Miril began to canter off across the ford and Thinroch closely followed. She looked back to see Quinn scuttling close behind Nicole, trying to keep his cloak on, keep up his speed, and trying not to fall in as he jumped from rock to rock, cursing and mumbling as he went. She had to bite her tongue to keep herself from laughing.

And so they continued on like that for about an hour, Miril and Lauren in front, Nicole and Thinroch in the middle, and Quinn in the rear. Miril just seemed to be having the time of her life, blazing the old path that hadn't been trodden on since the Fellowship themselves hiked on it most likely. The moon rose and Lauren could see more of the landscape around her: gray hills rising in the distance dotted with black stones and ancient walls that were overgrown with trees that bore rustling, silver leaves.

Lauren began to absentmindedly hum as she often did, but soon couldn’t help but break out into spontaneous song.

"I was movin’, and groovin’, and dancin’ to the beat, when someone behind meh, turned around and shouted ‘Pleh that faounkeh mewzic waat boy! Pleh that faounkeh mewzic riiite! Pleh that faounkeh mewzic waat boy... lay down the boogie and pleh that fonkey music ‘tiw you daai!"

"Till you die!" Nicole replied in the proper high-pitched disco-voice.

Lauren and Nicole burst into laughter, as Quinn walked behind, not quite understanding the inside joke. "Despite the fact that that was pretty good, I thought you said no excessive noise?"

"Only when we tell you," Lauren said.

"And I guess you can talk right now," Nicole added.

"Thank you for granting me permission, your Highnesses," he said sarcastically.

Lauren decided to try and be nicer. It was taking too much energy to continuously be rude and snappy towards Quinn, even though (from what she had heard) he was a bit... well, yea. Typical guy; grows faster but matures slower than chicks, so perhaps she should give him the benefit of the doubt and not take nature’s evolutionary mishaps out on him. She could do that, easy. "You’re welcome." Being polite was the first step, right? Right. Even if her reply was sincere, he scoffed to himself anyways.

And the three continued on like that for a very long time, hyperactively singing old seventies and early eighties songs until the first light of morning. Quinn even sang one that he knew. As the sky became stained with a pinkish orange, Lauren rode on to a hilltop about a half-mile ahead. When the other two joined her, it was dawn, and the trio proceeded to watch the sun rise.

"I think we’re halfway there. If we didn’t stop at all, I think we could make it to the foothills after nightfall," Lauren said, looking at the mountains again.

Quinn sat down on a rock and massaged his heel. "If I had known I’d be walking from one end of the world to the other, I would’ve asked Gabriel to grant me a pair of Nike’s. My feet hurt sooooo bad," he griped. Lauren felt a tad sorry for him, but found it a little amusing watching him suffer at the same time. She was a somewhat disappointed to see Nicole dismount (with grace) and stand there, seeming to wait for Quinn to say something. "Get on, you big oaf."

He glanced around nervously, and then got a strange look on his face. "Here? Now?" He pointed to the ground in front of him.

"Please, Quinn, don’t taunt me like that," Lauren said. Nicole and Quinn shot surprised and disgusted looks at her. "I’ve been trying to resist the temptation to beat the crap out of you for a while now, and you acting like this doesn’t help." Okay, so perhaps being nicer was harder that she first planned.

Both of them seemed to be somewhat relieved, and Nicole said flatly, "Get on the horse, you pansy."

"Oh." Dissed and dismissed!

He got on much easier than Lauren would ever have thought. She was now thoroughly convinced that horses and their saddles were unanimously against her.

As Lauren predicted, the second time, they reached the base of the mountains about an hour or two after dark. Quinn began to complain again at how much his feet hurt, after having to get off the horse at around noon and walk again. Lauren was beginning to regret ever bringing him along.

"At least he won’t go eating all of our food," Lauren said to Nicole in a hushed whisper as Quinn went to take a leak.

"I wouldn’t be so sure..."

As if on cue, Quinn came back to where they were situated. "I’m hungry."

Those two simple words made Lauren lose her cool for some reason. Maybe it was she thought that he still didn’t get it. She stood up and confronted him. "Look, ‘messenger of God’, we can’t give you any of our food. We only have so much Lembas left, and even that much will only last us until we get to Dunland if we eat one a day." Luckily she hadn’t eaten any yet. "After that we’ll have to either hunt, or ask for food if we run into anyone. But I refuse to ask anything of the Wild Men."

Quinn looked surprised, a little scared, and a little hurt. "What am I supposed to eat then?"

"I don’t know! You should think of this sort of thing before you go barging into other people’s fandoms."

Nicole, however, seemed to be thinking about something else. She quietly walked up to the two and put a finger to her lips to shut them up. She looked around the trees in the dark. "I think it would be a good idea if we were a little quieter," she said in a low voice.

Lauren knew what she was talking about. Exactly what she was talking about. She brushed aside her bangs and strained to see anything else through the trees, but her eyes saw nothing. Quinn wrapped himself up in the cloak and put the hood on to cover his light up more. "Anyone sleeping tonight?" Lauren whispered. She got a maybe from both of them. "Then I think we should start having watches." They nodded.

"What exactly is going on?" Quinn asked in a whisper as well.

"Being an angel, I would think that you could feel when you’re being watched and the like, Quinn," Lauren replied.

"...What do you mean?" Lauren could tell he was getting scared.

"Orcs, you dolt. Glorfindel told us to watch out for them if we were going to be traveling close to the mountains."

"Why are they here, though?"

"They’re everywhere," Nicole said. "But they’re dispersed, because (like we already said) Sauron and his posse of Nazgul are long gone."

"Oh."

Suddenly the horses came up to them and began to hurriedly nuzzle their owners. "And you need to stop asking questions, because it appears we have company." Lauren drew her sword and put her hood on. The three of them heard the stomping of many feet in the distance, and began to panic. "Alright... alright. I’ve got a plan," Lauren said quickly as Nicole and Quinn tried to scramble up the same horse. "We do like Bilbo and climb some trees so the orcs won’t see us if they’re coming this way."

"What about the horses?"

"We let them go, but they’ll come back when the danger is passed. Got it?"

"Yea."

"Yea."

"Now get going!" Lauren told the horses to come back when they whistled for them, but escape the orcs by whatever means. They nodded and ran off. She joined her companions in scrambling up two sturdy looking oak trees, and Lauren loaned Nicole her cloak to cover up the light colors of her robes. Quinn curled into a little ball on a wide branch, actually doing a pretty good job at being invisible. Lauren figured her ensemble was earthy-toned enough anyways.

The three of them waited in fearful silence high up in the trees as the pounding footsteps drew nearer, and harsh cries could be heard.

"What do we do if the horses don’t come back?" The muffled voice of Quinn could be heard a few branches away. He was answered with two harsh, yet quiet ‘SHUT UP!’s from the two girls.

Lauren listened as hard as her two still human ears could. Was it her, or did the feet seem to be moving away from them? "I think they might be going into the mountains..."

"Where into the mountains? Moria is still like a hundred miles away," Lauren heard Nicole whisper.

"I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound like they’re coming North anymore... more like East."

"Let’s just wait a little longer, okay?" Yep. Quinn was freaked out.

And so they waited, Lauren guessed for about fifteen more minutes. The thunderous footsteps had completely died away.

"Before we get down, let me see if I can see anything." Lauren proceeded to climb higher into the tree with the uttermost caution. Tree-climbing was very hard if you couldn’t see Jack squat. She reached the highest branch that could hold her, and poked her head out through the boughs. She looked Southward, and could see nothing except for the black mass that was the forest as far as she could see. Not even a faint glow of Rivendell could she spot when looking Westward. She climbed back down.

"What exactly were you looking for?" Nicole asked.

"Fires."

"Fires? Why fires?" She heard Quinn say.

"If they stopped instead of going into the mountains, they would have camped. And if they camped, they would’ve made a fire. And since I saw no such thing, they probably did go into the mountains as first was speculated."

"Right."

"Now let’s get down before we’re eaten alive by these gnats and mosquitos."

"Actually, guys, I don’t, uh, I don’t mind sleeping in a tree..." Quinn was not convinced that danger was past them.

"He really is a pansy, huh?" Lauren murmured to Nicole who nodded in agreement. "It’s fine now, Quinn. As long as you don’t fall and kill yourself (like I did) there’s nothing to worry about for the time being." She nimbly found her way down the tree, and whistled. Luckily Thinroch and Miril hadn’t gone too far off, noticing that the orcs were still a distance away.

"You can share a horse with me," Nicole said, approaching her mount. "We can’t afford to leave you behind if we need to make a quick getaway." They proceeded to get on as Lauren was already to go.

"It would be best if we stayed moving as long as any of us can take it, now that we know orcs are still abroad."

"Good point," Nicole said.

"Luckily we don’t get tired easily, and same with the horses."

"I don’t know if I get tired here, because I don’t get tired in heaven, but I got hungry here, and I don’t normally get hungry in heaven..." Quinn said.

"I guess we’ll have to ration out the food for one more person. That means no absentmindedly eating a whole wafer of Lembas every day, Nic."

"Fine."

"Alright. Let’s be off."

They were off yet again, but this time it didn’t seem like a good dream anymore. It was reality, or at least now it was, and she didn’t want to find out what happened to fans after they were slaughtered.

The night crept by in eerie silence as none of them dared to speak, in desperate hopes of passing by the group of orcs without being noticed. And it seemed to Lauren that it worked, for they reached morning without any harm. She had a quick meal of Lembas on the go, as did Nic and Masta Q.

And so they traveled like that for two days straight, and growing all the more comfortable again along the way, until by the closing of the second day they talked and sang again without fear of being heard by unfriendly ears.

"Hey, Nicole. Looks like your acne is clearing up finally," Lauren said as she chewed on a leaf.

"Really? That’s awesome. You know? Is it me, or is your hair longer than it was when we first died?"

"Hmm." Lauren brushed her bangs aside again. "I think you’re right. I never remembered having them grow past my eyes like this... d’you think it’s some side effect of the Changing Rooms?"

"It probably is," Quinn added. "I’ve noticed it. Your freckles are fading a little too."

"My freckles?" Lauren murmured. "I’ve always hated my freckles... but now that you tell me that they’re fading, I’d hate to see them go for good. I always thought I’d look terrible without them."

"You probably won’t notice much if it’s gradual like that," Nicole suggested.

"Eh, you’re probably right."

Suddenly Lauren felt something whistle past her right cheek, just barely grazing the skin. She jerked her head to the left, and spun around in the saddle. "The hell was... DUCK[/i]!" She shouted to Quinn and Nicole behind her as another arrow whizzed past them, barely missing Quinn. They heard something bark out an order in a horrible gnashing language from the trees behind them as four dark figures appeared in the green.

[Lady Hammer]

Hahaha, this is funny. Quinn's such an ass. :3

There was a lot of description going on and a lot of unnecessary adjectives and adverbs swimming around to trip me up, but I still had a good read.

[The Pilot]

Haha, don't worry. I get a little better in later chapters.