Chapter Seven

Cause once this land was heaven on earth,

green hills were all you could see,

but now it's soot and steal and brick

so it looks more like hell to me

– Penny Dreadful.

Mithrandir attempted to coax another demonstration of 'sorcery' from me.

He instructed me on ways to call forth the flame and when that didn't achieve results he made me meditate daily for hours after my training sessions with Prince Legolas. I was both physically and emotionally exhausted, but I hadn't created even a slither of heat that could be considered unusual.

After the initial failure of my serious meditation attempts, I used the time to rest; I often found myself drifting off into memories of my life Before – not clearing out the cockles of my mind.

"When it occurred during training it seemed to be because Lady Ravi's emotions were unusually heightened," Prince Legolas stated from his place against a tree, sharpening his knives as he watched Mithrandir's frustration mount.

I wanted to swear at Prince Legolas but it would only enable him to look at me from his perpetually high horse.

"Ah, well if you would," Mithrandir nodded at Prince Legolas. He rose to his feet and started to walk towards me.

"What? No I didn't sign up to this! Why is he looking at me like that?" I asked defensively, backing away at the predatory look on Prince Legolas' face.

It made me uncomfortable, but not solely in a fear inducing way. Though he was scary, he was also sinfully handsome.

He regarded me calculatingly as if trying to find the weakest point. "We will try some weapon-less fighting, that never ceases to illuminate your physical incompetence and cause emotional turmoil," he grinned, a challenging glint in his eyes.

"Oh you are so dead. Even if you are a prince – you're a gormless and mannerless one," I spat taking a swing at his perfect face. He ducked effortlessly, a quirk at the side of his lips as if he were enjoying this.

"Your common opinions mean little to me," he smirked slyly, sweeping my feet out from under me. I hit the ground hard, gasping for air.

"I have heard little of what you are the prince of – is it a festering dung heap? I doubt you would be able to manage much more of a kingdom than that," I seethed, taking a running leap to the left and taking a swinging kick at his side.

I didn't reach him and was on the ground again without even having seen him move.

"An Orc is more elegant and well spoken than you," he sneered, regarding me from my place on the ground at his feet.

"I have yet to meet an Orc. Do they look much like you? Oh! Now I know your affiliation, you are the Prince of Orcs!" I laughed, jumping to my feet.

"Enough! You are both no better than bickering children!" Mithrandir moved forward, splitting up what probably looked to be an imminent homicide scene – Prince Legolas' face was fearsome; if looks could kill, I would already be twitching at his feet.

Mithrandir stated he would try a different tactic. Prince Legolas stood to the side watching, arms crossed and a distinctly more chilling glare on his handsome features than at the start of the day. I had the sinking feeling I would be in terminal amounts of pain tomorrow from my training.

Mithrandir gathered a pile of leaves and bracken and placed them in the dirt. At his request, Legolas gathered some bigger pieces of wood. I had a bad feeling about what they were doing, but couldn't help but be distracted by the sight of Prince Legolas bending over and lifting heavy looking logs effortlessly. He quirked an eyebrow arrogantly when he caught me staring.

Without explaining his new angle Mithrandir cast a fire onto the wood and leaves.

"Do you feel an infinity for the flames, Lady Ravi?" Mithrandir asked, his eyes holding mine.

I looked into the fire, the colours mesmerising me. "No," I frowned, "I don't understand what you are trying to prove."

"Place your hands in the flame," Mithrandir demanded.

I looked at Mithrandir, with both eyebrows raised, waiting to see him chortle and say he was joking. He only continued to look more vehement as the minutes ticked on.

I finally spoke, attempting to reason with the insane wizard, whilst wishing I had a more reasonable wizard looking after my welfare – someone like Dumbledore, who rather than asking Harry to do something like put his hands in the fire, would have guided him to those decisions through inaction and manipulation. In the end Harry still made those decisions on his own – more or less. "Er look, I've done a lot of reckless things in my short life, you know, like swimming naked in the river, sending Mr Smith crazy by re-arranging his garden gnomes, but even I am not gullible enough to stick my hands into fire."

"Is this wise Mithrandir? The last thing we need is to lose valuable training time because of a loss of hand function," Prince Legolas said dryly.

I nodded furiously, "I would be even more incompetent on the journey – definitely a bad idea."

"To produce fire, you must be immune to fire," Mithrandir gestured me forward with a tap of his staff to my back.

I stumbled forward; the bat shit crazy old man had a little more oomph than I thought possible.

I gingerly placed a pinky finger towards the flame, holding Prince Legolas' gaze. He looked tense, but beyond that I couldn't discern any emotions beyond his cold disposition.

The heat didn't hurt so I placed the tip of my finger within the flame, only to feel a pleasant sensation. With a wave of Mithrandir 's staff, the flames roared larger engulfing my arm too quickly for me to pull back. I watched in morbid awe as the sleeve of my cotton shirt disintegrated under the heat of the flame, but all I felt was warmth.

It was as if I was within a trance – I wanted to be within that fire which burnt so brightly, as if it were calling to me with its luminescence.

"Why don't you step forward, you have never been afraid of a little heat before," he whispered, his voice rich and heady.

The flames roared taller and wider, and rather than try to escape I took a step forward and let it engulf me, hearing a yell beyond the hiss and crackle of the raw heat.

I opened my eyes, trying to gather my bearings. Had I really just thrown myself from the frying pan into the fire? Like literally?

But all I saw was the cliff face I had visited once before, which held the auburn crowned god with the deep sapphire eyes.

On this day, the sun was at its peak, the sheer heat seeming to beat down upon him. His auburn hair was matted and dulled by crusted blood, his eyes blood shot and his mouth chapped, the corners filled with white mucous. He looked to me with yearning, pain weathering deep marks in his face. He gasped, the sound seeming to cost him dearly, "water, please."

I staggered forward, realising I held a bowel of water in my hands, nearly sloshing it in shock. I held it to his lips.

"How can I free you?" I asked, my words warbling with emotion. I didn't know this man, but I felt like I did.

He paused in his desperate swallows, turning his sharp eyes to me, his neck cracking from the strain of the angle. His face was empty of all emotion, even the pain.

"You need not, already I am nothing more than bone and amber," he whispered, his words hollow and lifeless.

I awoke with a sharp breath, realising I was being jostled in none other than Prince Legolas' arms, what looked to be his cloak wrapped around me.

I didn't know what to be more mortified about, the fact that I felt naked under Legolas' cloak, the fact that he would have seen me naked – more naked than when he first picked me up from the back of burke, or that I was in his very strong and capable arms.

His profile was very becoming from this angle and distance. I felt like I had gained front row seats to my own perve show.

Mithrandir walked next to us. "What happened?" I set my angry gaze on him first.

"What I expected, it seems," he spoke, his eyes in the distance as if trying to work out the inner mysteries of the world.

"What does your confirmed expectations tell us?" I asked, my voice slow and sharp. I could easily see myself committing wizardcide. He was infuriating.

"I do not yet know," he murmured before he walked off into a different direction.

"Argh!" I yelled, forgetting I was in Prince Legolas' arms.

"Wizards rarely show their hand, they have a great deal of pressure on their shoulders, especially in these dark times," he spoke.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked, trying to calm myself down, knowing that Prince Legolas' arms, while very beautiful, were like steal traps and wouldn't allow me to escape on my mission to slay the wizard with my bare hands.

"To see Lord Elrond," he spoke, raising an eyebrow at my poorly concealed anger and murderous intentions.

"I can walk," I growled. He didn't comment but let me down with what I would consider only mild exasperation. "Annnnd I'm not going to see Lord Elrond!" I said before darting away.

His face instantly went all code black on me.

I ran – struggling to keep the cloak from billowing open and flashing some poor innocent elf – and the hallway was unfamiliar, the sound of my pursuer's boots closing in behind me.

As I rounded the corner I nearly ran over a redheaded dwarf – "Gimli!" I yelped, "You have to help me!"

He instantly became alert, like a fox honing in on a rabbit, "What is it lass?" he yelled, probably expecting a hoard of Orcs chasing me from the way I was reacting.

I moved behind him as Prince Legolas stopped before us, "Prince Legolas is trying to abduct me and take me to Lord Elrond against my will!" I scrambled, hoisting his cloak more tightly around me, as it slipped down my shoulders.

"Are you really doing this Lady Ravi? You are acting worse than a child," he spat, coming to a halt in front of Gimli.

"A child? Mithrandir pretty much tried to roast me like a piece of mutton and and –" I realised with horror that I was naked and that meant my Kulani bikini, my only possession from my world, had been roasted in the fire.

I broke down, tears bubbling over my cheeks and keening wails churning from my mouth, transforming Prince Legolas' and Gimli's fearsome countenances into that of poorly veiled unease so quickly, they probably suffered from whiplash.

"Ye made the lass cry!" Gimli roared, looking to Prince Legolas accusingly.

"I will not be held accountable for her seemingly constant emotional outbursts!" Prince Legolas seethed, gritting his teeth.

"My bikini got incinerated in the fire! That was the only object I had from my home!" I gasped in between tears.

Prince Legolas' eyes caught my own, "you mourn that slip of pink material we found you in?" he asked incredulously.

"Wouldn't you if it was the only possession from the home you would never be able to see again?" I moaned.

"No, I would likely mourn my horrific judgement if it was the only object I thought to bring," he said callously, staring me down. In general Prince Legolas was a formidable sight, but when he fixed me with his gaze for any prolonged period of time it made me feel overexposed.

I couldn't think of anything biting enough to throw back at him other than a fist to his perfectly masculine and alluring face, but he wouldn't allow me even that small triumph.

So I spun on my heel and walked away, hoping Gimli would block him from following me.

The next day I was granted a reprieve from training with Prince Legolas, which I had tossed and turned all night dreading.

Mithrandir had wanted to spend more time attempting to invoke my 'talents'.

But to everyone who was present – Mithrandir, Lord Elrond, Prince Legolas and Lord Glorfindel's – building frustrations, I couldn't even summon a flicker of flame.

Mithrandir got me to place my hands in flame and attempt to take them with me when I moved, but it only happened once when the flame caught the fabric of my shirt alight. Once the fabric was burnt away, the flame didn't move with me at all.

"Maybe as long as I have enough burnable fabric or tinder strapped to me I can become a human torch to assist with lighting our way?" I asked innocently, covering my mounting frustrations with sarcasm, which none of them seemed to get.

The silence following my extremely helpful idea was tense. It was broken by a rider reaching us. He pulled up beside Lord Elrond and spoke quickly with him in elvish.

Lord Elrond turned to the others, cutting me out of their circle, and started a conversation in elvish.

I crossed my arms and sighed. They stood in a loose circle in their little mother's club, all with hair much longer and more lustrous than my own – even Mithrandir.

Finally, they broke apart. Lord Elrond gave me the short version, obviously intimidated by my pissy glare, "the scouts have returned and are able to give us a detailed information on the routes. The fellowship will leave in the next few days to make the most of the report."

Lord Elrond turned back to the others and I allowed my face to morph into my signature wrinkled nose grimace, which I wiped from my face when I noticed Prince Legolas watching me.

Read and Review!

Thanks so much for all the lovely reviews for last chapter! They mean a lot to me :)

I'm sorry for the lateness of the chapter, I had some personal stuff going on and lost my mojo for a bit and though this was pretty much completed I couldn't let it out into the world until I was feeling more on my 'A game' and could give it the last read over haha

And yay, they are commencing their journey soon!