CHAPTER ONE - BEGINNINGS
Kelly held onto the horse's bridle literally for her life. She kept thinking the horse was going to break, but it never did. That was Elven horses for you, Kelly thought. She'd been galloping for nearly five hours now, but every time she paused, it seemed as if the band of Elves were there right behind her.
She watched the fast flowing waters move past her and a crazy idea floated into her. She hoped Fred and Chrissie would make their way to Minas Tirith and even dangerously hoped the Elf would go with them, to provide them with some protection.
She was only trusting on instinct that Faramir would even listen to them, let alone help to save the Fellowship that hadn't even set out yet that she herself had condemned. She wasn't sure how he'd react to them and what he'd do if they mentioned her. If she failed in what she was planning to do at Edoras, then they would need all the help they could get, Faramir's or not.
She untied the saddlebags behind her and held onto them tightly. She clenched her teeth, this was really going to hurt.
Kelly spied an overhanging tree branch and as she was galloping past grabbed on to it and swung up into the tree. Her wrist seemed to catch fire and she was pretty sure her shoulder had dislocated as well.
Climbing quickly through the tree branches to the river, she jumped down into the shallows, trying to ignore how her toes started to go numb. Using the saddlebags as buoyancy, she swam quickly across the river and climbed out on the far side.
She began running, knowing that every second was of the essence. She'd seen a floating log only minutes before, stuck in a dam of river weed. If she could somehow free it, maybe she could ride it all the way down stream and possibly outdistance the Elves. She had no chance against four of them at once.
She spotted the log and used her penknife to cut away the obstructions, carefully straddling the log. It took her a few moments to find her balance, but soon she was floating swiftly downriver. If she was lucky, the Elves would follow just the sound of hooves for several miles before they realised there was no rider. If she was lucky.
***
Chrissie rode behind Fred as she'd been doing since early that morning. The sun was high in the sky now, but they'd wanted to try and get there as quick as possible. Duin-Shiel had already told them if the assassins got themselves 'entrenched' at Moria's Gate, it would be damned near impossible for them to get them out and save the Fellowship. Therefore, they needed to get back to Moria before the assassins got there.
The countryside seemed to be all the same to her, walking beside the river through hills and valleys, knolls and gullies. She looked back behind her and saw a dot approaching at high speed down the river. She cocked her head as the dot elongated and grew a head.
She gestured to Fred and they shared a laugh as they realised who the only person in Middle Earth could be that could be surfing down the river. Kelly appeared and gave them a wave.
"I'll SEE YOU LATER!" Kelly shouted as she went past on her log. Since the horses were only walking and she was moving at a speedy rate, she was only in sight of them for a few minutes.
Fred shrugged at Chrissie's confused stare as Kelly disappeared out of sight. Sometimes you couldn't even begin to understand Kelly.
***
"Your time has come."
A boy with lightish hair looked up from his books in the library to see Lady Galadriel's shining presence before him.
"The time for what, Lady Galadriel, if you'll pardon me asking."
She smiled and laid a hand on his head.
"You can no longer remain in Lothlorien. You must leave and go out into the world. But first, come with me."
He looked around worriedly, this place he'd come to think of as home, but followed the Lady Galadriel outside and down the steps. He realised where it was he was going way before he reached it.
"Will you look into the mirror?" Galadriel asked.
He remembered the line from the film, but was not going to go for the cliché. He stepped up to the mirror and stared into it.
"Things that were." Galadriel began.
An image of Kelly fighting a young man with shocking blue eyes and dark hair. She seems to be winning until he catches her across the jaw and he stabs in with a dagger.
Fred lying on the ground, unconscious and battered, surrounded by a thousand spiders. A fire spreads towards her and begins to lick the branches closest to her.
Chrissie is falling into blackness, catching hold of a ledge, but falling again. She lands with a crack and is covered with boulders, only a few fingers remaining out stretched from the soil as the dust begins to settle around her.
"Things that are."
Chrissie and Fred huddle together as the dark figure pushes them back towards the roaring fire. A gust of wind blows the cloak head from the figure to reveal their identity. It is Kelly and she has a look of blood lust in her eyes.
An Elf rolls from a horse and fires an arrow towards Kelly, it flies swift and sure towards her heart.
"Some things that have not yet come to pass."
Chrissie and Fred lie in cell, bound and chained as guards throw crusts of bread at them in distaste. Rats crawl over their immobile forms and Fred's eyes widen as a spider crosses her knee.
The Fellowship runs out of Moria Gate into the sunlight and collapse onto the floor. He recognises it as the moment after Gandalf fell into shadow from the movie. The scene shifts slightly and reveals two figures dressed in black studying a map intently. One places his finger on the exact location of Moria Gate and signals to that man to get there. The man, revealed to be a teenager, nods and leaves, an elaborately decorated golden sword at his belt.
Kelly kneels in front of a circle of Elves, the most recognisable being Galadriel and Celeborn. Kelly's hands are tied behind her back and many Elves stand guard around her, their fingers twitching slightly on their bows. Galadriel delivers some unheard judgement and Kelly's head falls to her chest. The Elves on guard smile with an undisguised joy.
"I know what it is you saw."
But that is all he heard of what she said next, for he fell to the ground as the images all screamed for his attention at once. He tried to sort them back into past, present and future, kept telling himself that Chrissie and Fred weren't in prison and Kelly wasn't in some Elven tribunal. This was going to take a lot of thinking over.
He looked up from the floor to see Lady Galadriel watching him.
"You know what it is you must do. You have seen the things that will happen if you should fail. Anyone can change the course of the future, if they know what they want it to be."
He grimaced at the thought of leaving behind his books and the life he'd made these past few weeks at Lothlorien. But he strengthened his resolve and nodded. He'd never really valued books before he came here, so really it should be no trouble leaving them.
***
As he walked back up the steps, he reflected on all that had befallen him. That day in the biology lab had been strange. He remembered walking into N6 to deliver a message to Mr Brae from his teacher and he remembered seeing Kelly tip something into a solution and then waking up half way up a Mallorn tree.
It had taken the Elves over ten minutes to carefully lift him down from his precarious ledge, but he told Lady Galadriel nearly everything. He had told her this place was in the past and that it's history was well documented in the future. His friends especially were scholars of it, but he himself had only seen the film once and did not know the story of Lord of the Rings that well.
Lady Galadriel had given him a home and work at the library to do. His Elvish was improving from none to a bare amount and he could now recount most of the details of the Last Alliance. He even knew who Gil-Galad was now, Fred's favourite character.
He gathered his possessions into a cloak and tied them to an old saddlebag. Carrying his possessions down to the stables, he tied them onto the back of the horse Lady Galadriel had gifted him soon after his arrival. He held onto the reins and led the horse out of the stable to find most of the Elves living nearby waiting for him.
They smiled at him and said farewell. The ones he'd got to know better hugged him and touched his face in the traditional Elven fashion. He felt like crying, but he had never cried in front of anyone in his entire life and he wasn't about to start now.
He mounted his horse and let it pick it's own pace. After their meeting at the mirror, Lady Galadriel had told him that he should head down river towards Gondor and that his destiny would find him.
***
He rode out of Lothlorien and was nearly on top of a band of Elves before he even realised they were there. He didn't think he'd ever get used to their way of sneaking around.
They were riding like maniacs, but stopped suddenly when they saw him and dismounted. Luckily, they seemed to recognise him.
"Friend, have you seen anyone else riding here?"
He shook his head. He'd barely left and had seen no one.
The Elves hurriedly remounted and made to leave.
"What news have you?" He asked quickly, wondering if there were orcs around if they were so agitated.
"One of them murdered Laneth, messenger of Lady Galadriel. She flees north, but we have found no tracks. Duin-Shiel, messenger of Thranduil rides south with some guests and we saw him only briefly. Ride hard and you may catch up with him."
The Elves rode off north and he wondered exactly who she was. He had heard rumors of the evil ones, but there not that many females he had heard of in that service. Something tugged at his memory, but he dismissed it. Riding south with an Elf sounded far better than riding south alone, so he dug his heels into the horses flanks and the quick spirited mare jumped off into the night.
***
Lady Galadriel stepped back from her mirror and turned to find Lord Celeborn coming down the steps to meet her.
"Does he fare well?" Celeborn asked lightly. He knew that Galadriel had become quite fond of the stranger during his time in Lothlorien.
She did not have to ask who it was he meant.
"He is heading towards Duin-Shiel's group and may meet up with them some time tomorrow if he continues on. Middle Earth's fate lies with that group, no matter what we may think of them."
Lord Celeborn offered his arm to Lady Galadriel and she took one last glance at the glistening waters.
"I wish you well, Mark."
***
Kelly held onto the horse's bridle literally for her life. She kept thinking the horse was going to break, but it never did. That was Elven horses for you, Kelly thought. She'd been galloping for nearly five hours now, but every time she paused, it seemed as if the band of Elves were there right behind her.
She watched the fast flowing waters move past her and a crazy idea floated into her. She hoped Fred and Chrissie would make their way to Minas Tirith and even dangerously hoped the Elf would go with them, to provide them with some protection.
She was only trusting on instinct that Faramir would even listen to them, let alone help to save the Fellowship that hadn't even set out yet that she herself had condemned. She wasn't sure how he'd react to them and what he'd do if they mentioned her. If she failed in what she was planning to do at Edoras, then they would need all the help they could get, Faramir's or not.
She untied the saddlebags behind her and held onto them tightly. She clenched her teeth, this was really going to hurt.
Kelly spied an overhanging tree branch and as she was galloping past grabbed on to it and swung up into the tree. Her wrist seemed to catch fire and she was pretty sure her shoulder had dislocated as well.
Climbing quickly through the tree branches to the river, she jumped down into the shallows, trying to ignore how her toes started to go numb. Using the saddlebags as buoyancy, she swam quickly across the river and climbed out on the far side.
She began running, knowing that every second was of the essence. She'd seen a floating log only minutes before, stuck in a dam of river weed. If she could somehow free it, maybe she could ride it all the way down stream and possibly outdistance the Elves. She had no chance against four of them at once.
She spotted the log and used her penknife to cut away the obstructions, carefully straddling the log. It took her a few moments to find her balance, but soon she was floating swiftly downriver. If she was lucky, the Elves would follow just the sound of hooves for several miles before they realised there was no rider. If she was lucky.
***
Chrissie rode behind Fred as she'd been doing since early that morning. The sun was high in the sky now, but they'd wanted to try and get there as quick as possible. Duin-Shiel had already told them if the assassins got themselves 'entrenched' at Moria's Gate, it would be damned near impossible for them to get them out and save the Fellowship. Therefore, they needed to get back to Moria before the assassins got there.
The countryside seemed to be all the same to her, walking beside the river through hills and valleys, knolls and gullies. She looked back behind her and saw a dot approaching at high speed down the river. She cocked her head as the dot elongated and grew a head.
She gestured to Fred and they shared a laugh as they realised who the only person in Middle Earth could be that could be surfing down the river. Kelly appeared and gave them a wave.
"I'll SEE YOU LATER!" Kelly shouted as she went past on her log. Since the horses were only walking and she was moving at a speedy rate, she was only in sight of them for a few minutes.
Fred shrugged at Chrissie's confused stare as Kelly disappeared out of sight. Sometimes you couldn't even begin to understand Kelly.
***
"Your time has come."
A boy with lightish hair looked up from his books in the library to see Lady Galadriel's shining presence before him.
"The time for what, Lady Galadriel, if you'll pardon me asking."
She smiled and laid a hand on his head.
"You can no longer remain in Lothlorien. You must leave and go out into the world. But first, come with me."
He looked around worriedly, this place he'd come to think of as home, but followed the Lady Galadriel outside and down the steps. He realised where it was he was going way before he reached it.
"Will you look into the mirror?" Galadriel asked.
He remembered the line from the film, but was not going to go for the cliché. He stepped up to the mirror and stared into it.
"Things that were." Galadriel began.
An image of Kelly fighting a young man with shocking blue eyes and dark hair. She seems to be winning until he catches her across the jaw and he stabs in with a dagger.
Fred lying on the ground, unconscious and battered, surrounded by a thousand spiders. A fire spreads towards her and begins to lick the branches closest to her.
Chrissie is falling into blackness, catching hold of a ledge, but falling again. She lands with a crack and is covered with boulders, only a few fingers remaining out stretched from the soil as the dust begins to settle around her.
"Things that are."
Chrissie and Fred huddle together as the dark figure pushes them back towards the roaring fire. A gust of wind blows the cloak head from the figure to reveal their identity. It is Kelly and she has a look of blood lust in her eyes.
An Elf rolls from a horse and fires an arrow towards Kelly, it flies swift and sure towards her heart.
"Some things that have not yet come to pass."
Chrissie and Fred lie in cell, bound and chained as guards throw crusts of bread at them in distaste. Rats crawl over their immobile forms and Fred's eyes widen as a spider crosses her knee.
The Fellowship runs out of Moria Gate into the sunlight and collapse onto the floor. He recognises it as the moment after Gandalf fell into shadow from the movie. The scene shifts slightly and reveals two figures dressed in black studying a map intently. One places his finger on the exact location of Moria Gate and signals to that man to get there. The man, revealed to be a teenager, nods and leaves, an elaborately decorated golden sword at his belt.
Kelly kneels in front of a circle of Elves, the most recognisable being Galadriel and Celeborn. Kelly's hands are tied behind her back and many Elves stand guard around her, their fingers twitching slightly on their bows. Galadriel delivers some unheard judgement and Kelly's head falls to her chest. The Elves on guard smile with an undisguised joy.
"I know what it is you saw."
But that is all he heard of what she said next, for he fell to the ground as the images all screamed for his attention at once. He tried to sort them back into past, present and future, kept telling himself that Chrissie and Fred weren't in prison and Kelly wasn't in some Elven tribunal. This was going to take a lot of thinking over.
He looked up from the floor to see Lady Galadriel watching him.
"You know what it is you must do. You have seen the things that will happen if you should fail. Anyone can change the course of the future, if they know what they want it to be."
He grimaced at the thought of leaving behind his books and the life he'd made these past few weeks at Lothlorien. But he strengthened his resolve and nodded. He'd never really valued books before he came here, so really it should be no trouble leaving them.
***
As he walked back up the steps, he reflected on all that had befallen him. That day in the biology lab had been strange. He remembered walking into N6 to deliver a message to Mr Brae from his teacher and he remembered seeing Kelly tip something into a solution and then waking up half way up a Mallorn tree.
It had taken the Elves over ten minutes to carefully lift him down from his precarious ledge, but he told Lady Galadriel nearly everything. He had told her this place was in the past and that it's history was well documented in the future. His friends especially were scholars of it, but he himself had only seen the film once and did not know the story of Lord of the Rings that well.
Lady Galadriel had given him a home and work at the library to do. His Elvish was improving from none to a bare amount and he could now recount most of the details of the Last Alliance. He even knew who Gil-Galad was now, Fred's favourite character.
He gathered his possessions into a cloak and tied them to an old saddlebag. Carrying his possessions down to the stables, he tied them onto the back of the horse Lady Galadriel had gifted him soon after his arrival. He held onto the reins and led the horse out of the stable to find most of the Elves living nearby waiting for him.
They smiled at him and said farewell. The ones he'd got to know better hugged him and touched his face in the traditional Elven fashion. He felt like crying, but he had never cried in front of anyone in his entire life and he wasn't about to start now.
He mounted his horse and let it pick it's own pace. After their meeting at the mirror, Lady Galadriel had told him that he should head down river towards Gondor and that his destiny would find him.
***
He rode out of Lothlorien and was nearly on top of a band of Elves before he even realised they were there. He didn't think he'd ever get used to their way of sneaking around.
They were riding like maniacs, but stopped suddenly when they saw him and dismounted. Luckily, they seemed to recognise him.
"Friend, have you seen anyone else riding here?"
He shook his head. He'd barely left and had seen no one.
The Elves hurriedly remounted and made to leave.
"What news have you?" He asked quickly, wondering if there were orcs around if they were so agitated.
"One of them murdered Laneth, messenger of Lady Galadriel. She flees north, but we have found no tracks. Duin-Shiel, messenger of Thranduil rides south with some guests and we saw him only briefly. Ride hard and you may catch up with him."
The Elves rode off north and he wondered exactly who she was. He had heard rumors of the evil ones, but there not that many females he had heard of in that service. Something tugged at his memory, but he dismissed it. Riding south with an Elf sounded far better than riding south alone, so he dug his heels into the horses flanks and the quick spirited mare jumped off into the night.
***
Lady Galadriel stepped back from her mirror and turned to find Lord Celeborn coming down the steps to meet her.
"Does he fare well?" Celeborn asked lightly. He knew that Galadriel had become quite fond of the stranger during his time in Lothlorien.
She did not have to ask who it was he meant.
"He is heading towards Duin-Shiel's group and may meet up with them some time tomorrow if he continues on. Middle Earth's fate lies with that group, no matter what we may think of them."
Lord Celeborn offered his arm to Lady Galadriel and she took one last glance at the glistening waters.
"I wish you well, Mark."
***