Chapter 8 - "Pyromania"

The stars were scattered haphazardly across the sky, thousands and thousands and thousands of them thrown against the velvet canvas, crammed into every available space of darkness, overlapping each other, outshining each other, spilling outwards and upwards and sidewards and backwards until there was more silver than there was black, and the twinkling lights textured the sky like spilt salt over a black cloth.

So many pin-pricks of light packed into one sky, right down to the edge of the horizon – it was downright dizzying. I was almost wondering if this wasn't somehow another trick rather than reality; I still wasn't used to there being that many stars at night; couldn't have truthfully imagined what they'd meant by 'uncountable' before then. The stars were just – there were just so very many of them. And without the neon glow of a city somewhere nearby, the very depth with which they could be viewed was infinitely more than I had ever known.

And it really was hypnotizing. That quiet moment as I paused to stare up at the heavens, drawn away from all my problems and left hanging in a void where each bright light was more beautiful because of the one hanging next to it, I felt at peace.

And then a hand fisted itself suddenly into the collar of my jacket, pulling me roughly towards the pinched features of a porcelain-skinned, perfectly sculpted face. Fantastic.

"Where's Legolas?" the porcelain-skinned, perfectly sculpted face hissed at me.

I grimaced, and briefly slid my eyes shut.

"Well? Why isn't he back yet? What have you done, you little turd?"

"You've got to be kidding me –"

Elenya angrily shook her fists, which I was unfortunately attached to, and her plump, pink lips pulled into a sneer. "I'm not kidding."

"Why on earth would I have anything to do with Legolas?" I asked, opening my eyes as I gingerly dislodged myself from her grasp. She immediately re-latched.

"Because!" Her fists clenched tightly into my jacket. "Because we still haven't gone into Moria, we've been walking around for weeks, Frodo didn't even drop his ring in the snow for Boromir to pick up, and now Legolas isn't here anymore!"

She shook me once more, which I allowed because it required much less effort than struggling did.

"I want… to know… what you've done! This is serious stuff!"

"Of course it's serious," I responded tiredly, arms swinging limply by my side as Elenya continued to take her frustrations out on me. "Main characters are dropping out of this story like flies because you insisted on having your every whim fulfilled, and we're probably now all going to die and take the world down with us. I am already aware of this fact, but I'm glad you're at least catching on."

"No, excuse me, that's not the issue here." One of her hands flew from my collar so that it could wave a long finger in my face. "The issue here is Legolas."

"Who was a main character."

"Yes."

"And now he's not here."

"Exactly!"

"…Because you insisted on having your every whim–"

Both her hands fisted tightly around my collar once more. "Listen here, punk," she growled fiercely, yanking me closer.

I mouthed the word 'punk' incredulously.

"I know what you're playing at. You're just messing up the timeline somehow, trying to throw us off, confuse us with… stuff. But I'm on to you."

"Literally," I muttered, shifting in her uncomfortably tight embrace.

She loomed threateningly over me, her nose almost pressing against mine.

"Don't toy with me," she growled, as the quality of the light around us appeared to harden and cast harsh, dramatic shadows across her face. "I've got you down, and your futile attempts to sabotage me are useless! Do you understand that? I've got you down, little girl!"

"Little girl…?" I battled against the sudden twitching of my lips, and stared at her. "You know I'm probably older than you, right? What are you, 17? 18?"

"I'm an elf, okay!" She rattled me in her grasp once more, angry frustration twisting her features. "I'm immortal, of course you're not older-"

A deep, masculine voice cleared itself gruffly from beside us at that moment, and we both froze and turned towards the disturbance.

Boromir had a very worried expression on his face as he walked slowly pasts us, staring. The frosted grass crunched faintly beneath his boots. An owl hooted in the far distance somewhere. Elenya slowly unwound her fingers from my throat, and smiled innocently.

Without saying anything Boromir continued along his path towards the rest of the fellowship, as if afraid any sudden change in direction on his behalf would set a wild beast into a rage. When he had finally walked far enough away that he could no longer crane his neck and stare at us in mild horror, Elenya turned back towards me and jabbed me in the chest with a finger.

"Ow."

"You had better watch yourself, missy," she said, slitting those pretty blue eyes of hers.

I opened my mouth to defend myself, and then decided it was easier to let her think whatever she wanted. Nothing I could say would change her mind anyway, no matter how I put it, so I just shrugged and continued to stare at her.

She huffed, and stormed off.

~.~.~

"I am worried about Legolas," I heard Aragorn say quietly to Gandalf later on, as I sat across from them around the fire, warming myself up a bit before heading to sleep.

I glanced across at Boromir, who'd sat on a log not too far from me and was staring broodingly into the flames, and I pretended that I wasn't straining my ears to hear what Gandalf's response to Aragorn would be. Because despite my earlier nonchalance, I was actually pretty worried about Legolas too, and the fact that someone like Aragorn was also worried made me even more worried.

I mean, was this an intervention from the Gods to rectify Elenya and Alatariel's unfortunate little miscount and bring the official total of the Fellowship back down to nine? Did there exist some weird rule about certain facts remaining the same no matter what you did to try and change them? Or was it something else completely? Maybe Legolas' eyesight was as good as I'd hoped it wasn't, and he'd seen something while up in the snow and in fact gone in search of… and found… well…

Or maybe he'd just fallen into a ditch and died.

These were questions I had been frantically asking myself all day, as we retraced our steps down the mountain and Legolas did not prance nimbly across the snow to beam delicately in the sunshine at us. I just didn't know what to make of the situation, and I didn't know what I could do about it either.

Opposite me, Gandalf shifted where he sat, his lips moving against each other as he made little old man noises and propped his staff up beside him. "I doubt there is much need for concern, at this point," he told Aragorn, "I do not feel troubled."

Aragorn raised his eyebrows, apparently as unimpressed with this logic as I was.

The wizard smiled genially and turned his gaze away from Aragorn, taking in his surroundings with a leisurely glance. I quickly looked down at my fingers and pretended I wasn't listening to their conversation even harder.

"I think, perhaps," Gandalf continued warmly, his voice making its way very clearly across the fire to me. "That the prince had merely spotted something while up on the peaks, and has gone to investigate. Really, it is nothing to worry ourselves over."

I very sharply did not look up at the wizard.

Nor did I pay particular attention to Aragorn's reply about Legolas running after shiny things not being a comfort.

Because all I could think was the fact that if Legolas had spotted something important enough to part from the group to investigate, this something was probably rather a significant thing. And if it was significant… well there was one thing I could think of in the general direction the elf had headed in that was probably significant enough – and in the calm weather, visible enough – to be spotted by him, and I just hadn't decided whether it was a good or bad sort of thing for the elf to come across yet.

I told my body that adrenaline was probably a bad idea before bed-time as I began to work myself into a panic, and that I should just calm down and stop thinking altogether, because thinking was a dangerous pastime and it was probably about time that someone came across this 'significant thing' anyway, we were nearly at Moria in any case and we might as well get this all over and done with and oh god I was probably going to get into so much trouble…

Boromir shifted beside me, and my eyes snapped across to him.

Look at him, just sitting there, staring broodingly into the fire, not a care in the world except for the horrible temptation he probably already felt from the Ring but you know aside from that…

I sighed internally and bent my feet up onto my log, resting my chin on my knees and looking out across the clearing at the rest of the fellowship. I couldn't even have a proper self-pitying session these days before someone came along and made me remember I wasn't the only one with problems. Gosh, what was this? Emo-ville?

Even the pony seemed to be dealing with some issues of his own, shuffling his front feet uneasily and making these nervous, mumbley kind of whinnies across at me. I watched with mild interest as Bill tugged on his tether and rolled his eyes, and pretended up some story for him involving a pony love back home who was pressuring him into pony marriage, which he wasn't too keen on because he was not yet financially ready to take care of little pony babies.

It was all utterly ridiculous, of course, and I was glad no one had been reading my increasingly questionable thoughts at that moment. Trying to distract myself from my own morbid speculations often led me in directions such as these.

After a mental slap and another brief glance at the heavens, I turned back towards Bill and wondered idly what was actually bothering him. There was nothing around, really; in fact apart from us, the night was dead silent.

Bill snorted and continued to pull at his tether anyway, as if this was of no comfort to him.

Something began to itch at the back of my mind then, as I continued to watch the nervous pony. Like that feeling you get when you've left the oven on, but haven't quite gotten around to realising it yet.

I peered across into the dark silence around me, the only noises now reaching my ears being the crackle of fire and Bill's agitated stamps and snorts. I lifted my chin off my knees, and wondered when Aragorn and Gandalf had stopped talking.

Then a long, chilling howl suddenly broke through the empty silence of the night, echoing clearly for all to hear.

My head snapped towards the distant noise, and I sat up abruptly, digging my nails into the wood beneath me.

Oh, yes, right. The wolves.

Holycrap, I'd forgotten about them.

Everyone in the fellowship was suddenly very, very tense in the ensuing pause, as the mournful echo died painfully into the once more noise-less night.

I took a short, hitched breath, and had a brief moment to contemplate the fact that my dagger was way over there near the rest of the fellowship in their bedrolls.

Then there was a burst of rustling foliage, and an enormous dark-grey wolf sprang out from bushes shockingly close to us. He landed deftly on his great paws, only a few paces away from Frodo, and crouched into himself.

With his snout wrinkled into a vicious snarl, before we even had a chance to finish turning our heads towards him, the wolf continued his motion and leapt without hesitation straight at the hobbits, barely a dark blur in the dark night save for the lasting impression of his gleaming teeth.

There was a cry throughout the fellowship as the men sprang to their feet, weapons already in hand, panic and surprise etched into their faces. They moved, but too late. The wolf had already dashed across the clearing, ears flat against his skull, muscles bunching as he lunged a second time.

Gimli was the closest. He'd hardly had the time to scramble to his feet.

The wolf leapt.

And with a throaty bark landed just to the right of his target, snarling and holding his left paw at an awkward angle thanks to the throwing axe now embedded in his shoulder.

Gimli, barely even standing upright yet, hefted a second axe in his hands, as the clatter of sticks of polished wood spilling to the floor echoed faintly behind him.

The wolf, however, did not wait for us to gather our wits, but snapped once more towards Frodo in an awkward but swift lunge, as the hobbit scrambled backwards. There was an outcry, everyone was moving towards the hobbits, but the animal was too quick and too close.

The beast's head twisted, his teeth flashed, his body tensed and lashed forward with the violent abandon that comes with injury. But before he could complete even this movement, the wolf stumbled once more, this time with a small axe suddenly embedded between his eyes, and a dark purple arrow sprouting rudely from the back of his maw.

Aragorn had by then reached Frodo's side, as the wolf staggered drunkenly, a high whine gurgling out of him as he tripped over his feet and into Bill, who screamed in terror and reared, stamping his front hooves ferociously into the animal's neck, over and over again.

The wolf snapped his jaw hollowly, hind legs scrabbling against the dirt as he crumpled to his side, and stilled.

I took a second, shaky gulp of air.

Across the clearing, Elenya fumbled with a bow in her hands, breathing heavily and standing amongst a fistful of purple-feathered arrows scattered at her feet.

Everyone was reeling.

"Well," I managed to strangle out after a moment, my eyes sweeping across the scene before me, and that was about as far into the sentence as I got.

"Stoke the fire," Gandalf's hard voice rang out, as he stared intently at the slightly twitching body of the wolf. "Draw your blades, stand together; this is not over yet."

I stood up to follow his orders, reaching for the pile of kindling, and realised I was shaking quite badly.

Well this was shit. This was extremely shit. This was so incredibly shit that if it got any more shit, it would fertilise a whole damned forest. Stupid wolves, stupid, stupid! I couldn't believe I had forgotten about them. I was entirely not ready for this!

I fumbled and dropped the firewood at my feet, running a trembling hand through my hair and frowning. Did I mention shit shit shit?

But as I bent to pick up my unwilling cargo once more, Boromir materialised in front of me and stopped me with a hand on my arm.

"Find a weapon," he murmured, gently prying the wood from my grasp. "I'll take care of the fire."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak coherently, and hurried towards my pack without a second thought.

"Well, life, you've been great," I muttered to myself, falling to my knees in front of my things and trying to loosen my short-sword from where it was strapped to my pack. "It was nice living in you for a while. But I guess it's off to the next great adventure for me tonight."

I pulled the sleek metal from its scabbard, and cut the side of my finger in my haste. "Shit!"

Beside me, Alatariel was helping Elenya strap her quiver over her shoulders, and to their left, by Aragorn, the two hobbits were nervously drawing their swords. I put my stinging finger to my mouth, and searched down the side of my pack for my dagger with my other hand, trying to pretend that my throat wasn't tightening and my eyes stinging just a little.

"At least I'll probably taste good," I continued nervously, as I spat out a small mouthful of blood and watched my finger continue to ooze. "Maybe the scent of my blood will encourage the wolves to do me in quickly, and I won't have to bother with all the pretences of battle."

I pulled my dagger out, unsheathing it rather carefully and stowing its casing back in my bag.

"Hell, I might even be a nice dinner, all tender and unable to fight back!" My finger continued to bleed, and I stood up, holding both my weapons face-down in one hand and staring at them as if I had no idea what they were doing there. "At least someone will enjoy my last, tasty minutes on this earth."

My finger snaked its way back to my mouth, and I watched as Gimli stumped towards the fire, hefting his great axe in one hand while the other loosened the few throwing axes at his belt.

Something rustled in the bushes further down from us, and I rather fancied I could hear deep growling.

"I am going to die," I told myself calmly, and looked up at the great, sparkling heavens above.

With my heart pumping so fast I was sure it would just explode on its own, I hurried gracelessly towards the fire, where everyone else was gathering in a sort of formation that ringed the two hobbits.

Gandalf paced a circle around the camp, murmuring something wizardly under his breath and glaring into the darkness intensely.

I shifted my weapons to their appropriate hands, and dropped awkwardly into a fighting stance.

The fire burst and cracked as new flames snapped harshly into the air.

There was silence. Lots of silence.

And then… chaos.

It's a difficult thing to explain, that shock of terror which slices through your entire being in that first moment. Even before anything reaches you, even before you start to move the fear is there, the panic sets in, because all you see is chaos, this violent, uncontrolled energy racing towards and around you. I didn't know what to look at, what to focus on, it was all just this horrifying blur of movement and teeth and rage.

Something snapped near me. There was a shout from beside me, a rough hand pushing me backwards, a gravelly bark, the flash of a sword, a yelp, a grunt, and blood was spurting into my face.

I dropped my dagger and took another step back, shocked. I wiped at my face. It was sticky, and my hand came away wet.

I whimpered.

A hulk of black fur. A few more steps back. I bumped into something behind me, glanced over my shoulder. The hobbits stood there, the three of us now huddled by the fire. They lifted their little swords, Sam stepping in front of Frodo. I turned back around to find the wolf before us had sprouted two arrows, one purple, one green. It was down, by our feet, twitching and growling in its final moments.

Arrows flew everywhere. Swords flashed in the firelight. Shadows danced demonically around us, long and grotesque, leaping and thrashing as violently as those they were attached to. My senses were overloading, and something was clenching painfully around my heart.

I threw away my sword, flung it to the ground in anger, frustration, incompetence.

I whirled around. There was a yell beside me, noise and barks and yelps and shouts filling the air. Desperately I scrabbled at a long branch by the fire, lit its end, struggled to lift it before me.

The hobbits remained against each other, the rest of the company still attempting to form protective ranks around them.

But there was just so much chaos.

I stumbled back towards Frodo and Sam, stood beside them, hefted my branch and swung it wildly at anything with four legs that strayed near. I think one caught on fire. Snapped at its fur. Careened off back into the forest.

Then Gandalf was near me. "Throw that in the air," he shouted at me, as he smashed a wolf in the snout with his staff. "Throw your branch up!"

It was too long, I couldn't handle it properly, but without question I put the end against the floor and stomped my foot into the middle of it. The branch snapped, and its lit end whipped up towards me, grazed me across the chin. I barely even noticed as I gasped in a lungful of hot smoke, spluttering and coughing as I heaved the branch up into the air with all my might.

There was a burst across the clearing, a rolling boom of thunder, vibration, noise, light. My fire flashed as it reached the crest of its flight, and then a whoosh of sound, like a storm-blown wind, as flames leapt from the branch in long ropes towards the trees surrounding us.

And then they were burning. All around the clearing, one by one, the tree tops lit with flame. Arrows caught on fire mid-air, plunging flaming into their targets, who screeched and fell and bit each other.

Gandalf was shouting something, deep and echoing, his voice filling the air.

I didn't know what he said, but the wolves all fled before us.

And then only the sound of flames could be heard.

My legs crumpled beneath me and I fell on my ass, covering my eyes with shaking fingers. The sound of crackling branches slowly faded from around us. One of the hobbits briefly squeezed my shoulder.

My whole body vibrated with shock.

And then an unexpected voice floated across the night air.

"Well really, Gandalf." High and cheerful – though decidedly strangled, the voice chirped at us from the treetops. "Did you have to burn all the trees down?"

"All the trees?" Gandalf replied calmly, his grey robe flaring slightly as he twisted to address the new voice. "I believe the one you are sitting in has remained perfectly un-singed, Peregrin Took."

Author's Notes:

Whell, there you have it children! After another monstrously long wait, i give you a small step forward in the plot! Hooray! As always, a great big sloppy kiss to my beta Galenfea is needed - i couldnt have done it without her. Well, i could have. But it would have been less good.

Please, feel free to let me know where i've failed and succeeded in this chapter. I write for myself, but also for you too. If there's a way i could please you any better, i'd love to hear it! Otherwise, feel free to gush your praise via the nifty little 'review' link below. I will love you very much either way.