Saphie: {hijacks the author’s note} Life got in the way and bit me in the ass.
Anyway, just in case you were wondering, Lord of the Rings still doesn’t belong to us. Also, we’ve permanently moved to Lotrfanfiction.net. Links will still be posted on the website, but it’s much easier for us to edit chapters without having to ask Cam to do it for us. If you haven’t been here before, it’s a pretty awesome site. Hang around a bit. It’s cool.
Saphie: All the chapters have been edited, and we cut out the HFA chapter. It was fun, but just interrupted the flow of the story. The HFA chapter and a finished unposted Hogwarts chapter will be available on our website as extra fun tidbits soon.
And in other news, I just turned 18 on May 8th and have started freshman year of college, which means any number of things to me but probably not a lot to you, so why don’t we just get on to the story now?
Saphie: And I flunked out of college. Although I’m giving it a restart. Thus we understand why Saphie has been too grounded and her life has been too crazy for her to write this story until now, yes? Anyway this chapter wasn’t betaed. The ones after will be. It’s just we wanted to put the sucker out there and didn’t want to make you wait any longer.
Suedom
By Andy and Saphie
***
Chapter Twenty-Three: Zombies and Homeopathy, Middle-earth Style
*****
Heavy, yellow fog hung over the marshes, and flames flickered faintly through it. Small lights floated in the mist, alighting upon the water or hovering around the circle of people gathered at the intersecting paths, all deeply asleep but one. Kate sat in the creepy fog, thinking creepy thoughts. She wanted to hum, but didn’t, and was proud of herself.
She hated morning watch. She hated evening watch, too. Actually, Kate hated watch at all. Being alone she could deal with, enjoy, even. But to be surrounded by sleeping people made her lonelier than being on her own ever did. It gave her the awful feeling that she was the only person in the world who was awake.
She sighed heavily, and the fog swallowed the sound along with the soft breathing of the rest of the group. A few insects chirred forlornly, and the faint slap of thick, stagnant water issued from obscured ponds. Kate blinked slowly, her head drooping a bit, her eyes half closed. She wondered why they bothered with Watch while they were in the middle of the world’s biggest swamp. Nothing here but the dead.
Something splashed close by, and Kate was jolted awake again. Kira turned over in her sleep, whimpering quietly. Kate considered the temperature, and decided to find something else to cover Kira with. She had a coat of thin leather over her chain mail, and she was just untying its laces when there was another faint splash, and Trahald sat up very suddenly, staring into the fog.
He looked around very sharply and said nothing. He stood up without making a sound and stared at Kate suddenly, and she tried very hard to stare back and make it clear that she wasn’t afraid of him. Since she was, this was rather difficult, and she gave up in favor of pretending to be very interested in her jacket. Trahald looked away and his eyes were very wide, as though he was trying to stare through the fog. Kira moaned quietly again and opened her eyes, staring sleepily at the fog just as Trahald stepped over her and peered into the foggy distance.
Kira sat up, and Kate rose from the rock she was sitting on.
“Where are you going?” Kira started to ask, blinking heavily, but Trahald silenced her, waving his hands wildly.
“Something is wrong,” he hissed, and Kate suddenly realized he was panicked.
“What?” she whispered. “What’s...”
“Quiet,” Trahald insisted, still peering into the fog.
“What’s going on?” Merry asked, sitting up. He poked Pippin in the shoulder, and Pippin jumped up with a small exclamation of surprise.
“Shut up,” Trahald demanded again, turning around. “Shut up, shut up, shut –”
And then he stopped, looking terrified, and took off running.
“Hey!” Kira shouted, making a grab for him. “You’re sstill wearing my cloak, you basstard! Get back here with that!” she snatched at the hem of the cloak and Trahald fell over, kicking at her hand and struggling out of the cloak.
“See, there he goes, just like I said,” Merry muttered, standing up and running over to help detain the struggling stoor.
But Trahald had frozen up completely in the middle of a round of “let me go, let me go, let me go!” and was staring at Kate with nothing short of terror.
Kate blinked and looked uncomfortable. Silence fell over the marsh.
“What?” she asked.
Something tall and graceful faded swiftly out of the fog behind her, with eyes milky from decay and a gaping, rotten mouth full of blackened teeth. A long arm clad in rusted armor swept silently towards Kate’s shoulder as she looked at them with frightened perplexity, and the dead thing’s head tilted as the gaping mouth went to her neck –
Then quite suddenly the head was gone, and …owyn was pushing Kate aside. The headless body of the dead elf took a few more steps and fell over, the bloodless stump of its neck oozing something thin and watery. Kate shrieked and ran for Kira, and they collided in a shrieking embrace of horrified discomposure.
…owyn, her sword wet with ichors, ran after her. “The dead have woken!” she shouted. “Do not put your backs to the water!”
“Zombies!” Kate and Kira screamed.
“Monsters from Earth?” Gimli asked, as shapes faded out of the fog in a ring, moving with posthumous grace.
“They’re dead people that didn’t stay dead and now they want to EAT OUR BRAINS!” Kate wailed, trying to hide behind Kira, who was trying to hide behind her, which wouldn’t have worked even if they could manage it, because circles render hiding behind a person ineffective.
“Our what?” Merry shouted, looking terrified.
“Take off their headss! Take off their headss, and for the love of God, don’t let them bite you!” Kira shrieked, fumbling with her sword.
“They’ll turn you into soulless minions of the undead!” Kate wailed. “I saw it on TV!”
And the zombies closed in.
“I want to die.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“I want to throw myself into Mount Doom and die.”
“It’s not – well, okay, it is.”
“Okay, ready? Let’s try it again, and this time, Sarah, please don’t go flat on your C,” shouted Tydoni. “Ready? One, two, one two three four -- ”
Jay and Acacia groaned and plugged up their ears.
“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” sang most of the recruits, in perfect harmony, except for Sarah, who was still going flat on her C’s.
“SAM-WISE-GAM-GEE!” shouted Liritar-who-was-called-Ori.
“ORI!” the rest of the chorus shouted.
“Goddamnit, will you all just shut up?” Acacia yelled. “You’re all disguised as fucking rocks, so act like fucking rocks for a moment!”
There was a brief pause, and someone (you couldn’t be sure who when everyone was disguised as a rock) asked the inevitable “How do rocks fuck?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Acacia yelled. “We’re in the middle of Mordor and if someone hears us, we could all die.”
“Wow. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Taylor Lee grumbled. “Just take it out on us, whydoncha?”
“It isn’t as though we’re producing any more noise than she is,” Chysgoda pointed out. Agent Sue, on the backs of the many recruits-disguised-as-rocks, snored and drooled loudly as they walked (without having any legs . . . it’s best not to think about it, really) westward, and hopefully out of Mordor soon.
“Fine. Sing your stupid songs. But if Sauron hears and sends an army to kill all of you, I’m a perfectly normal rock,” Acacia growled. “Idiots! How did the SO get away with hiring so many idiots?”
“Understaffed,” Jay repeated blankly. Jay hadn’t been saying much lately, and what she did say was usually in single-word bursts.
“HQ could end up even more understaffed if these idiots keep being so loud.”
“Oh, stop with the vague threats and try to see what’s going on. Ow,” said Jay, who had been walking with her eyes firmly crossed, and had stubbed her toe on a rock.
“Sorry,” said the rock, which was actually Jack Skellington. No, not the one you’re thinking of.
“Can you read anything?” asked Acacia. “I see ‘Dead Marshes’ and ‘Paths of the Dead’ in the same sentence.”
“I think that says ‘Gondor.”
“Also ‘dead tired,’ that shows up too.”
“Or maybe it’s ‘condom.’ Does it say anything about someone having a shag?”
“And ‘living dead.’”
“Stop thinking about killing things.”
“I will not.”
“Then stop thinking about killing recruits and start thinking about killing ‘Sues.”
“Fine. Dead Marshes?”
“Gondor?”
“It’s all West of here. Let’s just go.”
And so it was that the assassins left Mordor, followed by an army of not-fucking rocks and one drunken slob.
It bears emphasizing that zombies are relentless.
“OH GOD I HIT THAT ONE’S HEAD OFF AND IT’S STILL UP OH GOD OH GOD GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY FROM ME OH GOD AAAAUGH!”
Really relentless.
“They jusst keep coming!” Kira yelled, as wave after wave of the graceful elf zombies and the less-than-graceful human zombies descended upon them. She swung her sword in an arc that took several heads off, and shouted, “This--is my BOOMSTICK!”
Then she shouted “...OW!” because the movement had hurt her shoulder.
Kate, from her position behind Kira, wailed.
"I hate zombies! I hate the marshes! I wanna go home!" then, belatedly, "Are you okay?"
"Eaaurgh!" Kira grunted, as she beheaded another, straining. Her face was beaded with sweat and her hair was damp and clinging to her face, despite her efforts to shake it out of her eyes. "I'm fine!" She called out, sounding winded. "…owyn! Gimli! What the hell do we do?"
"Stay away from the water," …owyn repeated. The headless bodies of several zombies were strewn about her feet, and when she wasn't decapitating new ones, she was looking around quickly for some means of escape. There did not seem to be many - they were surrounded by water mostly on all sides, so the gaps between their undead aggressors were few and far between. …owyn hovered near to the girls and spoke to them above the sounds of the zombies arising and being slaughtered.
"There are few to the north side, and the land is drier," she shouted, pointing with her sword and glancing at them. "If I clear a path, can you move us quickly?"
The decaying corpses of no less than three men stumbled towards her from her left, where she could not see them.
"…owyn!" Merry cried, seemingly coming from nowhere and chopping off the legs of an undead orc at the knees. The stumps oozed grey-black liquid that had a horrible fetid stench, and the body fell to the ground, where Merry sunk his sword into its head.
That left the two others however, and one of them, an elf with a drooping face, and empty holes for its eyes, reached a decayed hand towards him and wrenched the hobbit towards it by his cloak.
An axe landed in its back, and the elf jolted. It fell over as Gimli chopped it in half from behind.
"Get its head! Get its head!" Kate shrieked from nearby, and Gimli put the axe through the elf's neck. It lay still, though more had begun to crawl up the banks.
"If you're going to clear that path, now would be a good time to start!" he shouted, hoisting Merry onto his feet and running over to join …owyn.
"Protect yourselves," …owyn ordered the girls, and darted to the north, cleaving the heads of the zombies as she went. She gestured wildly for Kate.
"This way!"
With a small shriek of terror, Kate began to run in …owyn's direction. Merry, Pippin, and Gimli followed her, and quite suddenly, as Kate reached …owyn, the marsh shifted, and all five of them disappeared.
On the outskirts of the marshes, Kate, breathing heavily, fell down on a rock.
"'Kay," she said, after a few deep breaths. "Everyone okay? Did anyone get bit?"
"O, just fine over here," Merry said somewhat crankily. "I just had half my clothes torn off."
The brooch that had held his cloak on was twisted and broken and his shirt sleeve had been torn at the shoulder seams, but otherwise he was fine.
Kate, still seated on the rock, looked at him. "Don't suppose we brought a sewing kit." she rested her forehead in her hands and resumed breathing deeply.
Pippin didn't say anything. He stood close to Merry, shivering slightly with his arms folded, but did not appear injured. His eyes were blank, though, and he stared aimlessly at the rest of the people. Then he blinked, and dropped his arms.
"Where's the other girl?" he asked.
Kate sat up very suddenly. "What?"
Gimli looked around abruptly.
"Hammer and tongs!" he swore, his eyes wide with worry. He tugged on his beard, as he looked to …owyn, then back to Kate.
“And Sme - Trahald, he's gone too," said Pippin, looking around.
"They must have been left behind," said …owyn, looking back towards the marsh, her face paling.
Kate began to wail.
"She was right behind me! I swear she was right behind me!"
"Quiet," said …owyn, not unkindly, but far too sensibly for Kate's taste. "We don't know where we are, and we don't know what can hear us."
"I left without her!" Kate wailed, ignoring …owyn. "Oh my god, I left without her!"
She jumped up suddenly, ran a few paces, and disappeared.
Gimli's eyes went even wider now. "She'll be killed! Why didn't she think to bring one of us with her?"
But at that moment Kate appeared again, her cloak a little more torn, gasping a little harder, but obviously relieved.
"She's not there!" she declared, and fell over in a dead faint.
The reason she was not there was because as the rest of the group had disappeared, Kira had been running back into the mass of zombies. She’d been ducking and dodging, shoving them out of the way, moving nimbly through them and wrenching out of their grasps whenever one managed to get its shriveled hands on her with a wiry strength and agility that wasn't her own.
She reached a gap and ran up and grabbed a figure struggling through the mud, a zombie reaching for him, and the marsh changed and swept past them, only it was more painful this time, as if she were being stretched, and she was so tired, so very tired.
Kira screamed in agony as the landscape swept past, and then she and Trahald landed somewhere else.
For a moment, she stood, sweat pouring down her face, her body trembling, and then her legs fell out from under her and she landed on her knees, hard.
Blankly, dizzily, she said, "You were running the wrong way."
Then she fell over flat on her face, unconscious.
And at his mercy.
Link had been right – Rincewind had barely been awake five minutes before someone appeared.
It was a Mary Sue – no doubt about that. She had approached with an appropriate amount of caution and awe, saying “You poor thing! Are you hurt?” and quickly surmised that Rincewind’s leg was broken. Almost immediately, she began to pull small bottles and pouches out of her cloak, and began setting up what was obviously a tritely thought-out spell of some sort.
“Dragons are misunderstood,” she said, as she sprinkled something powdery in a circle around herself. “People do not see you for the beautiful, amazing creatures you are . . . all they think is that you are different, and that you must be killed.” Her eyes, which were blue and flecked with silver, welled up with sympathetic tears. “But I am not afraid of you,” she said. “I am not afraid of anything.” She sprinkled herbs in strategic spots around the circle. “My name is Vambiolariawen. Everyone laughs when I tell them that.” The ‘Sue paused. “You won’t laugh at my name, will you?” she asked, pain and longing visible in her eyes. “I have wanted a friend for so long . . .”
Gimme a break, thought Rincewind, rolling her eyes.
“Nobody understands how hard it is to be me,” continued the gorgeous girl, stepping into the center of the circle. “There is no one else who is 1/5 Ainu, 1/5 elf, 1/5 unicorn, 1/5 faerie, and 1/5 nymph in Middle-earth, so no one can understand what my life is like. Knowing the art of healing magic is a terrible burden . . . I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Here we go –”
She clapped her hands and swung them out quickly. The circle blazed up into white fire and spiraled inward until Vambiolariawen was burning from head to toe with it. She stepped towards Rincewind, a brilliant creature of white flame, radiating blazing warmth and smelling of fragrant spring.
Rincewind yawned. Hurry the hell up, she thought. I want to be in the Northern Wastes by the day after tomorrow.
Vambiolariawen reached out and placed her hands on Rincewind’s bruised and swollen leg. The white fire retracted from her body and flowed into the limb, and Rincewind groaned, feeling bone move and knit itself into place and the torn muscles repairing themselves. With a crack, the healing finished, and the white fire died away.
Vambiolariawen smiled as Rincewind stood up and shook the leg. “You’re all better now,” she said, and gave a long pause, filled with the longing for companionship. “Perhaps if you are tired, I could stay and help you hunt – ”
Rincewind turned around to look the Sue in the eye. “Sorry, but I’ve got world-saving to do. Go find some other Cute Animal Friend,” she said, and took off, leaving a very confused Mary Sue halfway up a mountain.
It didn't take long for Trahald to shove Kira off him and scramble away, to the safety of a nearby rock.
Once he was certain she wasn't going to fall on him again, or, it seemed, move at all, he emerged from behind the rock to peer suspiciously at her for a bit longer.
She was unconscious. That was good. And no one else was around. That was better. He could get away now.
Something rustled in the distance. Trees loomed around him, tall and threatening, despite the sunlight pouring through the branches, and he crouched behind the rock again.
It seemed clear to him now that she was his best chance for survival. She could move places quickly, and she had food and weapons and could theoretically influence other peoples' decisions. Like whether or not to kill him.
And she'd saved him. That was...confusing. But she'd saved him. She'd saved...
He'd think about that later.
For now, he just had to make sure nothing killed either of them (but especially not him) before she woke up. Then--then he'd convince her to go someplace safe, someplace where dead things didn't rise up out of the water and try to drag you back down. It was ridiculous. Every single place that no one should want to go, and she insisted on going there. He'd have to find some way to get her to stop it, because if he didn't, then they'd both die, and that would be the end of...
That would be the end of thinking clearly. And he was beginning to think he liked it. Or at least that it was preferable. Or maybe not. He barely knew what to do anymore.
She saved him--they ran and she was right behind the other one with yellow hair but she stopped, and there were so many of the dead but she saved him, saved him, nobody else cared enough to...
He stayed, mostly hiding behind the rock, jumping at every small noise, taking her pack when he got bored and looking through the contents, tossing aside the Elven-bread out of habit and wiping the smell of the leaves off his hands, experience having taught him that it was foul no matter what it currently smelled like. And he waited, and vowed not to wait too long, because he wanted to stay alive, but she'd saved him, she cared, and maybe she would save him again...
And the hours dragged on.
Kira was still face down in the dirt and foliage where he'd left her. At some point, she stirred slightly and lifted her muzzy head, spitting out half-rotten leaves and dirt. She rolled over, still barely conscious. When she was asleep, it was almost possible to see the chubby-cheeked, serious-looking girl she really was, her brows furrowed grimly, her jaw set. Sweat beaded and ran down her temple and she shivered. Not that Trahald noticed.
At this point, he'd gone through her pockets as well as her pack--it paid to be thorough, after all. A few small trinkets, including a golden mallorn leaf, were strewn across the ground where he'd dropped them. The mallorn hadn't burned his hands, and that had made him uneasy--how was he supposed to tell when things were bad now that nothing burned? After that he figured it was best to stop looking. Who knew what sort of bad things he couldn't identify anymore.
He was sitting against the rock now, facing away from her, muttering to himself. Occasionally words surfaced in the mostly muddled babble, repeated words and phrases filled with long, empty spaces in between.
"Afraid. Afraid. Too far, don't know, don't know. What to do." a long pause. "Don't know what to do." Another long pause. His knuckles were white as he gripped his hands tightly. Then, almost tearfully, he repeated, "Don't know what to do. Tell me. Tell me." He paused again, looking around, his eyes wild. "Answer me. Answer me. Please."
A long silence followed.
"Don't leave me alone..."
Kira’s eyes flicked open. Well, not right away. It was a bit of a struggle, really. They kept trying to close, to stay closed, but Kira was far too stubborn for that.
After all, there was no knowing if, one of these times, her eyes would close and not open again.
She managed to sit up and wipe her dirty face on her sleeve--there was mud there, saliva mixed with dirt, that even her Mary Sue-ness couldn't repel.
What...what the hell...? slowly, the memories resurfaced, and she groaned. Kate's gonna kill me. She must be frantic right about now.
Trahald's voice cut through her haze and though she could barely understand what he was saying, she felt a great deal of pity.
She sat up, using her good arm to drag herself through the dirt, sideways, to a tree, so she could sit there amongst its roots and lean against it. She sat for a moment, her eyes half-closed, then she finally won the battle and opened them.
"Dammit!" she cried angrily, seeing everything strewn about. "You went through all my sstuff, you little weassel!"
Trahald spun around and looked at her with a sort of controlled panic, an expression of “Crap, how do I get out of this?” written on his face.
"I was only making sure," he said, at length, in the most harmless voice he could possibly muster. "Wouldn't want to find something missing, especially after the dead attacked. You might have lost something valuable, and you wouldn't know, so I had to check for you." He fixed her with an expression of long suffering. "I told you not to go there. I told you it wasn't a good place to be, that there was no bridge there. You should listen to me--I know these things, I do."
"You went through my stuff..." Kira said slowly, with great annoyance, although she hadn't the strength to move yet, "because you're a nossy little basstard who doessn't know how to keep himsself from going after other people'ss shiny objectss. Don't shit in my hand and tell me it'ss chocolate; I know bullsshitting when I hear it. I do it often enough."
Trahald didn't say anything. It was a few minutes before he even stopped staring at Kira---or through her, rather, as he didn't seem to be seeing her, just letting his eyes stay on her while he thought.
Suddenly, he turned away, and looking back over his hunched shoulders, said "I would have put it back," sounding more like a sulky child than a crazy sycophant.
“‘Would have’? You are gonna put it back. You made a messs of it, you clean it up. I'm not cleaning up after you," she informed him. As if she had the strength to.
Trahald's eyes narrowed angrily.
"I won't touch that again," he muttered, glaring at Kira and the mess around her.
Kira glared right back. "You were able to touch it once, you're gonna do it again. You messsed it up, you clean it up. That'ss how it workss." She added, "Need I remind you that I jusst ssaved your freaking life? I could've left without you."
He glared at her a minute longer, then reached over to pick up the nearest piece of lembas. He hissed softly as he picked it up, gingerly, with two fingers, and walked over to place it back in the bag. He repeated the process, glaring nastily at the bread as if it had personally insulted him, until it was all put away. The mallorn leaf he saved for last, and left it on top, before going back to the safety of his rock.
"Happy now?" he snapped, once he'd situated himself behind it. "All better, yes?"
Kira just stared at him. "Better." She kept staring, her lips pursed together and an eyebrow raised. "Although I don't ssee how you've any right to be cranky at me."
Trahald just glared at her again. After a while, he said, "I told you not to go there."
"We had to," she told him simply, still unmoving. She sighed and wiped her sweaty forehead with her sleeve.
"You did not!" said Trahald, a little louder, still glaring over his shoulder. "There was nothing there and I told you so from the beginning, why didn't you listen?"
"Look, I don't even know what we're looking for, sso how can you?" Kira asked him bitingly, taking a deep breath and dragging herself over to her pack. When it was within arms-reach, she snagged the strap and yanked it towards her, then tugged on her water bottle, opened it, and took a long, long drink, a bit of water splashing down her cheeks.
"Then why do I have to go with you?" Trahald muttered.
"Becausse we need your help," she said, pulling out some lembas and cramming it into her mouth. She closed her eyes and savored it, chewing frantically. When she'd finished a whole cake, she continued. "Pluss, I want to keep you in my ssight. In cassse that sstupid ssstory getss ahold of you again. I'm not exactly fond of sstalkers."
At the mention of the story, Trahald glowered even more, and sunk down behind his rock.
"That wasn't me," he hissed, quietly, angrily.
Kira just rolled her eyes at his odd behavior, and tried to stand up.
She couldn't.
"Where d'you think we are?" she asked tiredly.
“I don't know. You brought us here."
She peered around, then buried her face in her hands and rubbed at her forehead with her knuckles, growling somewhat.
She had no idea where she was, no idea where Kate and the others were--and Kate was most likely out of her mind with worry--and she was too exhausted and in pain to leave.
Furthermore, she was stuck with a psychotic little hobbit-thing who was sociopathic, manipulative, and really just a huge pain in the ass.
She took a few deep breaths, trying not to panic, and struggled to climb to her feet again. This time she made it, even though she was unstable and teetering on her feet.
"We need to collect wood. To make a fire," she said to Trahald vaguely.
She had an idea, and it was one she didn't much like, but without Gimli or …owyn to tend to her wound...
"Need a fire."
"Why?" Trahald asked suspiciously, peering at her around the rock.
"Becausse we're in the middle of dark woodss, we don't know who or what'ss in here with uss, and I'm too tired to get uss out of here. And it'll get cold ssoon," she said, picking up bits of bracken that were lying around.
She sighed, and said, "Would you help, pleasse? I can barely walk here."
After another one of his silent pauses, Trahald got up and walked off into the trees, grumbling to himself. When he returned, his arms were full of kindling, which he dumped unceremoniously at Kira's feet, and returned to the shelter of his rock. Best not to annoy her too much.
It was some time before Kira started a fire, but the tinderbox that had been provided her by the Elves made it so it wasn't impossible. After she got it roaring, she started taking off her clothes; first her cloak, then her shirt. A huge length of cloth was wrapped around her chest, basically acting as a bra and flattening her bosoms; providing her some modesty--not that she really gave a crap about modesty at the moment. Bandages were also wrapped around her, with some more cloth compressed at her shoulder. The cloth was stained yellow and black--and green from the herbal remedies Gimli had been using--and it smelled horrible.
From the woodpile, she found a large, thick stick. Kira took out her short Elven knife and started carving the end of the stick, rounding it off. She also cut off a bit of leather from the trailing ends of her pack-straps.
Trahald had been ignoring her for some time, but it was the smell that got his attention. He glanced over his shoulder, and then turned away again very quickly, his face bright red. Modesty hadn't been one of his personal priorities in a long time, but, from what little he knew about girls, they were supposed to keep their shirts on. Or maybe they preferred to--he couldn't really remember.
He hazarded a shout of, "What are you doing?" from the safety of his rock.
"In casse you haven't noticed, I have thiss huge gaping, infected wound in my shoulder. I have to do something about it," she said, concentrating on what she was doing. "And you don't have to turn away--my breasstss are covered."
There was no sound from behind the rock, and Kira went on with her preparations.
She washed the knife with water from her bottle, then held it in the flames for a few minutes and pulled it out again. She waited a few moments and tapped it carefully, seeing if it was still hot. Taking a another swig of water, she tried to prepare herself mentally, and wished desperately that she had some alcohol on hand, to put on the wound and to drink. By now Trahald was watching her again, curiosity having got the better of him. He eyed the knife with more than a little unease as Kira inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to keep her heart from pounding right out of her chest, and put it down on a clean piece of cloth at her side. The thick stick she left resting at the edge of the fire, and it burned, turning orange-red.
Then she unwrapped her wound, wincing the entire time, and biting down on her lip as the bandage stuck, until the wound was revealed.
It was not the sort of thing that warranted detailed description unless someone wanted to make someone else puke. She grimaced and threw the soiled cloth into the fire.
Then she put out the other bandages she had on hand and put them as close to the flames as she could without burning them. She wanted to boil them but as she had nothing to boil them with, she hoped the intense heat would be enough. Remembering the scrap of leather at the last minute, she picked it up and clenched down on it with her teeth; she then picked up the knife and got ready to plunge it into her own body.
Trahald watched her unblinkingly from behind the rock, staring in particular at the knife in relation to her wound. Surely she wouldn't...
She did.
Kira screamed through her clenched teeth in agony as she dug the knife into the rotten flesh of her left shoulder. Trahald's short, horrified scream echoed hers, and he ducked behind the rock again. If Kira had been thinking coherently, she'd have though something along the lines of 'What the hell does he have to scream about?'
But there was no room for coherent thought. It was pushed out of the way by the wrenching pain, the burning, the warm blood drenching the blade of her knife. She dug again, screaming, and again, as green pus and blood squelched out of the wound.
She wanted to stop. Everything in her was screaming to stop, but she knew that if she did, she wouldn't be able to finish.
She dug away, trying to breathe, trying not to pass out from the pain, until she was able to pull dead and rotting flesh from the rut in her shoulder with the knife, and blood flowed freely in the wound. She couldn't get the wound from the other side, but this would have to do. She let the knife drop into the grass, and reached her bloodstained hand towards the fire, trembling violently, her vision blurry and speckled with black. Grabbed the stick, she wrapped her hand around it so that the part of it that was burning, orange ember was pointed towards her.
Trahald, unfortunately, chose this moment to look again, and gave a pre-emptive shriek as he ducked back behind the rock.
It was good that he did, because what he heard was bad enough – the howls of pain, the sizzle of flesh and the wrenching sobs that followed, muffled still by the strip of leather, almost bitten clean through. Kira hurled the stick into the fire, and then the bloody cloth covered in pus and the rotting remains of her own flesh. Still crying, her hand still shaking violently, she dressed the wound as best as she could and fell back onto her cloak.
She wanted Kate. She wanted Kate holding her and petting her hair and telling her it'd be alright.
She wanted Gimli, and hell, even …owyn.
She wanted her mom. And her sister.
But mostly, she wanted Kate.
She lay there on her spread-out cloak, still shirtless, bloody and covered in a sheen of sweat, sobbing, her hand drenched in pus and her own blood, her hair matted against her forehead with sweat, as the white-hot pain faded to a dull throb.
Behind the rock, Trahald had curled up into a ball and was panting with horror--and no small amount of terror.
He was lost in the woods with a mad girl--maybe not as mad as him, but certainly mad, without instruction, without protection, stuck in a story he didn't know the ending of. And if Kira was willing to cut off her own flesh and burn herself...there was no telling what she'd be willing to do to him if he got on her bad side.
Which he had a feeling he was.
After a moment, he gathered up what little courage he had and emerged from the rock, crept over, picked up the discarded shirt, and held them out to her.
"Here," he said, softly, to get her attention.
She took the shirt with one shaking, bloody hand, her eyes only half open, and covered herself with it. She hadn't the strength to put it back on.
She reached the same shaky hand towards the bottle of water, which her thrashing had sent out of her reach, straining for it, her fingers crawling along the ground towards it.
"Nnh."
Trahald pushed it towards her hand. With her weak and trembling fingers, she dragged it towards herself, and popped the cap open. Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton; and she lifted the bottle to it, her hand shaking so much that as she drank, she splashed water all over her chin, where it dripped onto her neck. Replacing the cap, she dropped it off to the side again, and lay there, still.
She felt weaker now. She didn't like feeling weak, ever, but disliked it even more, due to the company.
However, she didn't know if she'd be able to find the others anytime soon, or at all--Don't think about that, Kira, that way leads to madness...--and as such, she knew she'd had to take care of her wound while she had the chance. Without medical attention...
She caught the crazy hobbit staring at her, and turned her head slightly, her voice somewhat gruff and scratchy, not even the dulcet tones of Mary-Sueness softening it, and asked, "What?"
Trahald backed up abruptly. "Nothing." He crouched in the shadow of a large tree and continued to watch her.
The important thing right now was to be nice to her. She might kill him if he wasn't. And if he was, she might save him.
"Had to do it," Kira said, figuring he was wondering why she had just done what she'd done. "The infection wass gonna kill me. Sstill might. That might not've been enough. Had to cut and burn it out." Sticky tracks of tears were still on her cheeks.
"Very brave of you," Trahald said from his place in the shadows, his voice subservient and flattering.
Kira sat for a little while, quiet, then asked, "Why are you afraid of me?"
It was a long time before he answered. Internal debate takes time.
"You'll hurt me," he said softly, with a certainty born of experience. "Everyone does."
"Not unlesss you try to hurt me firsst, sstupid," Kira grumbled. "Or try to hurt Ka--the otherss." She squirmed slightly, trying to get comfortable. There was too much pain for that to be possible. "If anything, I oughta be afraid of you, but at thiss point, I've ssspent so much time being afraid that I don't think I can anymore."
It was then that it occurred to Trahald that he could kill her.
It would be easy. She'd left the knife out. She was weak and tired--he could take it and stab her, or creep up from behind and strangle the life out of her, and then he'd be free. It would be easy. Possibly he could survive on his own--find someplace to hide, wait things out in a place where he couldn't die and turn up again as he was before, at the beginning of everything. Yes. That was a sensible course of action. He'd be safest in hiding, and all he had to do was take the knife and--
Strangely, he didn't want to. Something was telling him it wasn't right. And nothing was telling him that it was.
"I want to go," he whispered, softly, wretchedly. To where--that, he did not know.
Kira closed her eyes, and was quiet and still for some time, before she finally said, "You can go then. But we could usse the help, in the darker placess--even Gimli and …owyn and Merry and Pippin don't know where to go. And if we can't find what we're looking for, the world will sstay thiss way, or become even worsse." A pause. "But you can go." Another pause, and then a sad, "I wish I could."
For a long time, Trahald remained in the shadow. He didn't say anything--just sat there, and stared at her, and did not move.
Then, with a soft rustle of leaves and quiet hobbit feet, he was gone.
The shadows lengthened, and silence fell around Kira.
Alone.
What a big, strange word, with so much emptiness in its meaning. She was alone.
Not that the crazy little bastard was very good company, anyway, but still...
She fell without falling. Shattered black glass splintered across her vision, shards shattered
Shards shattered--alone--shards shattered
Shattered
She was alone.
Shattered
Shards
Can't think, stay awake, stay awake, don't know where I am, stay awake, alone, no one to keep watch, stay awake, STAY AWAKE, KIRA.
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
t
s
of thought shot past, through her mind, dragging in loneliness and fear with them through a door that led to nothing..
She felt it, she felt everything, she just never showed it, she was just as afraid as the next person, just as weak...
Summertime...and the livin' is easy...
She was afraid.
Don't you cry...
"Mom..."
--singin'. Spread your wings...and take to the skies...
Tunnels. There were tunnels, with bones, old bones. She was running and running, because she was lost. She couldn't find the way out, no matter how hard she looked.
Webs touched her face, stuck to it, there were webs on her face, gossamer on her face, floating out of the corners of her eyes--
Kira's eyes shot open, and she gasped ragged gasps as she tried to suck air into her lungs. Her whole body shook with panic and fear, and she was shivering, even though she was burning up, shivering under the shirt that was covering her half-naked torso.
She felt the warmth of the still-burning fire, and wondered hazily how it was still burning and how long she'd passed out. There was a crackle, as from a burning log; a smell of woodsmoke, light beside her and darkness everywhere else.
"Hmm?" Kira hummed in confusion.
It was almost as if someone else was there, but she wasn't afraid. If they were out to kill her, she'd be dead already.
She looked over at the fire, blinking away the blurriness in her vision.
Trahald was sitting on the other side of the fire, staring quietly into the flames.
When he saw she was awake, he looked up and stared at her unblinkingly over the fire.
"Well," he said. "Where are we going?"
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