|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kerling
The Shire
Sep 28 2015, 1:17pm
Post #1 of 3
(595 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Thorin -A brief step out of Middle Earth Pt II
|
Can't Post
|
|
So you have the idea by now. I ought to have put the Zebra crossing details with this one, but hey . . . Just think of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road and you'll be fine.
Thorin walks beside Gandalf past the bright planting of summer bedding formed into the words ‘A& E welcomes careful drivers’, which is a bit odd, especially in scarlet salvias. To be honest, Thorin is not so much walking as trying extremely hard not to admit to running, which means that he looks like a very shortened form of John Cleese doing his Ministry of Silly Walks sketch.
“So now what?” Thorin manages, without panting, just.
“I am catching the bus to Minas Tirith. I have to see a Steward about avoiding seeing a Seeing Stone.”
“A bus? Will it go near Middle of Nowhere Peak where I left the others?”
“Not this side of next Thursday, no.”
“Er, so how do I get back before Dwalin mistakes every flying creature in Middle Earth for a raven?”
Gandalf gives one of his ‘Ah, only a wizard knows’ looks, which makes Thorin wish he was a lot, lot taller and could swipe the expression off his face.
“You will find a way.”
“You mean I need one of those Awayday tickets?”
“No. Now this is where we part for a while. I am catching the Number 14B.” Gandalf stops at a bus shelter bearing a large poster for The Matrix 32. Thorin stares at it. There is something oddly familiar about the face facing him, but he cannot place it. Gandalf perches on the edge of the narrow seat, next to an old lady with a string bag full of fruit.
“You have a nice pear, madam,” remarks Gandalf, conversationally.
The old woman hits him with her handbag and calls him a dirty old man. Thorin smirks in his beard and leaves Gandalf to extricate himself. A wizard may never be late, or in the wrong place, but he can be well and truly in the doodoo.
Thorin does not like being alone in this place. There is too much noise, not of good dwarven mining, or a good fight, just lots of noise, and many very fast vehicles that look as if they could outdistance a warg in under a minute. He stops in the middle of the pavement, and a youth on a skateboard swerves round him using language no dwarf would understand, but in a tone that needs no translation.
A young woman is walking towards him, her expression transfixed. She is rather a pretty young woman, he thinks. despite having no beard, and is about Thorin’s height. She steps right up to him, sighs, and plants a lusty kiss upon his ‘half open in surprise’ mouth.
“Do I know you?” he manages as she disengages.
“You can if you like. I only live round the corner.” Her voice is breathy.
Thorin frowns in some confusion.
“Are you propagating me?”
“Ooooh, I could propagate with you in my hot house flat any day of the week. I have a flowery bed.”
This is all outside of any dwarf experience. Thorin blushes. He has the distinct impression she wants him in the bootless embrace, without as much as an exchange of axe hafts.
“I think you must be mistaking me for someone else.”
“Oh no,” sighs the young woman, and points to the side of a passing bus with Thorin’s face, about ten times actual size, on the side. He blinks at it, and also at the sight of Gandalf sat on the top deck, his face squashed against the glass as an old dear beats him with a brolly. Thorin wonders what he said this time. (In fact Gandalf saw her struggling with said brolly and said ‘I can get it up for you,’ which was misinterpreted.)
“I, er, am on a promise.” Thorin too can say the wrong thing.
“Who is she?”
“Who’s who?”
“The one who got there first.”
Thorin wonders if the young woman has been on the thrice brewed.
“I have promised to reclaim Erebor.”
“Erin who? Is she that dancer off Strictly?”
Thorin’s eyes boggle. He is out of his depth, and a dwarf is out of his depth in the shallow end.
“I have to go.” He sounds desperate; he is desperate. The trouble is he is pretty sure that she is desperate too, and pretty or not, she is not his type.
“So, do you have a pad locally?”
“Pad?” Warg’s have pads, wolves have pads. “Er, er?”
If ever a face cried ‘save me, NOW’ it is Thorin’s.
“Why, there you are.” An elderly lady with a tartan shopping trolley bag beams at Thorin. His initial reaction is to recoil. He has seen how dangerous old dears can be today, and if she has a concealed weapon in her handbag . . . “Now, sonny, I think it is time we went home for a nice cup of tea, don’t you?” The last two words are accompanied by a far from mild old lady glare. It is an order. Thorin reacts as he did to his old softbeard nurse, and nods submissively. Failing to do so usually resulted in little Prince Thorin being sent to the high step, which stood all of three feet from the ground, and was terrifying, and having to recite the Fourteen Laws of Mining, twice. He is mentally preparing them in his head already. She grabs him by the hand.
“Where are we going?“ he whispers, “And have we met?”
“We are meeting now, Thorin Oakenshield.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Well the fact that it is plastered over half the buses in Tooting is a great help, dear.”” She contrives to be nice, but really scathing, all in one breath. Thorin is definitely in ‘back to little dwarfhood’ mode.
“Am I in trouble?” he asks, a little nervously.
“No, dear, not as long as you do as you are told.” That sounds familiar.
“Are you a friend of Kerling Frakokk?” Old nurses would be bound to swap stories.
“No dear, but I know a dwarf in need when I see one?”
For one awful, mind exploding second he wonders if he is being kidnapped for the same purpose as the pretty female had in mind.
“I . . . I . . .”
“Yes?”
“I want to go Home.”
“I know. So first we cross the road.”
This looks about as safe as cave troll baiting. The traffic is whooshing past at close to blur speed as far as Thorin is concerned.
“We do? How?”
“At the zebra crossing.”
Thorin is a well educated dwarf. He knows a zebra is a horse beast from the South Hotlands, and is striped in black and white. He can see no horses, let alone striped ones. Mystification is writ large upon his handsome dwarven features.
“There are none here.”
“Yes, there is, look?”
She points at the lines painted upon the road.
“How do they make one safe from the danger of being squashed? Are they magic?”
“Not at all. All we do is make it clear we are about to cross and step boldly onto the crossing. The traffic will stop.”
“Do we make an offering to the Deity first?” It sounds mad, but if the old lady has lasted this long, perhaps it works.
“Not required, dear.”
The old lady keeps a good hold of Thorin’s hand, looks both ways, edges her trolley off the pavement, and then steps into the road. Thorin holds his breath. A car driven by a youth who seems to have his hair plaited into snakes beneath a brightly coloured hat many sizes too large, screeches to a halt. The youth waves his fist at the old lady, and shouts something unintelligible. Seeing this as an insult to his new found ally, Thorin turns, stands feet braced apart, and draws Orcrist.
“Oh dear,” remarks the old lady, mildly.
The youth is clearly in awe, but three men in strangely shaped hats and with black sticks at their waists begin talking hurriedly into little boxes in their hands.
“He offered insult.”
“Mark it in the Book of Grudges later, dear. Now we are holding up the traffic and causing a stir, so come along.” She yanks his arm so firmly he can feel the muscles ping, and beams at all those people now standing very still on the pavements.
“Have they never seen a dwarven king before?” enquires Thorin, puffing out his chest, proudly.
“More they have not seen a sword that big, dear. Best put it away, that's a good boy.”
He sheathes his sword with a satisfying whooshy sound. They reach the other side of the road, and Old Lady is still half dragging him, at quite a speed, towards a park, with trees and pigeons, but probably devoid of wargs.
“This is the way Home?”
“In a way, dear. Now,” she pauses and looks about her. “We have not got long?”
“You have a premonition of death?”
“No, dear, inquisitive policemen. To get Home, you simply have to click your red heels together thrice and say “There’s no place like Home, there’s no place like Home.”
“My boots do not have red heels.” Thorin looks down. “Ooh they do, must be warg blood. Quite smart, really. What do you . . .”
“Thrice, Thorin.”
The voice brooks no refusal. Thorin brings his heavy dwarf bootheels sharply together and sparks fly from the iron.
“There’s no place like Home. There’s no place like Ho . . .”
Everything is swirling as if after a very heavy night of feasting. He feels dizzy, light-headed, and a bit queasy.
“Thorin, Thorin, did the eagle bring you back?” Balin looks at him with relief. “We kept a fried warg steak for you.”
The Old Lady smiles, and sighs. A very small dog peers out of her shopping bag and cocks its head on one side, (which is far nicer than cocking its leg).
“Yes, I know, Toto. But the Armed Response Unit were terribly nice about it last time, and being frisked was rather fun at my age.”
Þæs oferéode, ðisses swá mæg
|
|
|
Ilmatar
Rohan
Sep 29 2015, 8:43pm
Post #2 of 3
(584 views)
Shortcut
|
I enjoyed parts I and II - thank you for sharing these! Especially impressive since it's almost entirely dialogue - those can be heavy to read but these had a very natural flow.
(Thorin at the A&E with the flustered personnel  and "the bootless embrace", etc...!  )
|
|
|
Elarie
Grey Havens
Sep 30 2015, 11:57am
Post #3 of 3
(572 views)
Shortcut
|
Thank you for posting that, it gave me a good laugh first in the morning. 
__________________
Gold is the strife of kinsmen,
and fire of the flood-tide,
and the path of the serpent.
(Old Icelandic Fe rune poem)
|
|
|
|
|
Great
[