Giving Chase {Lord of the Rings Crossover: Book One}

Chapter Twenty-Four

We all die, a simple fact which Calypso knew all too well. During her youth in Narnia Calypso grew ever more accustomed and hardened towards that simple fact of life. The White Witch empowered by the dark magic of the once lost gifted ring had frozen the lands of Narnia in an eternal winter, turning it to a land where only the strong prospered.

Calypso's mother, who was the pinnacle of strength and resilience, had taught the young cub how to survive, which for a predator literally meant death.

Kill to eat: because the harsh winter lands of Narnia were no longer the plentiful fields which her mother remembered.

Kill for shelter: because if there was a warm, dry hollow to call home for the night, it was most likely already someone else's.

Born into a litter of three cubs she was neither the youngest or the oldest, nor was she the biggest or the smallest but she was the only female. The feline had very few memories of her brothers, the younger Caius was a small cub who despite his size was the fastest of all his siblings, even the oldest of the litter Atticus, who could outmatch them all in terms of strength. Calypso would often find herself running after her two siblings to keep them from mischief.

The goal of life she surmised was not to live forever, but to create a memory that will. Calypso in the end found herself alone with her mother quite suddenly, she was now both the oldest and the youngest cub yet also the biggest and the smallest. Three became one, but her mother had few tears and even fewer words of comfort. "Death is what gives life meaning" Calypso's mother had recited.

Decades later, Calypso felt like the same scared and confused little cub begging her mother for answers. How could she find death's meaning if its appearance was so mind numbingly painful? She could only watch from her stone perch near the Great Eastern Gate as history repeated itself. Suddenly ten became nine and the felines' still beating heart cracked and crinkled with each agonising sob which rumbled her chest.

The grassy sunlit hillside cushioned the fellowship as they tumbled out the Great Eastern Gate and collapsed heartbroken to the ground outside. Calypso watched on from her perch as her companions fell deeper into sorrow. Slowly the feline descended down the hillside towards Legolas who gazed solemnly over the fellowship, a forlorn look upon his face. Calypso sat silently resting her muzzle against the elf's thigh. Her short blood-stained fur and crisp whiskers unknowingly scratching the elf's sensitive skin through the fibres of his leggings, slowly the cheetah raised a single paw and wrapped it gently around his leg in comfort. She spoke no words but Legolas heard her all the same, His fingertips threaded themselves into her matted fur and pulled her close, the pair continuing their solemn over watch in silence.

Aragorn takes a scrap of cloth and wipes his sword clean before sheathing the weapon and turning to the pair, his gaze stopping on the once mighty feline now cradling itself into the elves leg. "Legolas, get them up" he spoke with urgency, "give them a moment for pity's sake!" Boromir sobbed watching as Aragorn made his way towards Sam. "By nightfall this hill will be swarming with Orcs! We must reach the woods of Lothlorien. Come Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, get them up!" The ranger reaches a tearful Sam and lifts him upright, "on your feet Sam," he says, patting the hobbit on the shoulder as.

Calypso paid little attention to the scene before her, her focus instead was on the lone figure slowly walking away in the distance. "Frodo!" She heard herself calling out as her slim form hurried to his side, but the pup continued to walk away, as if in a daze. "Pup!" She cried out again, drowning out Aragorn's own cry of "Frodo!".

The ringbearer stops walking and turns, tears rolling down his rosy cheeks a look of numb shock on his face, "Calypso?" He whimpered, his broken voice proving to be the last devastating blow to the cheetahs heart as she felt it shatter into beating shards. "I'm here my pup" she whispered, "I do not know the way" he admitted in a low voice his eyes dampening with fresh tears, "Gandalf was meant to show me the way."