in which the witch of the wilds has spent her whole life avoiding the prophecised true king of gondor until he shows up on her doorstep with four hobbits, an elf, a dwarf, a warrior and an old wizard with a sparkle in his eyes and asks her to join t...
ALL THIS WAY YOU HAVE LED ME. TO DESTROY ME AGAIN?
- aeschylus, agamemnon
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THE FELLOWSHIP is shattering.
Yseult cannot entirely name how she knows, but it is starting to slip between her fingers, and she is afraid that they will never make it to Mount Doom together. The ring, heavy around Frodo's neck, has made them all snappy since they set out from Lothlórien. They glare longer, now, at one another. They harrumph when they need not.
They dock on land that feels like sand beneath their feet and start unloading their boats for the rest of the afternoon.
"We cross the lake at nightfall," Aragorn tells them, throwing his pack over his shoulder. "Hide the boats and continue on foot. We approach Mordor from the North."
Yseult leans her back against ruins, Samwise starting to fall asleep on her shoulder. Her eyes narrow at him. If it was so easy to simply approach Mordor one would have done so by now. And yet, nobody has quite been strong enough. Or brave enough.
"Oh yes?" snaps Gimli and their heads twist towards him. He's sharing a log with Pippin, who has stuffed his mouth full of lembas even though he does not need to. One bite could fill a man's stomach for an entire day. "Just a simple matter of finding our way through Emyn Muil, an impassable labyrinth of razor-sharp rocks. And, after that, it gets even better." The hobbits' faces drop. "Festering, stinking marshland as far as the eye can see."
"I must say I agree," pipes in the witch.
"Oh, you would." Aragorn mumbles something else under his breath that they cannot hear before he schools himself back into the proper ranger he was trained to be. His men might disagree, but he is in charge and if he says they are going through the North. Then, they will go through the North. "That is our road. I suggest you take some rest and recover your strength, Master Dwarf. My lady."
As Aragorn walks away to prepare to rest himself, having already sent Boromir for firewood and Legolas for scouting, Gimli starts to grumble about what the ranger said. He sharpens his axe, still grumbling, the harsh consonants of his voice mixing with the slicing sharpness of whetstone against metal. Pippin looks worried at the embers sparking from the quickness of which he is moving his hand and slides further down the log until he is nearly falling off.
Merry tugs a fish out of the river just as Legolas reappears to, yet again, whisper to Aragorn without the rest of them overhearing.
Yseult rolls her eyes. She should sleep. They are fragmenting, falling apart at invisible seams they did not realise had been pulled apart. They are not safe from the overbearing weight of the ring hanging above their heads and the darkness has started to spread. She massages the base of her hand with her thumb and stares down at the blue veins on her wrist. Blood flows through her. Blood poisoned by hope a long time ago. Now, grief speckles what keeps her alive.
