Rise (Lord of the Rings)

15 - And So It Begins

Despite the fact that the Fellowship was about to embark on a perilous journey to an evil land to destroy the One Ring, I managed to have no dreams or nightmares that night. Waking up in the morning realizing this made me a little happy.

I made sure to change into one of the two outfits Arwen had given me yesterday. It was a long dress—like all my outfits in Rivendell had been. It was a very beautiful silver color with long sleeves.

The Fellowship set out of Rivendell at dawn. The number swelled to eleven since the pony was brought along for the journey.

Once crossing the cobblestone bridge, I felt slightly heartbroken. Would things be the same? Would we remain the same people prior to this quest?

Gandalf took lead of our group. I was in the middle of the pack, having given the task of leading the pony. Aragorn and Boromir lagged behind me. I didn't mind having Aragorn stay behind me, but Boromir...he was a different story. I hadn't gotten a good first impression of him at the Council meeting yesterday. I didn't know what it was, but something seemed...off about him.

I wondered if I was the only one who felt this way about Boromir.

The farther and farther the Fellowship trudged away from Rivendell, the more I wondered—and feared—what Middle-earth had in store for us.

*~~~~*~~~~*

Just getting to one destination was going to take forever. I wondered why we never bothered to invest in horses. It'd cut the travel time down a good amount. Of course, I doubted anyone was thinking along those lines.

According to Gandalf, our trip was to take forty days, and that was just to stay on the course we were going. Our destination was the Gap of Rohan, and we were to stick west of the Misty Mountains. When we'd get to the Gap, that's when our course would change east, giving us a new destination: Mordor.

It was hard to tell how many days we had been on our feet, making slow but good time to the Gap of Rohan.

We would be on a certain landscape for what seemed like days to almost nearly two weeks. For a good amount of time, we'd be on very high ground, the sun beating down on us. Other times we'd be on level ground, completely out in the open. Nobody really talked during our walks; it was when we rested at night that people talked to one another.

I also noticed that on occasion I was stared at, whether by Gimli, Boromir, or Legolas. It was like they'd never seen a woman before.

The most depressing landscape was when we were in some sort of desert area. There was nothing but dirt, some dust, and plenty of rocks almost the size of me, or larger. The weather was merciful on those days, though, which was about the only good thing about that landscape.

If we weren't stuck in a desert wasteland, we were in a land of the rocks the size of a house. Naturally, this was where we stopped to rest and eat. Everybody went and did their own thing once we got settled in. Gandalf waddled up to a level boulder to sit and smoke a pipe. Sam was getting some food cooked while Frodo and I were watching Merry and Pippin practice with their swords with Boromir. Aragorn acted as a supervisor, sitting closer to the practice session, smoking a pipe. I was pretty sure Gimli and Legolas were keeping on alert.

Now that I thought about it, we hadn't been detected by any enemies. No Black Riders or Orcs. So far, our journey had been tiring and uneventful. It wasn't like I wanted it to become eventful. I'd rather not have to battle some creature when I was inexperienced with a sword.