Feä Bond (Legolas x OC)

Of rocks and ponds

Hey, a long chapter today where Boromir and Frances gently clash heads again. And where she finds that she is not as courageous as she thinks.

If there was something sure about those mountains it was that their origins were crystalline. Hoping from one rock to another, Frances did not feel the uneasiness shared amongst all her companions about progressing in such barren land. From the moments they had started climbing the outskirts of the mountains, the young lady had assessed the nature of the terrain. It felt somehow reassuring that geology followed the same rules, it meant that mathematics and physics still had an influence over this very peculiar planet. For the hundredth time since she had landed in middle earth the young woman questioned the legends and origins of this world, the mere existence of those different races being totally not-understandable to her scientific brain. How could they be so human like and so different at the same time? How could the elves be immortals and unaffected by diseases? How could they weight nothing and being such warriors at the same time? Their fight with the wargs, two nights ago, had shown her an unexpected side of the prince. At the time she had barely noticed, her spirit too enclosed in her own concentration while shooting arrows at the giant wolves. But when the young lady had released her last projectile, she had seen him fight. It was like a dance, but a dance with death. It had been difficult to follow, his moves were just too quick for her eyesight. Dead wargs had littered the ground around him, and yet he had been so graceful. This world was a mystery to her. How could so many different races coexist without one taking total precedence over the others in terms of evolution?

At a point she had nearly been eager to believe in the Valar and their legends, the thought of higher beings able to model life as it pleased them really unnerving. But why would they have chosen a human form as a starter? Was this world another version of earth in the future? Was it a different planet contemporaneous from earth? Was it an alternative reality? The very presence of geologic points of reference had cast doubt again in her confused mind. This planet was so similar to earth, and the incredible range of mountains that contained the unbreakable Caradhras was mostly made of granite and other magmatic rocks. Their composition was the reason why the edges were so sharp and the slopes unforgivable, but it was also why Frances marveled at the rocks lying at her feet while the others eyed warily the creepy lands they were crossing.

Each time she gave a look at the surroundings it felt like a blanket had fallen over the landscape. Covered by thin clouds, the grey sky turned everything into a dull layer of nothingness. Apart from the distant cliffs that were barely visible, the land was a nightmarish path that crossed over miles and miles of barely flat rounded grey rocks, their tops not rising enough to create hills but not flat enough to be comfortably hikable. Here and there, a twisted tree would subside, its flanks covered in graying moss and the flattening area populated by spiny bushes. Along the way, uneven ponds of darkened water reflected the grey sky, their position sometimes treacherous. A few flat sites of greenish grass could be seen amongst the rocks, but Frances knew that walking over them could be the death of them; peatlands created by the configuration of the ground. The grass layer would probably give way under the weight of anybody and drag him to deeper water underneath.

Shuddering from the sinister view, Frances came back to her beloved rocks for further studies. The closer they got to the mine, the bigger the crystals. It all made sense to her, she could probably have drawn the path to the mines while studying the changes in crystal size and rock composition, but this could have taken two weeks at least. However, if there was one place you could find any interesting mining metals, they were heading straight for it, straight to the top of the magmatic chamber, straight to the last crystallized water bearing veins of magmatic juice. One's education can never be erased, she thought. It didn't help that she had been sent into this world in the middle of her college year. The biology and geology courses had been fresh in her mind when she arrived in Rivendell. Now, some of it was already starting to get fuzzy. If she ever got back, it would be one hell of a time to catch up with her classmates. Working seventy hours a week for a nineteen year old girl was not really a dream life, but she wanted to live up to her parent's expectations. In the light of her current condition however, all of it seemed to have no sense. What was a biology interrogation next to the life of her companions? To the fate of middle earth ?