Submitter: Pecos Date: 2005/12/29 Views: 3241 Rate: 7.00/10

“I’m in a phone booth at the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk...” - Unknown

“They spotted the ‘wild man’ again,” remarked one of the constables, rummaging around in a cabinet on the other side of his desk. “Third time this week.”

“Eating bloody boiled taters in Victoria Park was he? That’s close enough to that truckload of Guinness they lost when the cathedral wall came down,” commented an unseen companion.

Oh, great...here come the Irish jokes -- as dependable as the London fog. Lieutenant Farrell decided that his day was going to be long enough as it was without sticking around for the usual fun and games. What with the bombing again last night, he’d be lucky to get anything resembling police work done at all. He started for the door with every intention of getting out to walk the neighbourhood and see what he could do to help. He’d had to climb over rubble to get into the station that morning. Those fucking Nazis...

“Colin?” called Inspector Grieves, catching at his sleeve as they passed in the narrow corridor, crowded by stacks of files and furniture brought down from the damaged top floor. “Any word yet from your brother?”

Not trusting himself to answer with a civil tongue, Colin just shook his head. Fucking RAF and their fucking missions. Why couldn’t his older sibling just stay home and get killed right here in London like a proper lad?

“Well, you’ll hear soon enough,” the Inspector told him, sympathetic beneath the standard ‘no sacrifice is too great for England’ stiff upper lip. “Do please see what you can do about these ‘wild man’ rumors. If I have one more ‘downed Nazi flyer’ report cross my desk I’ll start seeing them myself.”

“I’ll look into it, Sir,” Farrell mumbled, continuing on his way.

Keen ears tuned reluctantly to the new sounds around him, Legolas sank deeper into the scanty foliage, becoming as close to invisible as possible given what little he had to work with. The trees here were just saplings, the bushes stunted and unnatural. Certainly nothing that could yield branches suitable for bow-making. The undergrowth was unhealthy and had been hacked into odd and disturbing shapes. But the Mirkwood Elf was incredibly grateful for whatever living things he’d been able to find. It had taken him several days just to locate this small reserve of life in the hellish landscape of manmade stone and metal. Several days of running and hiding like a wild animal – like a rat – darting from shadow to shadow.

His fingers dug into the soil near his feet where he crouched. Even the soil here was tainted, sick with impurities and so lacking in life and energy. No wonder the trees were growing badly. The very air itself probably sickened the living things...it certainly sickened Legolas. He squeezed shut his eyes and tried to draw strength from wherever he could find it.

No food for days now, and what water he’d come across was foul. Small rivulets at the edge of the packed roadways stank of evil vapours and oily residues. He’d found broken, dribbling pipes one night in the ruins of a damaged building, and the water had been close enough to clean to slake his thirst for a while. But no such luck had been repeated. He had observed that people around him had things that they were eating, but when he ventured forth to recover discarded wrappers and scraps the smell and look of everything was so very alien to him. He could go without food for quite a while yet, but the lack of water was troublesome, to say the least.

Legolas would stay hidden during the light and go out to explore when everyone disappeared at night. When the screaming sirens started. The streets were empty then, and he could search once again for a path out of this hellish labyrinth, despite the danger that the world would start exploding again. He'd decided that the evil force tearing this world apart was of less consequence to him than the fact that he’d been unable to find any sign of Saruman, nor any other creature but Man. The spiders of Mirkwood would be a welcome sight to his stinging eyes.

A breeze found its way to his nostrils and it held a hint of trees and greens. He quickly checked for direction, glad to have something to look forward to as soon as it got dark again. A horrible din on the path that ran along one side of the grove where he hid as two metallic carts crashed into one another, and he hid himself even further as he heard the commotion and a sound of screaming that was almost heart-wrenching enough to almost draw him out of concealment. But soon came the sirens again, this time moving, and he knew that a crowd had gathered from the sounds and smells carrying into his refuge. He stayed hidden, but not consoled.

Aragorn blinked himself awake with a shudder, rolling over and climbing to his feet groggily. A brilliant sun shone down on him, causing his head to ache as it hadn’t since Helm’s Deep, and he raised a hand to shield his eyes.

“Where am I? Where’s Legolas gone?” His voice was harsh and he had to wonder how long he had been insensate after crashing to the ground.

All around him were rolling hills and scrubby undergrowth -- no trees, no signs of habitation. The far hills seemed to have been planted in crops of some sort, though the lines of the planting seemed far too rigidly straight to be real. He licked his dry lips and tried to figure out where in Middle-earth he’d landed himself. A thin line of dust rose on the horizon, seeming to move. Perhaps it was horsemen on patrol. He gauged the distance, looked around once more, then set off.

If Legolas had come this way there was no trace of the Elf’s passing.

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