Trapped Mind

Trapped Mind 5














Disclaimers: Everything is Tolkien's - thank you, dear. ;) However, Cecilie and her world is mine.

Just as Cecilie had found her key, Gandalf found his. The key to the origins and creation of the One Ring. He had to tell Frodo that he was holding the one thing that could forever destroy Middle Earth. She had to tell Frodo that she was leaving the Shire to avoid destroying Middle Earth.

Gandalf beat her to it.

When she came home that night, she found Frodo sitting near the fire, his arms crossed, his hands buried in the crook of his arms and his gaze fully attentive on the fire but nowhere else. She knew something important had happened.

"Frodo, what is it?" she asked as she approached him.

First, he didn't answer. In fact, his eyes looked so dull and empty that she felt an icy hand reach into her chest and squeeze. She touched his shoulder gently.

"Frodo?"

He finally looked at her and the shock at seeing the sudden steel and fear in his normally so innocent eyes almost made her stagger backwards.

"I have to leave the Shire," his voice was but a whisper and he added, "I have to leave you."


She should have felt relief. Relief that she was now free to go, and it wasn't even her 'fault'. But the expression in his eyes still stunned her more than anything. She didn't like what she saw in those transformed eyes. Uncharacteristically she kneeled and softly put a hand to his cheek.

"Are you afraid?"

"Yes… no… I don't have a choice."

He leaned into her hand, suckling on her stength.

"ave ave something very terrible in my possession. It must be destroyed – or else this world will perish. All peoples will be slaves, freedom will be no more and the summer and sun will die."

She shivered. She had never heard that profound tone of despair in his voice before.

"Does this have something to do with Bilbo's vanishing stunt?"

He nodded.

"When do you have to leave?"

"As soon as possible."

"So how much time do we have?"

"Till tomorrow."

She leaned in and kissed him. "Time enough," she murmured.

No, he thought, never time enough.


Perhaps it was cruel of her to seduce him before sending him to war. Perhaps it was cruel of her to let im believe that she would be there when he returned. But she wanted him to live. She wanted him to have a very valid reason to return to the Shire alive and well. Saving the world, of course, would be motivation enough for fulfilling his mission. But she wanted to motivate him to survive as well. But more than anything, she wanted to savour just a little of that innocence she saw disappearing so quickly from his eyes.

And whether he believed she would be there when he returned or not, he hungrily and readily drank of her proffered love. After the first hesitant kiss, his lips grew more insistent – more passionate – more craving, and before she knew it, she was on the rug and his hands were tugging at her garments. She quickly got aroused. They had been dancing round each other for so long, denying their feelings and yearning for so long. Damn, but it was the longest foreplay she had ever engaged in, she thought wryly and then forgot herself as the gentle Hobbit's clever fingers located her feminine folds. She inadvertently stiffened. This boy knew more than she had expected. A finger expertly playing with her moulds. It felt good. She grabbed his breeches in return, slowly undoing them while rubbing his swollen shaft through the fabric. He moaned. Oh, dearest. What a moan.

Frodo' wet lips connected with one of her niples that he had managed to tease out of its confinement. Oh, so he knew that one too! She let her fingers run through his swirling curls as shartearted to rub his ear lobes. He moaned again. No. That was her voice. Dear god, how she moaned. The young Hobbit's ample fingers had teased their way through to her vulva, manipulating her into a very slick state, and something had come free of the sturdy Hobbit breeches. Something very, very hard.

Had he really removed her undies already? He must have. All of a sudden she felt him ready at the entrance and then he rose his head to look at her. Her insatible glance told him what he needed to know, and he slipped into her easily without much pressure. The simple move almost pushed her over the edge. It felt good. So good. And she had needed it for so long. A randy trembling sigh escaped her lips, and Frodo kissed her deeply as if to drink from the sigh before it evaporated completely. A "I love you" sneaked out through his lips and accompanied his rhythmic thrusts most pleasantly, she decided. So good. So good… So….

OhMyGod.

She came almost in spite of herself, right before she felt Frodo tense, cry out and gently rock back at a calmer pace.


He was reluctant to pull out. As he grinningly said, he felt so at home in there. She kissed him softly on his slightly moist brow and begged him to stay – at least for coffee and dessert, and so he indulged her. A playful te, ae, a teasing finger and the probing rocking started again.


Frodo had a lesson in love and lovemaking that night. And Cecilie had a lesson in Hobbit sex. When they woke up the following morning, they were both exhausted, but Frodo could leave the Shire with almost a smile on his lips. Her smile was more forced. After all… she knew.


*


She left the Shire only a month later. After all, Frodo had arranged for the Sackville-Bagginses to move in and for her to move in with Rosie. He hadn't wanted her at Bag End when the Enemy came looking for her. The Sackville-Bagginses on the other hand…

She left a brief note to poor Rosie that she shouldn't feel guilty or responsible. After all, she had been planning this for quite a while. With the note was a letter for Frodo when he returned. When he hopefully returned.

Cecilie snuck out mounted on the pony that Frodo had left for her to have and to hold. Magpie, was the beastie's name. A kind horse, really, but Cecilie wasn't that used to riding. She taken lessons in the past year and surprised everybody by stating that she had never been on a pony before, but she had never really got the hang of it. Now she might. By her calculations the journey to Rhûn would take her roughly three months. Oh, dear!


"Stop looking at me!"

The sour remark was directed at her dog that trotted along with her on her horse. She had cocked her head, the way dogs do when there is something puzzling them, at the rare sight of her mistress losing control with a situn. Mn. Magpie was staring at her too. In fact, the gelding had stopped flat at the uncomfortable feeling of his burden hanging down his left side.

Cecilie had lost her balance when the animal had jumped an obstacle – a fallen tree – without being asked first. Completely unprepared, the ex-human lost her hold and slowly began sliding down the side of her mount. Very annoying! It would be a while yet before she had this riding thing under complete control. Meanwhile she would probably continue making a fool of herself every time Magpie did something unexpected. Or perhaps she just had to learn to anticipate the unexpected.

She had better luck when it came to marksmanship. She had taught herself to shoot pretty damn straight with a Hobbit bow, knowing that this might come in extremly handy when travelling alone in the mountains of Rhûn. Bow and arrow was the only really efficient weapon that Hobbits favoured and she soon understood why. It was silent, it was accurate and it had a fairly long range. Nothing compared to her 44., of course. But that was lost. Either on the other side of the portal or some place between the portal and the mad wizard's laboratory. If the latter, she hoped to god no one had found it. The effect could be disastrous. A 2003 modern weapon in this medieval scenario? She shuddered.


The first town she met was instrumental in giving her the first hint about the impending war. As she was approaching the place, she met more and more people on the roads, all of them more or less ignoring her – and all of them going away from the town that was mostly populated by humans. It looked as if they had taken all their possessions with them and almost all of them turned north once they reached the crossroad. Cecilie looked at them, wondering furiously what could have opted this massive migration. At some point she stopped a family of five to ask for bulletins. They just looked at her with wide scared eyes and shook their head. Obviously they felt safer with their mouths shut.

*What the hell is going on?* she thought with a frown. The masses of people increased in number the closer she got to the town. When finally she rode in, the place was in an uproar. The people seemed frantic and panicky. One could barely see the streets for the dust that theeingeing inhabitants were causing to rise. Everyone for one self, and some not even that. Now and then greedy hands were stretched to haul her of her pony, but Ronja always intervened fiercely before they could even touch her mistress. Magpie trotted lightly, his ears going to and fro in anxiety at the helter skelter situation.


She finally managed to locate someone who was not fretting or running around like a headless chicken, but instead sat silently on a staircase in the porch of a tall building. Most of his face was buried in his hands, and his untidy hair stood in stark contrast to his dress suit that looked very formal with its silk decorations and a beau tie and surreally out of place in this town of oanic and despair. It turned out to be a very disillusioned mayor. He looked up at her with tired eyes and pale cheeks.

"Why are you not running?" he asked in a dull voice.

"I might be if I knew what you are running from," she said sensibly. He gasped, momentarily out of his catatonic state.

"How can you not know?…. How?"

"I have been … ahem… abroad. What is the news?"

"The enemy," his voice was now reduced to a whisper, "the enemy will soon be here. His hordes of black riders, orcs and evil creatures will leave the land burnt and barren. He will extinguish Life as he passes by and freedom will be no more."

Cecilie blinked. This was very much like the words Frodo had uttered that night many months ago. And his glance has been pretty much the same: empty, horrid, griefstricken.

"What is this enemy that is so terrible?"

Her question had a violent impact on the poor man. He leapt to his feet, his face contorted in fear, and cried:

"Who are you? Are you his spy? We have all been good citizens and never posed a threat! Please… spare us!"

"Woah.. calm down, calm down," she tried, holding out reassuring hands; but it was all in vain. The man trusted her no more. He continued his enigmatic ramblings like a madman.

"You, a halfling! You sent to spy on the one? But we do not know the one, I tell you. The rumour is he has gone long ago. We never had anything to do with him or his. We heard that the Nazgûl got him – it has nothing to do with us!"

It was hopeless. Cecilie couldn't make head or tail of what he was yelling and had to leave him in the end.


Leaving a very distraught and dying town behind her, she finally found a quiet spot where she could rest, feed and ponder on the latest development.

When Magpie was grazing, Ronja was stretching in the cool sun and the tea finally warm, Cecilie leaned back and recapitulated everything she had learned. Which was preciously little.

The mayor had been frantic and appeared desperate – but not so mad as a hatter that she couldn't use any of it.

* You, a halfling… You sent to spy on the one?*

Cecilie had almost total verbal recall – a very convenient ability in her line of work.

*But we do not know the one… we heard that the Nazgûl got him…*

The one halfling? A Hobbit? Frodo's mission? Had he actually been talking about her innocent Frodo?

*… he is long gone*

That certainly sod lid like Frodo. The young Baggins had talked about the "enemy" the same way the mayor had. He had claimed that basically the whole world depended on him going away. Now, some adventure-driven youngsters might exaggerate a thing like that, but Frodo's eyes had definitely not been expressing any joy at the prospect of the mysterious mission. This was for real.

She straightened. If it was for real – that this world was in serious trouble, that that was the reason why these people were fleeing their home town – then this situation could have been opted by her dimensions transference, a disruption with wide ramifications.

Or the two incidents could be totally unrelated.

Either way. She had her quest to fulfil.


Her journey seemed to go forever on. Once in a while she would meet some of the enemy's deadly creatures – orcs or ruffians – that she quickly put an end to with her swift bow. Ronja would sometimes rip the throat open on an attacking orc. Again she wondered about her dog's development. She had never known the potential of this friendly and lively Alsatian before. The bow was useful more than six times, and Cecilie was quickly taking to it. In fact, she decided to call it 'Angel' in stark irony.



It wasn't until she reached Iron Hills that she finally found a clue to her Hobbit origins. She found the families that had lost their daughters.

She knew immediately that the sorrow that hit her as she rode into the town of Gashneg was not that of 'the Enemy'. No black riders, no Nazgûl, no orcs were hauting this place. Instead, she felt how a thick blanket of profound and heavy grief and family despair had fallen over the broken little houses that barely seemed alive despite the odd smoke here and there. This was a village in mourning. And the mourning was closer to her mortal heart than the desperate fear of the ones fleeing the war. This was a mourning from losing a child. She had seen it before in her moth eye eyes. The deep, deep root-severing feeling of perdition. The one feeling one could never recover from.


Cecilie rode Magpie through the narrow alleys of mud and dirt. The valiant little pony delicately put its hooves the only spots that weren't wet or slimey. Ronja took the same concern and sometimes had to jump over the body of somebody sleeping or more unfortunate. The dull grey and brown colours that so dominated the place made the rider moody. This was certainly different from the Shire, she thought sadly and with a pang to her heart.

Finally she halted her mount in front of a house from whose chimney a thin column of blue smoke silently rose almost in reverance. As she knocked on the door, it nearly gave in, the wood not maintained – like somebody had given up tending to such wordly affairs as repairing a simple door.

No answer. Yes, she could hear them move on the other side. So she stepped in.

"Greetings," she began and then stopped.

It was too depressing for words. There were four persons in the house and they looked exactly like somebody or something had sucked the life out of each and everyone of them. This was definitely a place that had lost a child.

"I would like to speak to you about your daughter," she tried.

Not a sound.

She cleared her voice. Then a reaction. A middle aged woman – probably the mother – raised her head and looked directly into Cecilie's dark blue eyes.

"Our daughter has not come home yet," she said in a deceavoicvoice.

Great. Denial.

"I think I know what has happened to her." Cecilie was playing with risky but open cards.

Four sets of hallow eyes were suddenly all looking at her and she looked back into their personal abyssal hell that was clearly reflected in there. It sent shivers down her spine.


*


Six families she had interviewed. Six lost daughters. Why women? Why was this crackpot preferring women? If he thought they were easier to catch and control, he had been sorely disappointed by the capture of her. By correlating the spot of disappearance with each other, Cecilie had been able to pinpoint more accurately an area that might be where the wizard was hiding or operating. It could never be within a radius down to only metres, but that didn't matter. Because this was where her dog came in as her secret weapon.


It had been 6 months since Frodo had left the Shire and 5 months since her own departure. Her calculations had been completely wrong. Almost a whole month had been spent consoling the families of the lost daughters. Waste of time? She thought not. Despite all her cynicism and professional take on personal disasters, Cecilie was a genuinely compassionate person. Adding to that the empathy she shared with these people by memories and experience of her own life, she felt she had gone through a veritable odyssey. The mothers she had held, the sibling tears she had wiped away, the fathers she had supported. And so she had supported herself, wiped her own tears away and held herself.

In the midst of the trial of sorrow, her thoughts went to Frodo. It had been so long. Had he returned already? Somehow she doubted it. Would he ever? She hoped so. She hoped she had granted him his own hope to ret



The night she was close, she could almost smell it in the air. It wasn't foul, sharp or unpleasantly thick. Nor were the shapes particularly scary or ominous. Yet the feeling was there. The odd feeling of dejà vu and the sensation of impending doom. She gasped. Something had reached in and squeezed her heart to the point of a sharp pain. She had arrived.

Magpie and Ronja sensed it too. For once, though, she had sensed it be the their superior animal senses – but then, this was something deeply personal. Something that touched her primordial instinct and soul.

She left Magpie at her last camp, a setting among trees and rocks. Cecilie petted the anxious steed.

"Sorry, Mags. You are a terrific friend, and I will come back for you. But this is personal for me and Ronja. You wouldn't enjoy it anyway. Stay here where there is plenty of water and food and wait for us."

Did the beast understand her? She almost thought so.

Ronja undubitably did. As they left the pony and started approaching the lonely meadow about two miles further down the path, the dog tensed up, sniffed and a low growl started to emerge deep within her throat. Cecilie felt a distinct thrill at the obvious sign.

This was it. Ronja would lead them directly to him.


Muzzle in the ground, the Jacobson's organ working overtime, tail erect and legs stiff and agile at the same time, the black Alsasian quickly and steadily led its mistress to the right location. Fifteen minutes later she signalled the animal to the ground in creeping mode and joined her herself. Just knocking on the door wouldn't do.

And that's when she felt it.

The gun.

The 44..

In fact, she was slithering right on top of it. Cold hardened steel against the fabric of her top. The familiar and characteristic shape of barrel and butt. The realisation made Cecilie hold her breath. Ronja had not noticed it, being intent on her prime directive: finding the Devil incarnate and ripping him to ugly little pieces.

The former detective inspector reached down without slithering further. Moving might pull the trigger, and she knew for a fact that the weapon had had its safety catch released when she lost it. She had done it herself when she went for it. In one fluent motion. Like she always did when faced with a threat. This was also a threat. The catch would remain released.

The familiar feeling of the heavy automatic against the palm of her hand was almost a sexual sensation. It even felt much bigger compliments to her considerably smaller Hobbit hands. She let out a barely audible sigh of contentment; now she felt properly dressed for fun. Her eyes narrowed.

So let the fun begin.

*

TBC