The Warrior and the Poet(Extended Edition)

The Warrior and The Poet
By Ithilin Palandiriel

Rating: R

This story is a blatant Mary-Sue. Flames on said style are not appreciated and not welcomed. You either like it or you don’t. If you don’t like it, be constructive about your criticism.

Summary: Hesper falls into Middle Earth sometime between the east gate of Moria and the forest of Lothlórien and travel with the Fellowship, battling orcs and Uruks along the way.

Read and Review Please.

Disclaimer: By now, everyone here should already know that I own nothing but the unknown Characters. Everything else belongs to the great master, Tolkien or to Peter Jackson. I’m just playing in their sandboxes.

*** The Warrior and The Poet ***
Prologue: Evening Falls

These icy conditions scared her. she always worried that something bad would happen; today was no different. . .

The slippery road and the icy rain still coming down were making driving more treacherous. Hesper gripped the steering wheel of her mini-van tightly yet even the lilting notes of Enya's "Evening Falls" could do nothing to dispel her tension and fear. She hated driving on ice and the only thing she hated more than that was driving on ice with any of her children in the car.

Moragain sat in the back, fuming about having to leave her ballet class without changing clothes again. They had argued about it when she picked her up, Moragain making a particularly loud display of willful stubbornness right in front of all the other mothers. Eventually Hesper had virtually had to drag her into the car, so now they all thought she was a bad parent with a disobedient child, Moragain hated her, and she was late to get dinner started. Great.

Hesper heard an audible click above the music. Looking back, Moragain gazed belligerently back at her as her seat belt zipped up away from her slender body. Hesper was horrified.

"You get that back on, young lady," she yelled. "The road is too slick for you to do . . . "

Just as she said it, the tires slipped on the ice and the van lurched sideways. Hesper’s breath caught in her throat. Fear thrilled though her as she turned the wheel, attempting to keep the van on the treacherous road. They were traveling at a snail’s pace anyway, but she knew that it wouldn’t matter once they really started to slip. Eventually the car stopped fighting her, allowing the van to roll to a precarious halt.

"Put the seat belt back on, please," Hesper ground out angrily.

The silence from the back of the car was deafening. Moragain’s silver shot blue eyes burned her, daring her to do something to make her do as she was told. Finally she heard an impudent huff and solid click of the seat belt sliding home. Hesper let out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Despair tore at her. This was not how her life was supposed to be.

Hitting the repeat on the CD player Hesper let her head fall against the steering wheel as her breathing calmed. The haunting tone of Enya’s voice echoed the helplessness and heart-sickness she felt. "Close to home feeling so far away." No kidding, she thought, gingerly pressing down on the gas pedal and coaxing the mini van back to it’s slow crawl. Just that morning she had spoken with Father Grey, telling the old priest about how her life seemed to be falling apart, how she felt so lost in a world that seemed not to be her own. How Tom didn’t seem to see her anymore, becoming a shadow in her own home. Something functional not emotional. A piece of the furniture. After asking for his advice, the old priest suggested she place her trust in what she believed. She snorted at that. How could she put trust in fiction? How often had she pleaded in fruitless prayers to a seemingly non-existent God? If He did exist then why did her prayer and penance go unheeded. It was all a lie. The only reality was abandonment and resentment; the death of the first blush of love and the day to day humdrum slogging through trying to capture what was lost. Anger surfaced again.

Her life was spinning out of control. She was a mother of three and felt trapped in a life that didn’t feel like her own. While she loved her husband, she felt abandoned by him, like he only wanted her when it suited him - which wasn’t often enough and even then she had to be the aggressor. This caused her to draw further into her safe world of imagination where no one would ever hurt her again. That thought just made her madder. Hesper wanted to know she mattered to someone, someone real. Was that too much to ask? She knew that she could always count on the love of her children- though Moragain currently hated her- but she needed more than that. They didn’t count in this need though. They always needed her whether she wanted to be needed that way or not. She needed to be Tom’s lover as well as his wife and the mother of his children but recently it felt like nothing she did made him want her. She sighed in angry frustration. Why couldn’t her see her as she saw herself, a sexual being with the same needs and desires that he had? Would he ever see her as anything more than his housekeeper? Would she ever have the life she often fantasized about? Hesper sighed. No, more than likely not. Dreams were just that, dreams.

Hesper shivered in her Medieval cloak. She was glad of the woolen bodice and undertunic she wore as well as the thick woolen skirt, eventhough at the moment they seemed to provide little warmth. With the descending dusk the temperature had dropped below freezing, conjuring a thick, almost corporeal ground fog that lay over the land like a shroud, so that Hesper could only see a few inches in front of the car. The thick fog roiled eerily around them, giving a surreal appearance to the hidden landscape. All she could see were phantoms of reality looming in the boiling darkness. It seemed like they were caught in a time tunnel and the world they knew had vanished into shadow. Were they really going the right way? How long had it been since they left the ballet studio?

Suddenly Moragain screamed as something like a large white owl flew straight at the windshield. Hesper yanked the steering wheel, trying to avoid hitting the creature, feeling the car slip sideways as she did so. A scream caught in her throat when the car didn’t respond regardless of which way she spun the wheel. The wheels slid and skidded on the icy pavement as Hesper desperately fought for control, to no avail. The wheels had locked up. They were in a fast spin headed who knew where until the jolt of the impact against the door screech of metal against metal told her that the van had careened off one of the guard rails near the bridge; bouncing off into another spin and through the other guard rail.

"Mama!"

More screaming metal assaulted her hearing. Then there was silence as the car seemed to hang for a moment in mid air. For a fleeting moment Hesper could swear she saw an image of a young man, tall and proud like a slender aspen tree, holding out his arms in welcome as a gentle breeze toyed with strands of his golden hair. His clear blue eyes seemed to call to her, a tender, good-natured smile tugging at his lips in invitation.

"Legolas?" she whispered in confusion. Why would he . . .

Suddenly her had slammed against the steering wheel disorienting her. Hesper shook her head to clear the stars that swam before her eyes. She gathered her scattered wits as she breathed a shaky sigh of relief. They had landed in a tree. One of the limbs had smashed through the windshield and Hesper could hear the murky water of the swollen creek rushing below her suspended car.

Something flashed blue-white outside in the gloom. Through the broken glass she heard the crackle of a downed electrical wire. They had to get out before it hit the car and soon. Hesper looked back toward Moragain only to see her slumped in her car seat. Fear raced through her. She had to get to her.

"Moragain!" she cried, forcing down the panic that had started to rise.

Hesper unlatched her seat belt and started for Moragain. As she did so, she heard the glass crack even more.

"Oh Valar, save us!" she whispered.

That was the last thing that went through her mind before the windshield gave way. In her free fall, Hesper reached out for the steering wheel, shear force of will allowing her to a hold of the steering wheel but the icy rain was making it difficult to hold on for very long. She had to get to Moragain some how. A creaking groan shuddered through the van, causing Hesper to lose her grip. As she fell, she watched in horror as the sparking wire swung close to the imprisoned car, finally sending a bright charge snaking over the vehicle that seemed to envelope her just as she hit the icy water below. The shock of the charge and the cold sucked her into unconsciousness.

A white figure stood alone on the bank, smiling slightly as he watched the silver mini van hit the tree that sent a shower of sparks up into the murky darkness as the limbs snapped a power line. A bright light broke through the icy gloom, enveloping both the man and the car. Then as suddenly as it had appeared, the light was gone. so was the man. All was dark and quiet again with only the sound of the icy rain hitting the bare trees and road and the crackling of the downed wire, until an explosion rocked the coming night with violent force. Then, again, all was still.


* * *


A balding man stood silhouetted in the flashing police lights against the police tape, two young boys at his side. Shock and disbelief written on his face as the mini van was hauled out of the creek. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. Yet he knew in his heart that it was.

"Are you Tom McLaughlin?"

The man nodded numbly. They were gone. They couldn’t have survived that. What was he going to do now? She was gone. How was he going to explain this to Bobby and Bryan? Hesper was gone. Gone.

"Where’s Mommy?" the youngest boy, Bryan. asked.

The officer gazed sorrowfully at the child then at the man. "I’m very sorry, Mr. McLaughlin."

"Did you find them?" Tom asked almost mechanically, eventhough he knew that there was no way Hesper and Moragain could still be alive after that kind of crash. Much less after the explosion the Fire Chief had said described to him.

"It’s possible that they escaped, sir, but they could have been swept away by the creek. I promise you that we will keep looking."

Again Tom nodded. As he turned from the scene he picked up Bryan and put his arm around Bobby, gently guiding his two young boys away from their mother and sister’s grave. He was too numb to grieve. It was still too much of a shock. Had he not received a phone message from her just minutes before the crash saying she would be home soon? This had to be some horrible nightmare and he would wake up and find her sleeping peacefully next to him. Yet in his heart he knew, knew with terrible certainty that this was very real.


* * *


He stood outside the priest’s office, still in shock.

"Tom?"

Tom looked up dazedly. "Father Grey, It’s about . . ."

"I have heard about it, Tom," the old priest said, gently laying a wizened hand on his shoulder. "I am so sorry."

"The boys keep asking when Hesper and Moragain will be home, Father. I don’t know what to tell them."

"What do you believe?"

Tom was silent for a moment. He wasn’t really sure what he believed anymore. God had taken from him the woman who was his life and he directed his anger toward Him yet how could he be angry at God who had reasons for doing the things He did? But Hesper was still young, why did He have to take her? And Moragain, she was a child; why her? "That she and Moragain are in Heaven," he said softly. "That God has called them home."

Father Grey smiled secretively. "That He has, Tom. They are better off where they are now."

"I feel somehow responsible," Tom sighed guiltily. He knew he had not paid enough attention to Hesper; perhaps this was God’s punishment for neglecting His gift.

"It was nothing you did, Tom."

"How can you be sure of that? She deserved better than what she got from me. She needed. . . I don’t know . . . more than I could give her."

Nodding sympathetically, the priest steered Tom into his office. He was well aware of the deteriorating relationship between Tom and Hesper. Hesper loved Tom, of that he was sure, but that love was quickly turning to apathy and resentment. Father Grey knew that Hesper had done everything within her limited power to hold on to Tom, yet Tom seemed disinclined to take anything more than a passing interest in her-except when he wanted release. However, even that had to wrestled out of him which caused Hesper’s resentment. In his long experience, they were not the lovers that most couples were, yet Hesper refused to give up. She kept trying even when she knew it was pointless. He smiled again. She would learn now that her efforts were not fruitless. Ilúvatar had set a task before her. If she succeeded, she would become what she dreamed she could be. If she failed, then Mandos would claim her. . .