River of Stars

Chapter Ten

      They walked for a long while, Strider running in front of them and Abis trailing just behind him. Finally, they came to the beautiful forest.
     "SH! Stay close, young hobbits," Gimli ordered. "They say the great sorceress lives in these woods. An elf-witch... of terrible power. All who look upon her fall under her spell... and are never seen again."
     Abis rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he heard Gimli's ghost story. There was no witch in these woods, and Abis could only assume he spoke of the Lady Galadriel.
     "Well, here's one dwarf she won't ensnare so easily. I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox," Gimli boasted loudly.
     Suddenly, an arrow was pointed to each of their heads, and the Fellowship came to a quick halt.
     "The dwarf breathes so loud," a haughty voice said. A tall blond elf, with unusually blocky, heavy features came and stood in front of Strider. "We could have shot him in the dark."

     The elves brought them to floating platforms high in the trees. They were surrounded by elves, all of them aggravatingly tall, blond and imperious.
     One of the elves, the one who had spoken when they had been captured, approached Legolas, speaking to him in elvish.
     Legolas responded accordingly and the elf turned to Aragorn, having a similar interaction. Then he looked at Abis, who stood beside Strider. Before he could say anything, Strider spoke up, this time in the common tongue.
     "Abis does not speak elvish. He only knows a few words and phrases."
     "So much for the legendary courtesy of the elves!" Gimli barked. "Speak words we can all understand!"
     The elf turned to Gimli, a thinly veiled look of disgust on his face.
     "We have not had dealings with the dwarves since the dark days."
     "And you know what this dwarf says to that?" Gimli asked sharply. He began speaking in dwarvish, and from the look on the elf's face and the way Strider pushed him away it was less than kind.
     "That was not so courteous," Strider warned, leaning to look Gimli in the eyes as he spoke.
     The elf, who Abis was wishing he could put a name to at the moment, went back to ignoring the dwarf. Instead he walked between Strider and Abis to see the hobbits.
     "You bring great evil with you," he told Frodo. He turned away from them and addressed the group again. "You can go no further."
     Strider followed him as he walked away, and the two stood to the side, speaking in low whispers but obviously arguing.
     The large cut on Abis's arm had began to hurt less, dulling to more of a sharp ache on top of the bruises along his side. What he was more worried about now was that his shirt was definitely drying to the wound, which was going to not only reopen the wound but hurt like a thousand swords when he took it off.
     The increasingly obnoxious elf came back to the group.
     "You will follow me," he said simply. And so they did.

     Frodo still looked melancholic as they left. Abis had seen Boromir giving him encouraging words before the elf had come back - honestly he could have heard his name a million times now and still not remembered - but it had done little for the hobbits mood.
     Abis did not blame him for his grief. He had a right to mourn, a right stolen from him by time and circumstance. Gandalf had been like a part of his family, which he had already had to leave behind.
     The Fellowship now came up to the top of a hill, overlooking a valley surrounding another hill, more of a small mountain, covered in giant trees.
     "Caras Galadhon. The heart of Elvendom on Earth. Realm of the Lord Celeborn and of Galadriel, Lady of Light."
     From what Abis had heard, it was almost laughable that Galadriel's name was behind her husbands. Now every time Abis heard his name he certainly did forget it.
     They kept walking from there, following the elf towards the city. Abis was beginning to grow tired, his feet scuffing on the ground as he trailed farther and farther behind Strider.
     "How's your shoulder?" Legolas asked next to him, making him jump.
     "It's fine," Abis breathed. "It's dried so it's not so sensitive now. Sorry, I didn't hear you coming, and Strider usually comes to my left, not my right."
     Legolas nodded and walked next to him in silence for a few minutes.
     "Why do you call him that? Why not Aragorn?" He asked. Abis shrugged.
     "I called him Strider for so long, four years actually. So when I finally did get his real name it just felt so much less connected to him. Strider had become more a nickname than a title, so it just stuck."
     "Do you have a Ranger name?" Abis snorted and Legolas looked at him curiously. "What?"
     "You don't want to hear my Ranger name."
     "Yes I do."
     "No you don't," Abis sighed. "It's stupid and disappointing, I promise."
     "You could tell me anyway, and I could decide?" Legolas suggested. Abis looked at the pretty elf boy, considering for a moment.
     "Dodger," he said simply. Legolas was silent a second, as if waiting for something else.
     "Dodger?" He repeated. "Why Dodger?"
     Since he seemed genuinely curious rather than condescending, Abis told him the story, however begrudgingly.
     "When I was six years old, my mother got me a cat. I named that cat Dodge, I can't remember why, and then the cat died when I was thirteen. So when I joined Strider and picked my Ranger name I was still upset about my mother and the cat, so I named myself Dodger."
     He didn't look at Legolas while he talked, instead focusing on where he was going. The forest around them was bright and beautiful in full autumn colors.
     "When did you become a Ranger?" Legolas asked, stunned.
     "When I was fourteen," Abis said, now looking at his boots. "I don't regret leaving, sometimes I do regret how. But I wouldn't change it, even if I could."
     "You were fourteen when you started traveling with Aragorn?"
     "Yes. How long are you going to be stuck on that?" Legolas shook his head.
     "How long have you and Aragorn been traveling together then?"
     "Ten years. Almost eleven, actually," Abis responded simply. "You ask even more questions than the hobbits, you know."
     "You have yet to stop giving interesting answers." They settled into silence again, but only for a few yards. "Would you like me to step louder when I approach you?"
     Abis looked at the elf in surprise. It was such a sweet and genuine offer, Abis never would have expected it from him.
     "Yes. I would like that very much."