The Girl and the Orc - (A Middle Earth Story)

Bogwater's Tale

    The trio made their way down the cliffs of Mordor. The creature was leading them to a bog of water. Bogwater looked grave as they approached.
    "No one will make any lame puns while we're here, right?" He questioned.
    "I won't promise anything," smirked Rain.
    Bogwater rolled his eyes at his newly found friend. They pressed on, wearily following behind their guide.
    "Hey," Rain asked, pointing to the bog as the creature lead them further in, "Is that fire?"
     "Lightses. Don't follow the lightses," was all the creature said.
    "But why are they even here?" she pressed. Bogwater noticed that the girl asked a lot of questions, which he found endearing.
    "Souls of the people in the water."
     Rain suddenly stopped in her tracks, "What?"
     Bogwater gave her a small smile, "That's why they call it the Dead Marshes. You've never been this way before?"   
     "No," she said, continuing to follow her friends, "I just always hid along the cliffs."
     As they passed a small body of water along the bog, Rain took a quick peak into it. Sure enough, a man's face could be seen just under the water.
   "Oh my god."  
    Bogwater pushed her along, "Don't look, you could get sucked in too."
    Rain pressed her lips together, this place was seriously twisted. They went on, slipping in places that were too muddy or tripping in the dead weeds. Rain didn't think this place was safe, if the hooded thing came back again they would not have a good place to hide. Not to mention the possibility of being sucked into the water full of dead people.
    While Rain was freaking out to herself, the dead bodies reminded Bogwater of his dreadful past. He walked slowly and shamefully behind the group. When he was a fresh Uruk, just made by Saraon, all he knew was practicing for battle and training. When he was first allowed to go out onto the field, to command his own regiment, their missions was to attack one of the villages that had begun to rebel against them. They killed many people, and the rest were sent back to Mordor to work as slaves in the mines. Bogwater knew something similar happened to Rain's family, and he felt guilt deep inside him. Uruk's were trained to hide their emotions though, as they were weak, and Bogwater was trying to keep his calm.
   This is why he wanted to be human. Bogwater wanted to live the rest of his life in a small village, to be accepted by his peers, and to have a fresh start. Seeing Rain's sister killed in front of her only strengthened his resolve. He was going to be human, he was going to be normal. Look normal, live a normal life. This was Bogwater's dream. So when he came across the creature on one of his patrols of the camp, he listened to everything he had to say. The Creature knew how to help him, and gave him the map and the key. A few days later, he met Rain. A girl who could read his map. Bogwater began to believe that it was his destiny to be human, and meeting Rain was fate.
    Bogwater was soon shook out of his thoughts, as something screaming pulled on his arm. Bogwater looked down to see the creature who saved him, panicking, "What is it?" questioned Bogwater.
      "Rain followed the lights, she fellses in!"
     "WHAT?!" roared the Uruk, this was not good. "Where did she fall?"
    The creature only pointed. Bogwater immediately looked into the water, he could see Rain's figure in the water, but he wouldn't be able to reach her from here. After taking the map and key out of the pockets of his furred pants, he jumped in without hesitation, swimming towards the girl. He tried to ignore the ghosts of the dead people trying to hinder him and drown him. Bogwater finally could reach the girl, and he grabbed her by the waist and heaved her out of the water. It was hard because of the ghosts trying to pull her back in, but Bogwater was victorious. He dragged the girl onto a dry patch of the marshland. She wasn't waking up. Worry flooded through him, Rain couldn't die! How would he become human without her? He tried to search for a pulse in her wrist, but when he couldn't find any he began to press hard on her stomach with his hands as anyone would know to do. It took a couple of tries, but eventually Rain was started awake. She leaned over and coughed up a ton of water.
    "Are you okay?" Bogwater forced Rain to look at him, wiping her damp hair off of her forehead.
    "You-you saved me."
     "Of course I did, I couldn't let you drown!" retorted Bogwater.
     Rain coughed up a little more water before leaning her head on Bogwater's shoulder, "I feel like crap."
    "We needs to go," the creature interjected.
     "Hold on for one minute and let her catch her breath!" snapped Bogwater.  He picked up his map and key in an irritated matter. While the creature did save him from his life in the Uruk camp, he was, for some reason, unsympathetic towards Rain.
     "We needs to go." he repeated.
     The Uruk sneered before picking up Rain bridal style, "If you insist."
     "I guess you could say this bog of water was in a bad mood today," joked Rain wearily as they continued walking.
     "If that was supposed to be a pun, you failed," Bogwater gave the girl a raised eyebrow paired with a smirk.
    She coughed, "Sorry you have to carry me, I didn't mean to be such a burden."
    "Oh, whatever. The only burden was that terrible joke you just made. That itself is enough for me to put you back in the water."
     Rain blinked at him with her wide blue eyes before tilting her head back and laughing.
     Bogwater smirked again, trying to hold back his laughter. It was good she was laughing, that meant she wasn't feeling too bad.
     However, it was if the gods of fate were against them, for their laughter was only brief. It began to rain.
     Rain frowned, as her hair that had little chance to dry began to flatten against her forehead again, "No puns."
    Bogwater opened his mouth.
    "Don't you dare!"
     He gave her a devilish smile, "I guess you could say rain fell into the bog water."
       Rain weakly punched his chest, "You suck!"
      "At least I don't go around trying to drown myself."
     "Now wait just a minute-"
     "We thinks Rain is jealous of your punses," the creature suddenly piped up.
     "That wasn't even a good pun!" Rain cried.
     "It was better than yours," Bogwater retorted.
     "We thinks the orc is right."
     Rain shivered as the rain began to pour harder, "Whatever."

    They continued on, darkness came fast. The trio sat down in a muddy spot of the marsh. They didn't have much protection against the rain, except for trading an occasional cheesy joke to keep each other's spirits high. Rain ended up falling asleep first, and Bogwater felt a sadness come over him as she shivered in her sleep. She didn't deserve this. She should be in a warm bed, with a fire in the hearth and her family all sleeping peacefully beside her, but thanks to his kind, she had that taken from her. And yet she was so kind to him, not blaming him for her sister's death or her missing parents. He wished again that he was born a human, or even a dwarf. Bogwater's only hope was the creature and the key and map he was given.
    Bogwater fell asleep beside Rain, keeping her close in an attempt to keep her warm. He fell asleep with a new resolve; as soon as he was human, he'd help find Rain's parents. To pay her back for helping him to Rivendell.
     The Creature did not fall asleep as quickly as the other two, however. Gollum paced around the two friends, conversing with himself.
     "Our planses is working, precious... soon we will have our precious."
     The creature's face shifted into a fearful look, "But what if they find out our plan, precious?"
     "We can figure that out then," Gollum sneered, "They are too busy anyway to findses out. Look at how the orc protects her, gollum, gollum!"
    "Yesses," Gollum's other half gagged, "Its too bad our plan to drown the girl didn't workses!"
     "We shouldn'ts have told the orc," sneered the other.
     "But thens he would figure out it was us since we didn't tell him, yes, precious?" reasoned the creature to himself.
     "Yes, yes, good point," nodded Gollum. 
     "All we can do nows is wait for another moment to get rid of the girl, Gollum, Gollum!"
     Gollum slunk to a sunken spot in the muddy marsh, where he laid down in a ball, "Yes, yes, precious..."
     And soon, he too, fell asleep.