Suebusters
Disclaimer: The PPC belongs to Jay and Acacia. We are not them, but we do have permission to write in their world. The Lord of the Rings and other associated works, and all characters therein, belong to J.R.R. Tolkien specifically and the Tolkien estate in general. Twilight and all associated characters belong to Stephanie Meyer, and we don't want them. Lost in Space and all associated characters belong to Irwin Allen and 20th Century Fox Television (television programme), or Stephen Hopkins and New Line Cinema (film). Cara and Miriam belong to us, and thus may not be used without our permission (we probably will give permission provided we're allowed to make sure you keep them in character, but you still need to ask). OFUM and all quotes thereof belong to Miss Cam, and Peter Jackson belongs to himself. The fic up for killing, For Gondor and Rohan, is owned by stndabvthcrwd1 (wonder how you pronounce that), and we don't want it. It's pretty much the first movie copy-pasted, but with a Sue thrown in, anyway. A big thank you to tea_fiend, lady_rilwen, neshomeh and warrior_joe for betaing this mission. Fic excerpts are in bold.
Warning: There is some violence due to the nature of the PPC, but nothing very graphic.
Miriam Collins did not like being bothered. There were many things she could say bothered her, especially other people, but on the whole she'd much rather ignore it all. She didn't consider herself a mean or rude person, she just didn't like socialising with most folk; it was too much hassle a lot of the time. If Cara didn't enjoy dragging her out of the RC (sometimes literally) when things came up, she'd likely never leave except maybe to eat at the Cafeteria. After a mission, it was much better to just send the report via Console, zip up her jacket, and curl up on one of the chairs with a good book. Or, at the least, nap for a little while.
A chill overtook her for a moment, causing her to shiver briefly and hunch up some before her attentions returned to the Silmarillion; most wouldn't think it very cold in the middle of summer, but most places were chilly compared to the Arizona desert. Especially HQ, where the climate never really seemed to change. Bringing her legs up closer to herself, she placed the book down for a moment (remembering the bookmark, of course) to make certain that her jacket was closed. Clutching the fabric tightly, she sighed and picked the book back up, quickly becoming engrossed enough in the creation of Eä that she barely heard the door to RC #96's bathroom open and close.
The water running inside had stopped a few minutes prior, but she'd never noticed. Not bothering to look up, partly out of respect and partly due to her attention being captured by the book, she let out a little wave from her seat just to acknowledge the other woman. "Hey, Cara. Get all the glitter off?"
"I think so," Cara replied, towelling her hair dry. "Sometimes I really do wish we were allowed to feed them to the Watcher, it'd be so much cleaner." After some extended wrestling with her long blonde hair, which seemed determined to knot itself if she so much as moved, she had it bound back in a plait.
She eyed her partner for a moment, shaking her head at the teenager’s need to wrap up so much. Cara was Norwegian, and Miriam’s aversion to cold mystified her. Setting the brush down on the table, she rummaged for a pack of bacon and threw a couple of slices to her mini-Balrog, Moira, who was beginning to growl hungrily. The miniature semi-deity appeased, Cara flopped into her own chair, and scooted across to the small bookshelf they shared.
This threat of impending comfort was evidently too much for the console to resist.
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
Cara changed direction and glided across towards the vexing machine. Her hand came down firmly on the mute button, and she tapped a few other buttons resignedly, bringing up the fic report. Behind her, Miriam had put her copy of the Silmarillion back on the shelf, and was reattaching her sword's scabbard to her belt. With its long, slender blade and the fancy design of its hilt and handguard, the weapon was more like a rapier than the typical longsword, but it resembled something an Elf might wield closely enough that it never seemed to cause a problem. Walking up to take her place at Cara's side, she tried to put on her best "annoyed face", though it only ended up looking like she was mildly irritated at her reading being interrupted.
"So what'd we get this time?" she asked, smoothing over her almost boyishly short hair out of habit as she started looking at the report.
"A Boromir-lusting Sue from Rohan, apparently, who's best buddies with Gandalf and came to the Council of Elrond because she felt like it." Cara snorted, scanning the fic and putting on her fake-perky Suethor voice. "Yay Tenth Walkers!" She read a little further, and then relaxed with a smile. "At least she's leaving Aragorn and Arwen alone. I'm sick to the back teeth of watching Sues split them up." She spun her chair and tapped the disguise generator's settings. "Uruk-Hai, or do you want to go as something else?"
Miriam gritted her teeth at the mention of Boromir-lusting, still not entirely past the "Boromir is mine!" stage of thought, but soon relaxed, and shrugged. "I'd be fine with that, as weird as an Uruk with a rapier would look. I mean, it's really either that or Elves." Strolling back to the Console's screen, she perused the fic further, clearly more than a bit put off by what she saw. Giving Cara a little nod, she tossed a nearby notepad to her. "Just one thing, Cara; this one's my kill."
"Fine by me." Cara stood up, wandering over to her weaponry and selecting the large knife she favoured. After a few moments' dithering, she also chose the Uruk-Hai bow and arrows, though her skill with those was questionable at best. "Well, once more into the breach, my friend. Or into the bleach, if this one gets worse."
Opening the portal, Cara grabbed her backpack and stepped through, feeling her disguise settle into place around her. She absently wondered if Sues would ever grow tired of Rivendell as she looked around at the buildings, then moved into the shadows. A moment later, a shorter Uruk took up station next to her, looking around a bit and still fidgeting with its gear. Miriam had been right about one thing; her rapier did look strange, paired with the disguise they'd taken. Cara fought to hold back a giggle at the sight, and attempted to look businesslike.
This didn't last too long, as on reading the Words she nearly cracked up again. "Oh, dear Eru, 'the warm Elven waters of a bath'? Come on, this is just... oh, I really hope the rest of the fic is like that, I could use a laugh."
Miriam, on the other hand, hadn't even tried to hide her snickering, holding her hand over her mouth so that there was less chance of them being heard. "Think we can charge for that?" she asked between giggles, looking to her more experienced partner. Even though Cara was more often than not the one doing the killing, Miriam had quickly learned to defer to the older woman a lot of the time, when it came to charges. It seemed logical to her, considering Cara'd been with the PPC for years as opposed to her own service time of less than one month.
"Well, let's just lump it in with all the other terrible descriptions, and make them one big charge of 'bad description'." Cara shrugged her backpack into a more comfortable position. "Come on, I've been absolutely desperate to see yet another rendition of the Council of Elrond as done by a Suethor. And it says it's a mix between the books and the movies, that'll be fun to play match-up with. Still, means we get more charges." With that, she strolled off towards the courtyard where the Council was to take place. Nodding, Miriam followed.
The walk didn't prove to be too long, and they both arrived at the courtyard a bit before the Sue was supposed to show up, settling themselves in behind a group of pillars. Before either could say much else, the Sue made her entrance, signalled by the entire courtyard turning gold, the glare produced making them both cry out a little.
"Gack! I get the feeling that wasn't supposed to happen," Miriam said, rubbing her eyes. The sudden switch hurt to look at, especially with the glare produced by the sun, but she tried to focus more on the fic itself as the canons spontaneously appeared. "We can charge for all this, too, right? I mean, this is wrong even for the movies." Keeping her eyes on the fic, her hand tightened on the rapier's hilt. "The only mortal? Really? When she's surrounded by Dwarves and Men?" Miriam snarled a little at Frodo's description. "Elves did not have pointed Glaurunging ears! Neither did hobbits!"
"I know that, Miri," Cara sighed. "I've been doing this long enough. Here, if it really makes you feel better, you can write a few charges down." She offered the notebook, a little teasingly. Turning to watch the fic, she groaned and thunked her head lightly on the stone pillar she was leaning against. "Stupid plagiaristic Suethors. Movie-verse rendition of the Council, complete with a young woman who somehow knows exactly what the Ring is and feels it tempting her, but oh-so-wisely ignores it." Thunk. Thunk. THUNK.
"As if just ripping the whole thing off wasn't bad enough," Miriam groaned, holding her head in her hand for a moment. The scene continued, lifted word for word from the film, even as she tried to ignore the blatant plagiarism. As Boromir finally made his appearance, she found herself divided between exasperation at the fic and yelling at the author to leave her Lust Object alone, but managed to restrain herself. "That just doesn't make sense, then. This is from the extended edition, so she obviously saw it, shouldn't she know better than this? Not like she can say she doesn't know."
"No, no, no, she's improving the story, you see? Not enough powerful, girl-power women in it. I mean, Arwen doesn't do much except wander around looking pretty, even in the movies. Galadriel's not an action girl by any stretch of the imagination. And Eowyn... well, let's face it, she doesn't really have much to do with the Fellowship except smile at them, her moment of glory is elsewhere." Cara braced herself absently as Boromir made to take the Ring and Gandalf did what she'd privately come to call his "freak-'em-out" moment, bellowing in the Black Speech.
Glancing ahead in the Words, she made herself comfortable and pretty much ignored the rest of the Council scene, waiting it out quietly. On the whole, it progressed rather boringly, since the only difference from the movie's version of the Council was the Sue's presence, and it wasn't long before her partner started losing interest as well.
Stifling a yawn, Miriam leaned back against another nearby pillar, not even interested enough to be irritated at either the fic itself or the use of the film's canon. Idly pulling a Canon Analysis Device from her pocket, she pointed it at each canon in turn. While it was understandable given the plagiarism, 0% OOC readings across the board (with the exception of the Sue, of course) were still unusual.
"Huh, everyone's totally in character so far," she noted, raising an eyebrow at the CAD with a small amount of disbelief. "That's strange."
"Doesn't count," Cara replied, nodding to the Council and skimming the Words to occupy the time. "Suethor's cheating. And to be fair, the characters aren’t really interacting with her yet, she’s just sitting there."
Miriam shrugged, putting the CAD away after another pass by the canons, having lingered on Boromir for a few seconds longer than she should have. "Guess so. Besides, she's ripping off the movies, they don't count." She adjusted the rapier at her side so she could sit more comfortably, idly looking around the area to see if there was something she could amuse herself with, clearly even more bored by the ripped scene than Cara was.
The older Agent sighed. "Miriam, we've been over this. The movies are legitimate canon, they're just another version of it. Which is just as well, otherwise we'd have wiped out the entire population of movie!Arda by now and Peter Jackson would have been forcibly enrolled in OFUM." She shrugged, zoning out a little throughout the discussions and inevitable uproar and poking moodily at the grass with one of her arrows, absently portalling out the minis Middle Earth and Ring Bearer as they appeared. After seeing this scene rehashed so many times, Cara could pinpoint the exact time to start paying attention again, and put the arrow away to avoid any temptation to commit premature Sueicide.
Frodo's line shut everybody up, as per usual, and in fact everything proceeded fairly smoothly until after Boromir's offer to join the quest, at which point the Sue jumped up and butted in, pledging "the speed of the Rohirrim", as if that would make them get things done any faster. The back of Cara's head struck the pillar again, hoping to knock the pain of watching that away. Miriam followed suit, smacking her palm against her forehead, as she wasn't quite as willing to risk concussing herself. The scene continued as in the movie after the Sue's addition, but the exasperation remained.
"Just what the hell would the 'speed of the Rohirrim' have to do with anything, anyway?" she muttered, casting a quick glance at the courtyard before rolling her eyes. "It's not even that relevant, you know? He needs protection and stealth, not speed, especially since they bloody well don't have horses!" She let out an annoyed grunt, and then her eyes fell on Cara's pack. Miriam had brought her own, but neglected to bring anything for entertainment, thinking there wouldn't be a need. Now, though, she found herself reconsidering. "You bring anything we could kill some time with? The Council scene takes up almost all of the chapter, and just sitting around watching it is boring."
"Well, maybe if you'd thought to bring something for yourself, you wouldn't have this problem," Cara replied mildly. "Just because I'm the older one doesn't mean I should have to remember everything. Besides, the Council's nearly over. Look, all that happens now is that the hobbits do their lines and everybody wanders off so our Sue can introduce herself to her precious Boromir. Aaaargh!" She straightened up and snatched the notebook, scrawling down a charge with annoyance. "Every time. Every bloody time."
"What's the problem?" Miriam replied, still looking bored despite her partner's obvious annoyance.
"Stupid stupid bastardised 'Ten companions' line, it just... bugs the hell out of me." Cara put the notepad away with an irritated gesture. "Gah. I’d love to see this author facing OFUM’s Elrond during a Numerology 101 class. ‘You shall count to nine, nine is the number of your counting,' et cetera," she added with a nostalgic little grin. “There’d always be one who wouldn’t listen and brought up the idea of a Tenth Walker… y’know, Lord Elrond could be scarier than Sauron when that happened.”
Miriam was about to pass comment, but thought better of it, instead watching as the Council members slowly began to make their exit. Everyone apart from the Sue, Gandalf, Aragorn, and Boromir soon departed, leaving the Agents to watch the four interact. She couldn't help but make a slight face as the fic claimed Boromir had "something else" in his eyes. "Uh... no, he didn't. Stupid, disgusting Sue."
"You think that's disgusting? Did you just see what Gandalf did?" Cara shuddered a little, pointing out the bit in the Words. Gandalf had just told the Sue that "a group of such personalities may need a female touch from time to time" and winked at her. "Urgh, charge for making Gandalf slightly pervy."
"You're the one with the list, you charge," Miriam teased, despite the fact that Cara was already busily doing so. "Yeah though, that's definitely not like Gandalf. Wait, who's she praying to?" Apparently, the Sue had started praying for strength to some unnamed deity as soon as Gandalf left, though she soon dropped this in favour of talking with Boromir. Cara simply shrugged and rolled her eyes in response.
Aragorn had left without anybody really noticing, leaving the two alone in the courtyard. She seemed justifiably wary after what Boromir had been saying about the Ring, but it wasn't long before they were chatting as if nothing were wrong at all. Watching the Sue with Boromir made Miriam determined to be as annoyed as possible, especially since his eyes couldn't seem to decide if they were grey, blue or a mix between the two, but she couldn't help a little snicker at the Sue's name. "Alandria? Elrendyn? What kind of ridiculous names are those? Definitely not Rohirric, whatever the heck they are."
Cara nodded. "Those names… look like they're random-name-generator-based, they certainly don’t sound like they fit in Rohan. Although ‘Elrendyn’ sounds rather like she just took a canon name and messed with it a bit.” She pulled a face. “I can't stand it when people screw with things like that.”
Keeping her eyes on Boromir and Alandria, the older Agent suddenly fumbled for a small pebble and hefted it. She was aiming for the general vicinity of the characters, but it wasn't clear which of them she was actually trying to hit. “No, Boromir, you did not travel here on the word of Gandalf. If this is book-verse, you came here because you wanted Elrond’s advice on a weird dream you had, and if it’s movie-verse, your dad sent you to get the Ring for him. Pick one or the other.”
“Hey, it’s not his fault the author made him say that,” Miriam said quickly, trying to head off the risk of Boromir getting beaned or the thrown stone attracting attention. Cara gave her a glance, then relented, dropping the pebble and turning her attention back to the Words.
“All right. Well, nothing more happens for today, we could always have a wander round and absorb the view… or we can portal past the chapter change and the canonically incorrect timeskip, whichever you fancy.”
Miriam thought about this for a short while, but didn't take long to come to a decision, shrugging and pulling herself to her feet. "I'd rather portal ahead," she answered, brushing some dirt off before fishing for her Remote Activator. "Even Rivendell gets boring after a while, and this fic's gonna be enough of a headache without us wasting that much time, y'know?" Keying in some co-ordinates, she quickly activated a portal to a point after the chapter switch and timeskip, and looked back to her partner once the blue doorway had opened up. "Unless you wanna stick around and take some snapshots, or something," she teased, nodding to the portal.
"Please, please don't tempt me," Cara replied, stepping through as quickly as she could to get away from the alluringly photogenic vista. The view on the other side was not nearly as pleasant, being a very nondescript campsite in pre-dawn light that nonetheless managed to catch the light from Rivendell, which was still in sight even after a full day's walking.
Her good mood evaporated immediately, and was further worsened by having to scramble for cover as the Sue was woken by Boromir to take her watch. "Eru-damned Sues waking up too bloody early how we're supposed to hide I don't know what about our safety..."
Miriam gave her a sharp poke in the shoulder to get her attention. "You sure ranting like that's a good idea? They can probably hear us," she said, trying to shrink back out of earshot even as she gave Boromir and the Sue a rather pointed glance. Giving a quick nod, Cara followed her, the two women settling down in the grass when they felt the Sue wouldn't immediately see or hear them. "Do they always call Rivendell a 'glimmering city', though?"
"In Suefics, it's pretty common," was the reply, in the singsong tone of somebody pretending to hide their annoyance. "Awww, how sweet. Boromir wants a hug from his little brother. Gag me with a pitchfork." She paused. "Actually, don't. We can gag her with one instead... Hah! She's from the North, so she's not even Rohirric! False advertising!" The notepad was put to good use, although the pen suddenly ended up under severe strain as the Sue announced that she'd been trained to fight from a very young age, and the sound of a very angry Uruk-Hai trying to growl below the range of human hearing had to be quickly stifled.
The two Agents ranted for a short time, the charge list filling up with almost every word that passed by, but before long the Sue decided to leave to take a "walk of watch". Boromir agreed easily enough, and if Cara and Miriam didn't know better they'd have said he sounded almost relieved to be rid of the Sue for a while. Miriam rose to follow, but Cara lightly grabbed her arm. Still keeping one eye on the Generic Camp, Miriam ducked back to her partner's side.
"What's up?" she asked. "Shouldn't we be following her?"
"No point, all she does is wander round for a bit stating the obvious and then make Legolas compliment her. Let's just get moving. Why we even paid any attention to this chapter I don't know, it was a waste of time. Here, give me that RA and we can jump to the location of the crebain attack. I'm not bloody walking after them for weeks." Without waiting for a response, Cara grabbed the portal device and tapped in the location - a fairly common one for Tenth Walker fics, so she knew it off by heart.
Muttering the Fellowship Mantra under her breath in an attempt to stay calm, the older woman stepped through and settled herself behind a rock with a good view of the site. Miriam, unwilling to squash up with Cara, picked a similar rock nearby to hide behind. Each of the Fellowship started going about their own business while they waited for the hobbits to cook, the Sue making more condescending comments about said hobbits while she led a horse behind a group of rocks along with Bill the pony.
"That horse wasn't there before. Charge for that?"
"Yes, yes, and yes. If she can't be bothered to pay attention to a Cute Animal Friend long enough to mention it more than in passing -" Cara caught herself before her voice rose to a shout, but it was a near thing. "Idiots. Still, more relaxation time." She sniffed suddenly, and peered over the rock towards the camp. "Oh, that smells good. 's making me hungry now."
"You too, huh?" Miriam grinned, leaning against her own rock and watching the proceedings, almost missing the fact that the Sue was eating lembas before the Fellowship would have had any. "Hey, they're not eating all of it, think we might be able to nick some?"
"If you fancy trying to crawl down into the camp while Her Sueness is there, go right ahead. Personally, I'll stick to food that won't get me shot at." Cara rummaged in her bag and found a bar of chocolate. "That'll do. And while I'm not looking at them, I'm not planning evisceration. Lembas. Glaurunging lembas. And she shouldn’t even be eating it if she’s got a full meal there anyway."
"You're no fun, you know that?" Still looking at the camp as if planning how to sneak down and take a few servings of the Fellowship's meal, Miriam dug out a hard roll from her own pack, gnawing on it while her attention fixed on Boromir's sparring session with Merry and Pippin. "Looks like more plagiarism," she noted rather distastefully, sighing.
"It is more plagiarism," Cara replied, finishing off her chocolate rapidly and snatching up the notepad again. "Using numerals in prose..."
"Cara, that's just nitpicky." The look she got made her shut up rather quickly.
"Do I look like I care?" On receiving no reply, Cara returned her attention to the fic. A few seconds later, she picked up a fairly small stone and flicked it at the Sue, hitting her on the back of the head and ducking again before she was spotted. "Teach her to mix up Merry and Pippin, poor lads..." she grumbled, ignoring the fact that the Sue was now looking around, bewildered as to what had hit her. After a few seconds, the Sue looked back to Boromir and the hobbits, who had forgone sword fighting in favour of wrestling on the ground. Noticing just where her partner's look was going, Cara cleared her throat. "You know, I've got a full stock of Anti-Lustin back in the RC, if you need it."
If not for the disguise, Miriam would have been blushing madly as she ducked back behind the rock. "Er... no idea what you're talking about, Cara. None at all, really." A few seconds passed in silence, and then the teenager looked up again. "Oh come on, it was just a look..." Cara was going to say something, but, on catching her own eyes drifting towards Aragorn, decided to restrain the somewhat hypocritical comment and turned towards where Legolas was keeping a lookout.
She muttered several rather choice words under her breath, concerning the blatant copy-pasting of the movie-verse, as the crebain finally made an appearance. A few seconds later, she found herself reaching for another stone to throw, as Alandria had decided to display unnatural lack of common sense and ignore everyone else’s scrambling to hide in favour of staring at the oncoming birds. Naturally, it was Boromir who saved her, grabbing her and shoving her into a little alcove before hiding himself.
“Well, wasn’t that just a perfect display of Sueish stupidity… Miriam! Are you insane?” The Agent in question was currently sneaking down towards the camp, probably in hopes of swiping some food while the Fellowship wasn’t looking. “Get back here!” This last was in the closest equivalent to a scream that a whisper could be. The younger girl either didn't hear her or just decided to ignore her, moving from rock to rock as quickly as she could manage without tripping, and somehow made it to the food without anyone spotting her. Pulling a food storage bag out of her pack, Miriam cast a quick look up at the crebain and around the camp before stuffing as many vegetables, sausages, pieces of bacon, and lembas wafers into the bag as she could manage.
The crebain flock didn't stay long, though, and as the last of them were disappearing Miriam was already making her way back up to their hiding spot, crouching behind rocks and pausing occasionally to lower the risk of being spotted. Before too long, she was back at Cara's side with pack in one hand and food bag in the other, grinning triumphantly. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"Are you bloody mad? They could have seen you!" A mixture of worry, anger and relief coloured Cara's voice. "We've got food, what was the point of that? And what do you plan to do when they realise half their meal's vanished?"
"Looked at the Words," Miriam said, wolfing down a few pieces of bacon before giving a bit of a shrug and tossing a carrot to her partner. "The Sue ignores the food after the crebain show up, so they won't notice either. Look at what's happening in the camp if you don't believe me. Oh, and you're welcome."
"That was still a stupid thing to do." Munching on the carrot, Cara rolled her eyes - an interesting move on an Uruk-Hai - and turned her attention to the Words rather than poking her head out to watch the camp. Fortunately for the carrot, it was eaten before Cara could crush it into shreds as she spotted more evidence of the Sue's stupidity.
"I am not going to kill her yet, there are plenty of better charges, not knowing his name is not grounds for death, just stay calm..." the older Agent chanted under her breath. Saurman the mini-Balrog was dealt with easily enough, but Cara heard her partner let out a groan at Gandalf's statement that they'd need to go through Caradhras.
"Can we, um, not? And just say we did?" Miriam asked, pre-emptively shivering a little just as the chapter-break hit. The two Agents were unceremoniously dumped into the snow while the Fellowship and Sue made their way up the pass, the teenager almost screaming as she jumped back to her feet. Luckily, she was able to put the food bag back in her pack before too much snow could get in, closing the pack up and slinging it over her shoulder. "So cold... too damn cold, why couldn't they skip this part like the last one did?"
“It’s not that bad,” Cara shrugged, though she pulled her jacket around her a little more tightly. “One of these days I should make you face an Arctic winter or something, then maybe you’d quit complaining about this scene.” Tramping resolutely after the Fellowship, she glanced back after a moment and gave her partner a good look. Miriam really wasn’t made for the cold, and the expression the young girl had right now, even in disguise, made Cara a bit more sympathetic. “Don’t you want to see if she screws up Boromir’s big moment? That’s the really important bit, anyway, and we can pick up a mini in that scene, so you can probably get him to keep you warm.”
The mention of warmth was all it took to get Miriam moving, and she practically sprinted up the pass to catch up with Cara, despite more than a few stumbles. Cara was much more used to this kind of weather, so she still ended up having to slow her pace to allow Miriam to catch up, but with that motivation added they were both able to progress much more quickly. The tougher forms of their disguises made the cold gradually more bearable, especially for Cara, but both found themselves paying almost more attention to looking for the mini than the Fellowship ahead of them. Finally, Frodo stumbled and went crashing into the snow, the mini-Balrog "Ring Bearer" appearing next to him and rushing over to the Agents.
Even though she wasn't usually fond of minis, Miriam almost squealed in relief, huddling just close enough to Ring Bearer for the convection to warm her without causing severe burns; warmth was one thing, being incinerated was another, especially by a creature that was melting the snow under it just by standing there. Appreciatively, Cara moved a little closer, not being one to turn down the chance to get warm if it was available. After a few seconds, she was comfortable enough to begin paying attention to the scene not too far away.
“Come on, Boromir, get a grip,” the woman murmured as she watched him pick up the Ring, leaning forwards as if trying to hear better. “Come on, get it right, please let there be at least one Suethor in the multiverse who can quote this line properly… Yes!” she crowed on hearing the line straight from the movie-verse, though this made the mini jump in surprise and Miriam fall over as she tried to back off. “Whoops, sorry, cutie,” she added to Ring Bearer, feeding him a couple of pieces of bacon by way of apology. Hesitantly edging back to where she'd been once Ring Bearer calmed down, Miriam let herself grin a little at the Sue's use of the correct line, before becoming serious again.
"Well, she obviously went through all the trouble to make sure she got this bit right," she said, much more comfortable with the mini-Balrog's presence but still holding her arms close to her chest. "There's no excuse for the rest of this, then."
"You think?" Cara's voice was more than a little sarcastic, but she watched Aragorn approvingly as he at least remained unaffected by the Sue and followed the movie-verse canon. Resisting the urge to throw anything at Alandria, though the only thing she could really have thrown was a snowball, Cara blinked and looked twice as Boromir briefly turned blond.
"Okay, that is not supposed to happen." Rummaging for the notebook suddenly became rather pointless, however, as the scene abruptly changed and dumped them into a snowstorm. "FLAMING DENETHOR!" She might have been used to cold weather, but the Suethor's description of the blizzard was so unpleasant that Cara found herself scrabbling for her portal device. "Sod this, we are not waiting around for the avalanche, we're going to Moria and waiting there!"
She opened the portal and herded her companions through into the darkness of Moria just inside the West-gate. While the Mines were definitely on the cool side, compared to what they'd just stepped out of it was perfectly comfortable, and Ring Bearer's presence made things even better. "Oh, I hate Suethors," she growled - Uruk-Hai voices were good at that. Miriam was slow to respond, the layering of frost covering her face, hair, and clothing taking a short while to melt away and still leaving the younger girl shivering for a minute or two.
"Thank Eru we got out of that blizzard when we did," she muttered, checking some of her kit to make sure none of it was frozen over or waterlogged. Leaning against a wall, she inched closer to Ring Bearer and let out a small sigh, her contented grin looking rather odd in disguise. "You can keep those Arctic winters if you want, I'll take a warm fire any day. Or the desert, but we don't get to see those much out here. Damn shame, too." Miriam looked around the mine, seeming a lot more at ease now that they weren't in danger of freezing to death. "So how long d'you think they'll be?"
Cara examined the area and eventually wandered over to the doors, listening carefully. "Well, I can hear a bit of splashing and stones crunching, so I'm assuming that the Fellowship's just turned up... not bad timing on my part, I have to say." She couldn't help but smirk a little, and settled down next to the doors. "It's all standard plagiarism from the extended edition of the movies. There's a good solid bit of waiting..." She paused, thinking it over, then decided to avoid the inevitable complaints of boredom and passed her rucksack over. "I've got a CD player in there and a few CDs. Go nuts."
"I wasn't even gonna ask," Miriam said, shrugging and giving the rucksack a cursory glance. "Won't we have to keep an ear out for the canons and such? For when they come in?"
"Why do you think I'm sitting next to the door? Because I want to catch the draught?" Cara rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying that we'll be here for a while, so you might as well distract yourself while I pay attention. Save me the 'I'm booooooored' every two minutes." Pointedly, the older Agent produced her charge list and began to extend it.
Miriam rolled her eyes, making a point of not even touching Cara's rucksack except to nudge it a bit further away from Ring Bearer before she made herself comfortable, looking up at the roof above them and listening to the dialogue outside. She knew the scene well enough that she, like Cara, could piece together what was going on just by listening closely, even without the Words.
Part two here.
Warning: There is some violence due to the nature of the PPC, but nothing very graphic.
Miriam Collins did not like being bothered. There were many things she could say bothered her, especially other people, but on the whole she'd much rather ignore it all. She didn't consider herself a mean or rude person, she just didn't like socialising with most folk; it was too much hassle a lot of the time. If Cara didn't enjoy dragging her out of the RC (sometimes literally) when things came up, she'd likely never leave except maybe to eat at the Cafeteria. After a mission, it was much better to just send the report via Console, zip up her jacket, and curl up on one of the chairs with a good book. Or, at the least, nap for a little while.
A chill overtook her for a moment, causing her to shiver briefly and hunch up some before her attentions returned to the Silmarillion; most wouldn't think it very cold in the middle of summer, but most places were chilly compared to the Arizona desert. Especially HQ, where the climate never really seemed to change. Bringing her legs up closer to herself, she placed the book down for a moment (remembering the bookmark, of course) to make certain that her jacket was closed. Clutching the fabric tightly, she sighed and picked the book back up, quickly becoming engrossed enough in the creation of Eä that she barely heard the door to RC #96's bathroom open and close.
The water running inside had stopped a few minutes prior, but she'd never noticed. Not bothering to look up, partly out of respect and partly due to her attention being captured by the book, she let out a little wave from her seat just to acknowledge the other woman. "Hey, Cara. Get all the glitter off?"
"I think so," Cara replied, towelling her hair dry. "Sometimes I really do wish we were allowed to feed them to the Watcher, it'd be so much cleaner." After some extended wrestling with her long blonde hair, which seemed determined to knot itself if she so much as moved, she had it bound back in a plait.
She eyed her partner for a moment, shaking her head at the teenager’s need to wrap up so much. Cara was Norwegian, and Miriam’s aversion to cold mystified her. Setting the brush down on the table, she rummaged for a pack of bacon and threw a couple of slices to her mini-Balrog, Moira, who was beginning to growl hungrily. The miniature semi-deity appeased, Cara flopped into her own chair, and scooted across to the small bookshelf they shared.
This threat of impending comfort was evidently too much for the console to resist.
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
Cara changed direction and glided across towards the vexing machine. Her hand came down firmly on the mute button, and she tapped a few other buttons resignedly, bringing up the fic report. Behind her, Miriam had put her copy of the Silmarillion back on the shelf, and was reattaching her sword's scabbard to her belt. With its long, slender blade and the fancy design of its hilt and handguard, the weapon was more like a rapier than the typical longsword, but it resembled something an Elf might wield closely enough that it never seemed to cause a problem. Walking up to take her place at Cara's side, she tried to put on her best "annoyed face", though it only ended up looking like she was mildly irritated at her reading being interrupted.
"So what'd we get this time?" she asked, smoothing over her almost boyishly short hair out of habit as she started looking at the report.
"A Boromir-lusting Sue from Rohan, apparently, who's best buddies with Gandalf and came to the Council of Elrond because she felt like it." Cara snorted, scanning the fic and putting on her fake-perky Suethor voice. "Yay Tenth Walkers!" She read a little further, and then relaxed with a smile. "At least she's leaving Aragorn and Arwen alone. I'm sick to the back teeth of watching Sues split them up." She spun her chair and tapped the disguise generator's settings. "Uruk-Hai, or do you want to go as something else?"
Miriam gritted her teeth at the mention of Boromir-lusting, still not entirely past the "Boromir is mine!" stage of thought, but soon relaxed, and shrugged. "I'd be fine with that, as weird as an Uruk with a rapier would look. I mean, it's really either that or Elves." Strolling back to the Console's screen, she perused the fic further, clearly more than a bit put off by what she saw. Giving Cara a little nod, she tossed a nearby notepad to her. "Just one thing, Cara; this one's my kill."
"Fine by me." Cara stood up, wandering over to her weaponry and selecting the large knife she favoured. After a few moments' dithering, she also chose the Uruk-Hai bow and arrows, though her skill with those was questionable at best. "Well, once more into the breach, my friend. Or into the bleach, if this one gets worse."
Opening the portal, Cara grabbed her backpack and stepped through, feeling her disguise settle into place around her. She absently wondered if Sues would ever grow tired of Rivendell as she looked around at the buildings, then moved into the shadows. A moment later, a shorter Uruk took up station next to her, looking around a bit and still fidgeting with its gear. Miriam had been right about one thing; her rapier did look strange, paired with the disguise they'd taken. Cara fought to hold back a giggle at the sight, and attempted to look businesslike.
This didn't last too long, as on reading the Words she nearly cracked up again. "Oh, dear Eru, 'the warm Elven waters of a bath'? Come on, this is just... oh, I really hope the rest of the fic is like that, I could use a laugh."
Miriam, on the other hand, hadn't even tried to hide her snickering, holding her hand over her mouth so that there was less chance of them being heard. "Think we can charge for that?" she asked between giggles, looking to her more experienced partner. Even though Cara was more often than not the one doing the killing, Miriam had quickly learned to defer to the older woman a lot of the time, when it came to charges. It seemed logical to her, considering Cara'd been with the PPC for years as opposed to her own service time of less than one month.
"Well, let's just lump it in with all the other terrible descriptions, and make them one big charge of 'bad description'." Cara shrugged her backpack into a more comfortable position. "Come on, I've been absolutely desperate to see yet another rendition of the Council of Elrond as done by a Suethor. And it says it's a mix between the books and the movies, that'll be fun to play match-up with. Still, means we get more charges." With that, she strolled off towards the courtyard where the Council was to take place. Nodding, Miriam followed.
The walk didn't prove to be too long, and they both arrived at the courtyard a bit before the Sue was supposed to show up, settling themselves in behind a group of pillars. Before either could say much else, the Sue made her entrance, signalled by the entire courtyard turning gold, the glare produced making them both cry out a little.
"Gack! I get the feeling that wasn't supposed to happen," Miriam said, rubbing her eyes. The sudden switch hurt to look at, especially with the glare produced by the sun, but she tried to focus more on the fic itself as the canons spontaneously appeared. "We can charge for all this, too, right? I mean, this is wrong even for the movies." Keeping her eyes on the fic, her hand tightened on the rapier's hilt. "The only mortal? Really? When she's surrounded by Dwarves and Men?" Miriam snarled a little at Frodo's description. "Elves did not have pointed Glaurunging ears! Neither did hobbits!"
"I know that, Miri," Cara sighed. "I've been doing this long enough. Here, if it really makes you feel better, you can write a few charges down." She offered the notebook, a little teasingly. Turning to watch the fic, she groaned and thunked her head lightly on the stone pillar she was leaning against. "Stupid plagiaristic Suethors. Movie-verse rendition of the Council, complete with a young woman who somehow knows exactly what the Ring is and feels it tempting her, but oh-so-wisely ignores it." Thunk. Thunk. THUNK.
"As if just ripping the whole thing off wasn't bad enough," Miriam groaned, holding her head in her hand for a moment. The scene continued, lifted word for word from the film, even as she tried to ignore the blatant plagiarism. As Boromir finally made his appearance, she found herself divided between exasperation at the fic and yelling at the author to leave her Lust Object alone, but managed to restrain herself. "That just doesn't make sense, then. This is from the extended edition, so she obviously saw it, shouldn't she know better than this? Not like she can say she doesn't know."
"No, no, no, she's improving the story, you see? Not enough powerful, girl-power women in it. I mean, Arwen doesn't do much except wander around looking pretty, even in the movies. Galadriel's not an action girl by any stretch of the imagination. And Eowyn... well, let's face it, she doesn't really have much to do with the Fellowship except smile at them, her moment of glory is elsewhere." Cara braced herself absently as Boromir made to take the Ring and Gandalf did what she'd privately come to call his "freak-'em-out" moment, bellowing in the Black Speech.
Glancing ahead in the Words, she made herself comfortable and pretty much ignored the rest of the Council scene, waiting it out quietly. On the whole, it progressed rather boringly, since the only difference from the movie's version of the Council was the Sue's presence, and it wasn't long before her partner started losing interest as well.
Stifling a yawn, Miriam leaned back against another nearby pillar, not even interested enough to be irritated at either the fic itself or the use of the film's canon. Idly pulling a Canon Analysis Device from her pocket, she pointed it at each canon in turn. While it was understandable given the plagiarism, 0% OOC readings across the board (with the exception of the Sue, of course) were still unusual.
"Huh, everyone's totally in character so far," she noted, raising an eyebrow at the CAD with a small amount of disbelief. "That's strange."
"Doesn't count," Cara replied, nodding to the Council and skimming the Words to occupy the time. "Suethor's cheating. And to be fair, the characters aren’t really interacting with her yet, she’s just sitting there."
Miriam shrugged, putting the CAD away after another pass by the canons, having lingered on Boromir for a few seconds longer than she should have. "Guess so. Besides, she's ripping off the movies, they don't count." She adjusted the rapier at her side so she could sit more comfortably, idly looking around the area to see if there was something she could amuse herself with, clearly even more bored by the ripped scene than Cara was.
The older Agent sighed. "Miriam, we've been over this. The movies are legitimate canon, they're just another version of it. Which is just as well, otherwise we'd have wiped out the entire population of movie!Arda by now and Peter Jackson would have been forcibly enrolled in OFUM." She shrugged, zoning out a little throughout the discussions and inevitable uproar and poking moodily at the grass with one of her arrows, absently portalling out the minis Middle Earth and Ring Bearer as they appeared. After seeing this scene rehashed so many times, Cara could pinpoint the exact time to start paying attention again, and put the arrow away to avoid any temptation to commit premature Sueicide.
Frodo's line shut everybody up, as per usual, and in fact everything proceeded fairly smoothly until after Boromir's offer to join the quest, at which point the Sue jumped up and butted in, pledging "the speed of the Rohirrim", as if that would make them get things done any faster. The back of Cara's head struck the pillar again, hoping to knock the pain of watching that away. Miriam followed suit, smacking her palm against her forehead, as she wasn't quite as willing to risk concussing herself. The scene continued as in the movie after the Sue's addition, but the exasperation remained.
"Just what the hell would the 'speed of the Rohirrim' have to do with anything, anyway?" she muttered, casting a quick glance at the courtyard before rolling her eyes. "It's not even that relevant, you know? He needs protection and stealth, not speed, especially since they bloody well don't have horses!" She let out an annoyed grunt, and then her eyes fell on Cara's pack. Miriam had brought her own, but neglected to bring anything for entertainment, thinking there wouldn't be a need. Now, though, she found herself reconsidering. "You bring anything we could kill some time with? The Council scene takes up almost all of the chapter, and just sitting around watching it is boring."
"Well, maybe if you'd thought to bring something for yourself, you wouldn't have this problem," Cara replied mildly. "Just because I'm the older one doesn't mean I should have to remember everything. Besides, the Council's nearly over. Look, all that happens now is that the hobbits do their lines and everybody wanders off so our Sue can introduce herself to her precious Boromir. Aaaargh!" She straightened up and snatched the notebook, scrawling down a charge with annoyance. "Every time. Every bloody time."
"What's the problem?" Miriam replied, still looking bored despite her partner's obvious annoyance.
"Stupid stupid bastardised 'Ten companions' line, it just... bugs the hell out of me." Cara put the notepad away with an irritated gesture. "Gah. I’d love to see this author facing OFUM’s Elrond during a Numerology 101 class. ‘You shall count to nine, nine is the number of your counting,' et cetera," she added with a nostalgic little grin. “There’d always be one who wouldn’t listen and brought up the idea of a Tenth Walker… y’know, Lord Elrond could be scarier than Sauron when that happened.”
Miriam was about to pass comment, but thought better of it, instead watching as the Council members slowly began to make their exit. Everyone apart from the Sue, Gandalf, Aragorn, and Boromir soon departed, leaving the Agents to watch the four interact. She couldn't help but make a slight face as the fic claimed Boromir had "something else" in his eyes. "Uh... no, he didn't. Stupid, disgusting Sue."
"You think that's disgusting? Did you just see what Gandalf did?" Cara shuddered a little, pointing out the bit in the Words. Gandalf had just told the Sue that "a group of such personalities may need a female touch from time to time" and winked at her. "Urgh, charge for making Gandalf slightly pervy."
"You're the one with the list, you charge," Miriam teased, despite the fact that Cara was already busily doing so. "Yeah though, that's definitely not like Gandalf. Wait, who's she praying to?" Apparently, the Sue had started praying for strength to some unnamed deity as soon as Gandalf left, though she soon dropped this in favour of talking with Boromir. Cara simply shrugged and rolled her eyes in response.
Aragorn had left without anybody really noticing, leaving the two alone in the courtyard. She seemed justifiably wary after what Boromir had been saying about the Ring, but it wasn't long before they were chatting as if nothing were wrong at all. Watching the Sue with Boromir made Miriam determined to be as annoyed as possible, especially since his eyes couldn't seem to decide if they were grey, blue or a mix between the two, but she couldn't help a little snicker at the Sue's name. "Alandria? Elrendyn? What kind of ridiculous names are those? Definitely not Rohirric, whatever the heck they are."
Cara nodded. "Those names… look like they're random-name-generator-based, they certainly don’t sound like they fit in Rohan. Although ‘Elrendyn’ sounds rather like she just took a canon name and messed with it a bit.” She pulled a face. “I can't stand it when people screw with things like that.”
Keeping her eyes on Boromir and Alandria, the older Agent suddenly fumbled for a small pebble and hefted it. She was aiming for the general vicinity of the characters, but it wasn't clear which of them she was actually trying to hit. “No, Boromir, you did not travel here on the word of Gandalf. If this is book-verse, you came here because you wanted Elrond’s advice on a weird dream you had, and if it’s movie-verse, your dad sent you to get the Ring for him. Pick one or the other.”
“Hey, it’s not his fault the author made him say that,” Miriam said quickly, trying to head off the risk of Boromir getting beaned or the thrown stone attracting attention. Cara gave her a glance, then relented, dropping the pebble and turning her attention back to the Words.
“All right. Well, nothing more happens for today, we could always have a wander round and absorb the view… or we can portal past the chapter change and the canonically incorrect timeskip, whichever you fancy.”
Miriam thought about this for a short while, but didn't take long to come to a decision, shrugging and pulling herself to her feet. "I'd rather portal ahead," she answered, brushing some dirt off before fishing for her Remote Activator. "Even Rivendell gets boring after a while, and this fic's gonna be enough of a headache without us wasting that much time, y'know?" Keying in some co-ordinates, she quickly activated a portal to a point after the chapter switch and timeskip, and looked back to her partner once the blue doorway had opened up. "Unless you wanna stick around and take some snapshots, or something," she teased, nodding to the portal.
"Please, please don't tempt me," Cara replied, stepping through as quickly as she could to get away from the alluringly photogenic vista. The view on the other side was not nearly as pleasant, being a very nondescript campsite in pre-dawn light that nonetheless managed to catch the light from Rivendell, which was still in sight even after a full day's walking.
Her good mood evaporated immediately, and was further worsened by having to scramble for cover as the Sue was woken by Boromir to take her watch. "Eru-damned Sues waking up too bloody early how we're supposed to hide I don't know what about our safety..."
Miriam gave her a sharp poke in the shoulder to get her attention. "You sure ranting like that's a good idea? They can probably hear us," she said, trying to shrink back out of earshot even as she gave Boromir and the Sue a rather pointed glance. Giving a quick nod, Cara followed her, the two women settling down in the grass when they felt the Sue wouldn't immediately see or hear them. "Do they always call Rivendell a 'glimmering city', though?"
"In Suefics, it's pretty common," was the reply, in the singsong tone of somebody pretending to hide their annoyance. "Awww, how sweet. Boromir wants a hug from his little brother. Gag me with a pitchfork." She paused. "Actually, don't. We can gag her with one instead... Hah! She's from the North, so she's not even Rohirric! False advertising!" The notepad was put to good use, although the pen suddenly ended up under severe strain as the Sue announced that she'd been trained to fight from a very young age, and the sound of a very angry Uruk-Hai trying to growl below the range of human hearing had to be quickly stifled.
The two Agents ranted for a short time, the charge list filling up with almost every word that passed by, but before long the Sue decided to leave to take a "walk of watch". Boromir agreed easily enough, and if Cara and Miriam didn't know better they'd have said he sounded almost relieved to be rid of the Sue for a while. Miriam rose to follow, but Cara lightly grabbed her arm. Still keeping one eye on the Generic Camp, Miriam ducked back to her partner's side.
"What's up?" she asked. "Shouldn't we be following her?"
"No point, all she does is wander round for a bit stating the obvious and then make Legolas compliment her. Let's just get moving. Why we even paid any attention to this chapter I don't know, it was a waste of time. Here, give me that RA and we can jump to the location of the crebain attack. I'm not bloody walking after them for weeks." Without waiting for a response, Cara grabbed the portal device and tapped in the location - a fairly common one for Tenth Walker fics, so she knew it off by heart.
Muttering the Fellowship Mantra under her breath in an attempt to stay calm, the older woman stepped through and settled herself behind a rock with a good view of the site. Miriam, unwilling to squash up with Cara, picked a similar rock nearby to hide behind. Each of the Fellowship started going about their own business while they waited for the hobbits to cook, the Sue making more condescending comments about said hobbits while she led a horse behind a group of rocks along with Bill the pony.
"That horse wasn't there before. Charge for that?"
"Yes, yes, and yes. If she can't be bothered to pay attention to a Cute Animal Friend long enough to mention it more than in passing -" Cara caught herself before her voice rose to a shout, but it was a near thing. "Idiots. Still, more relaxation time." She sniffed suddenly, and peered over the rock towards the camp. "Oh, that smells good. 's making me hungry now."
"You too, huh?" Miriam grinned, leaning against her own rock and watching the proceedings, almost missing the fact that the Sue was eating lembas before the Fellowship would have had any. "Hey, they're not eating all of it, think we might be able to nick some?"
"If you fancy trying to crawl down into the camp while Her Sueness is there, go right ahead. Personally, I'll stick to food that won't get me shot at." Cara rummaged in her bag and found a bar of chocolate. "That'll do. And while I'm not looking at them, I'm not planning evisceration. Lembas. Glaurunging lembas. And she shouldn’t even be eating it if she’s got a full meal there anyway."
"You're no fun, you know that?" Still looking at the camp as if planning how to sneak down and take a few servings of the Fellowship's meal, Miriam dug out a hard roll from her own pack, gnawing on it while her attention fixed on Boromir's sparring session with Merry and Pippin. "Looks like more plagiarism," she noted rather distastefully, sighing.
"It is more plagiarism," Cara replied, finishing off her chocolate rapidly and snatching up the notepad again. "Using numerals in prose..."
"Cara, that's just nitpicky." The look she got made her shut up rather quickly.
"Do I look like I care?" On receiving no reply, Cara returned her attention to the fic. A few seconds later, she picked up a fairly small stone and flicked it at the Sue, hitting her on the back of the head and ducking again before she was spotted. "Teach her to mix up Merry and Pippin, poor lads..." she grumbled, ignoring the fact that the Sue was now looking around, bewildered as to what had hit her. After a few seconds, the Sue looked back to Boromir and the hobbits, who had forgone sword fighting in favour of wrestling on the ground. Noticing just where her partner's look was going, Cara cleared her throat. "You know, I've got a full stock of Anti-Lustin back in the RC, if you need it."
If not for the disguise, Miriam would have been blushing madly as she ducked back behind the rock. "Er... no idea what you're talking about, Cara. None at all, really." A few seconds passed in silence, and then the teenager looked up again. "Oh come on, it was just a look..." Cara was going to say something, but, on catching her own eyes drifting towards Aragorn, decided to restrain the somewhat hypocritical comment and turned towards where Legolas was keeping a lookout.
She muttered several rather choice words under her breath, concerning the blatant copy-pasting of the movie-verse, as the crebain finally made an appearance. A few seconds later, she found herself reaching for another stone to throw, as Alandria had decided to display unnatural lack of common sense and ignore everyone else’s scrambling to hide in favour of staring at the oncoming birds. Naturally, it was Boromir who saved her, grabbing her and shoving her into a little alcove before hiding himself.
“Well, wasn’t that just a perfect display of Sueish stupidity… Miriam! Are you insane?” The Agent in question was currently sneaking down towards the camp, probably in hopes of swiping some food while the Fellowship wasn’t looking. “Get back here!” This last was in the closest equivalent to a scream that a whisper could be. The younger girl either didn't hear her or just decided to ignore her, moving from rock to rock as quickly as she could manage without tripping, and somehow made it to the food without anyone spotting her. Pulling a food storage bag out of her pack, Miriam cast a quick look up at the crebain and around the camp before stuffing as many vegetables, sausages, pieces of bacon, and lembas wafers into the bag as she could manage.
The crebain flock didn't stay long, though, and as the last of them were disappearing Miriam was already making her way back up to their hiding spot, crouching behind rocks and pausing occasionally to lower the risk of being spotted. Before too long, she was back at Cara's side with pack in one hand and food bag in the other, grinning triumphantly. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"Are you bloody mad? They could have seen you!" A mixture of worry, anger and relief coloured Cara's voice. "We've got food, what was the point of that? And what do you plan to do when they realise half their meal's vanished?"
"Looked at the Words," Miriam said, wolfing down a few pieces of bacon before giving a bit of a shrug and tossing a carrot to her partner. "The Sue ignores the food after the crebain show up, so they won't notice either. Look at what's happening in the camp if you don't believe me. Oh, and you're welcome."
"That was still a stupid thing to do." Munching on the carrot, Cara rolled her eyes - an interesting move on an Uruk-Hai - and turned her attention to the Words rather than poking her head out to watch the camp. Fortunately for the carrot, it was eaten before Cara could crush it into shreds as she spotted more evidence of the Sue's stupidity.
"I am not going to kill her yet, there are plenty of better charges, not knowing his name is not grounds for death, just stay calm..." the older Agent chanted under her breath. Saurman the mini-Balrog was dealt with easily enough, but Cara heard her partner let out a groan at Gandalf's statement that they'd need to go through Caradhras.
"Can we, um, not? And just say we did?" Miriam asked, pre-emptively shivering a little just as the chapter-break hit. The two Agents were unceremoniously dumped into the snow while the Fellowship and Sue made their way up the pass, the teenager almost screaming as she jumped back to her feet. Luckily, she was able to put the food bag back in her pack before too much snow could get in, closing the pack up and slinging it over her shoulder. "So cold... too damn cold, why couldn't they skip this part like the last one did?"
“It’s not that bad,” Cara shrugged, though she pulled her jacket around her a little more tightly. “One of these days I should make you face an Arctic winter or something, then maybe you’d quit complaining about this scene.” Tramping resolutely after the Fellowship, she glanced back after a moment and gave her partner a good look. Miriam really wasn’t made for the cold, and the expression the young girl had right now, even in disguise, made Cara a bit more sympathetic. “Don’t you want to see if she screws up Boromir’s big moment? That’s the really important bit, anyway, and we can pick up a mini in that scene, so you can probably get him to keep you warm.”
The mention of warmth was all it took to get Miriam moving, and she practically sprinted up the pass to catch up with Cara, despite more than a few stumbles. Cara was much more used to this kind of weather, so she still ended up having to slow her pace to allow Miriam to catch up, but with that motivation added they were both able to progress much more quickly. The tougher forms of their disguises made the cold gradually more bearable, especially for Cara, but both found themselves paying almost more attention to looking for the mini than the Fellowship ahead of them. Finally, Frodo stumbled and went crashing into the snow, the mini-Balrog "Ring Bearer" appearing next to him and rushing over to the Agents.
Even though she wasn't usually fond of minis, Miriam almost squealed in relief, huddling just close enough to Ring Bearer for the convection to warm her without causing severe burns; warmth was one thing, being incinerated was another, especially by a creature that was melting the snow under it just by standing there. Appreciatively, Cara moved a little closer, not being one to turn down the chance to get warm if it was available. After a few seconds, she was comfortable enough to begin paying attention to the scene not too far away.
“Come on, Boromir, get a grip,” the woman murmured as she watched him pick up the Ring, leaning forwards as if trying to hear better. “Come on, get it right, please let there be at least one Suethor in the multiverse who can quote this line properly… Yes!” she crowed on hearing the line straight from the movie-verse, though this made the mini jump in surprise and Miriam fall over as she tried to back off. “Whoops, sorry, cutie,” she added to Ring Bearer, feeding him a couple of pieces of bacon by way of apology. Hesitantly edging back to where she'd been once Ring Bearer calmed down, Miriam let herself grin a little at the Sue's use of the correct line, before becoming serious again.
"Well, she obviously went through all the trouble to make sure she got this bit right," she said, much more comfortable with the mini-Balrog's presence but still holding her arms close to her chest. "There's no excuse for the rest of this, then."
"You think?" Cara's voice was more than a little sarcastic, but she watched Aragorn approvingly as he at least remained unaffected by the Sue and followed the movie-verse canon. Resisting the urge to throw anything at Alandria, though the only thing she could really have thrown was a snowball, Cara blinked and looked twice as Boromir briefly turned blond.
"Okay, that is not supposed to happen." Rummaging for the notebook suddenly became rather pointless, however, as the scene abruptly changed and dumped them into a snowstorm. "FLAMING DENETHOR!" She might have been used to cold weather, but the Suethor's description of the blizzard was so unpleasant that Cara found herself scrabbling for her portal device. "Sod this, we are not waiting around for the avalanche, we're going to Moria and waiting there!"
She opened the portal and herded her companions through into the darkness of Moria just inside the West-gate. While the Mines were definitely on the cool side, compared to what they'd just stepped out of it was perfectly comfortable, and Ring Bearer's presence made things even better. "Oh, I hate Suethors," she growled - Uruk-Hai voices were good at that. Miriam was slow to respond, the layering of frost covering her face, hair, and clothing taking a short while to melt away and still leaving the younger girl shivering for a minute or two.
"Thank Eru we got out of that blizzard when we did," she muttered, checking some of her kit to make sure none of it was frozen over or waterlogged. Leaning against a wall, she inched closer to Ring Bearer and let out a small sigh, her contented grin looking rather odd in disguise. "You can keep those Arctic winters if you want, I'll take a warm fire any day. Or the desert, but we don't get to see those much out here. Damn shame, too." Miriam looked around the mine, seeming a lot more at ease now that they weren't in danger of freezing to death. "So how long d'you think they'll be?"
Cara examined the area and eventually wandered over to the doors, listening carefully. "Well, I can hear a bit of splashing and stones crunching, so I'm assuming that the Fellowship's just turned up... not bad timing on my part, I have to say." She couldn't help but smirk a little, and settled down next to the doors. "It's all standard plagiarism from the extended edition of the movies. There's a good solid bit of waiting..." She paused, thinking it over, then decided to avoid the inevitable complaints of boredom and passed her rucksack over. "I've got a CD player in there and a few CDs. Go nuts."
"I wasn't even gonna ask," Miriam said, shrugging and giving the rucksack a cursory glance. "Won't we have to keep an ear out for the canons and such? For when they come in?"
"Why do you think I'm sitting next to the door? Because I want to catch the draught?" Cara rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying that we'll be here for a while, so you might as well distract yourself while I pay attention. Save me the 'I'm booooooored' every two minutes." Pointedly, the older Agent produced her charge list and began to extend it.
Miriam rolled her eyes, making a point of not even touching Cara's rucksack except to nudge it a bit further away from Ring Bearer before she made herself comfortable, looking up at the roof above them and listening to the dialogue outside. She knew the scene well enough that she, like Cara, could piece together what was going on just by listening closely, even without the Words.
Part two here.