LOTSM Chapter 1
Author Note: This is a Mary-Sue LOTR fanfiction. I guess I had originally started posting the chapters during the summer of 2004 if not earlier, but I didn’t like where the story was going or what I had done with it. So I took it down, with the intent of redoing the chapters and continuing on. So I’ve started to redo the chapters. I think they need a lot of work. And some of the chapters need a lot more editing than others.
With the names: Maria's name, the 'Mari' part is pronounced like that in 'Mario' but with an 'ah' sound at the end. The nickname is 'Mari' and not 'Mary' afterall.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Lord of the Rings or Lord of the Rings characters. However, the original character/Mary-Sues are mine, along with the story tied in with the Sues.
Blood rains from the cloudy web on the broad loom of slaughter.
The web of man grey as armor is now being woven;
The Valkyries will cross it with a crimson weft.
The Valkyries go weaving with drawn swords.
Spears will shatter shields will splinter,
Swords will gnaw like wolves through armor.
It is horrible now to look around
As a blood-red cloud darkens the sky.
The heavens are stained with the blood of men,
As the Valyries sing their song.
-Darraðarljóð
Chapter 1: Summer Vacation
"Ah! Finally, I'm done with finals! I thought that I was gonna die!" A brunette girl yawned to herself as she stretched her arms over her head, plopping down onto the brown and maroon, upholstered couch in front of the television. ‘Now, time for TV!’ she thought happily. Picking up one of the three black remotes sitting on the coffee table in between her and the television, she hummed casually as she flipped through the channels. ‘There are more channels here, but nothing seems to be on,’ she idly thought, still channel surfing three minutes later.
Suddenly, another hand from behind her snatched the remote away. Frowning, the brown-haired girl turned around to get a view of the culprit. "You know, maybe if you would have actually studied, you wouldn't have had such a hard time," the long haired girl said as she leaned over the couch from behind, slightly akimbo. There seemed to be a twinkle in her blue eyes as she grinned. She waved the remote in a teasing manner toward the girl on the couch.
"Honestly Hunter, you shouldn't still be complaining about such things!" She ran her left hand through her long, wavy and dirty-blonde hair.
Hunter was still sitting on the couch, but her facial expression had changed to feigned bashfulness. "Well Mari, you know I’m lazy," she said, averting her gaze from her friend.
Whirling around, Hunter rose quickly attempting to reach for the remote that was in her friend's right hand. The longhaired girl just turned quickly, evading her grasp. "Yet you-how do you say it- like to kick your own butt at the gym training..." She laughed, continuing to dodge Hunter. “I’d hardly call that lazy. ...I offered to study with you, but...”
She narrowed her eyes, "Yeah, well you know that I hate to study." She attempted to grab the remote from Maria's hands, but failed again. "And, I wouldn't want to spend more time with you than I do already!" she playfully retorted and leapt for the remote in the other girl’s hand.
Maria just gracefully twirled out of her friend’s way. Having little patience for the game, Hunter just went to lie back on the couch. "Oh, I know you love me." Mary smiled as she tossed the remote onto shorter-haired girl’s head and walked around to sit on the couch with the other girl still sprawled across it. "And since it is summer, I think we should go on a trip!"
Hunter sat up on the couch, making more room for her friend and brushed her shoulder-length hair back in place. She had the remote in her right hand again, but did not make a move to flip through the channels. Instead, Hunter smiled from ear to ear, "That sounds like so much fun. I love to travel! It's a great idea!" She looked at Maria, wishing for her to continue.
"I know, I thought of it!" Maria grinned.
"If not you, I would’ve eventually though," Hunter retorted, narrowing her hazel eyes.
"Yes, but this is going to be different from what we’ve done," Maria said smugly.
"How's that? Are we going to Thailand? Because we need to wait for our student visas, you know. We can’t go abroad."
"No, not abroad."
"To New York? Because I’ve been to New York a couple times...”
"No."
"Not somewhere overseas right?" For some reason, Hunter liked to travel a lot. And whenever she did, she liked to get as far away from her home as she could. Something about traveling and meeting new people, Hunter enjoyed doing things such as seeing new places, meeting new people. Staying in one place always made her restless.
"Right." Maria grinned at her friend. She knew how Hunter was when it came to vacations; she wanted to get away from it all. Maria thought that it was childish on a certain level, but she didn't pay too much attention to that. Maria was very similar when it came to traveling.
"So what then?" Hunter pouted slightly. “What are we going to do? Go to the beach?” she asked. A tinge of annoyance had inched it way into her voice, not enjoying her friend’s little guessing game.
“What do you think about hiking?” Maria asked slyly. She gazed at her friend mischievously.
"Go camping in the woods, you mean?" She asked jokingly.
"Bingo!" Maria smiled. "That's exactly what we are going to do! I think that it's a great idea. I mean, we might as well use what we got nearby."
"Eh, I don’t know, what will we be doing?" Hunter paused for a moment and continued, "The only people who like the woods are hippies and elves."
"Come on, Hunter, it'll be great! We can go hiking in the woods, and swimming in the lakes. It'll be a great workout."
Hunter perked up to the whole 'great workout' thing. "Yeah, that would be nice. I mean, sure we do physical stuff here around here until our visas come in, but doing something new would be nice."
"So you agree! Ok, we'll leave on Friday. So that gives us a couple days to get all of our stuff together!"
"Um... How long are we going to be away?"
"Oh, just a couple weeks." Maria giggled.
"A couple weeks? Jeez, what the hell are you? As if you can live in the woods for that long."
"I won't be alone." Maria threw her head back dramatically. "If I faint, you can carry me and our stuff too!"
"Oh God."
"Oh God," she groaned, feigning annoyance. Truth be told, Hunter was actually looking forward to the trip.
Neither or the girls had been camping in a long while and they certainly had never gone on a camping expedition together, so this was an opportunity to do something different. The next day, the girls headed out, mid-morning.
Maria hummed as she drove her car. She wasn't sure where they'd be camping and just decided to go along with her instincts. They had been driving; well she had been, for the past three hours. Maria glanced over to look at Hunter in the passenger seat. The brunette had her headphones on with the mp3 player volume at its loudest, but she was sound asleep. Maria focused back on the rode ahead. All of their other belongings were in the back of her green Jeep.
They obviously had over-packed. Maria had insisted on bringing extra items and even went as far as to pressure her friend into packing more than she had planned to as well. Maria smiled softy at the thought of her bringing her laptop computer along with her DVDs. She thought back to her argument with Hunter over whether or not to bring it.
“Don’t bring that! You don’t need it for camping.” Hunter had went to pull the laptop from Maria’s grasp, but the blue-eyed girl had pulled it farther out of the other’s girl’s reach in a defense manner.
“It’s my laptop, so I can ring it if I want to,” Maria argued.
Hunter sighed, running her right hand through her hair in a flustered manner. “But it’s an extra ten pounds or so and it’s more fragile than almost anything else we’ll bring along. Why can’t you just bring your mp3 player, DS or something?”
“Will you bring yours?” Maria asked hopefully.
“What, my DS? Ah... I really don’t want to. I might lose it or get water in it somehow.”
“Please, I won’t bring my laptop then.”
“...Fine,” Maria’s friend had sighed.
Maria had successfully gotten her way in some manner, which made her feel slightly triumphant, even though she had to leave her laptop behind.
‘Yeah, this was real camping gear.' Of course they had a tent, sleeping bags, food and so on.
Perhaps there were not any long, heated arguments because they shared so much in common. Both Maria and Hunter shared a similar interest in movies, books, manga, and studies. In fact, by chance the girls had become best friends while they were both staying in Japan as exchange students for two years. And both girls continually ran into each other time and again, almost as if they were drawn together by some force. Additionally both had experience times where they thought they could almost feel the other’s presence. Various times the girls were able to locate one another in crowded and areas such as downtown Tokyo.
However Maria had started to feel something different, calling to her. Lately she had been having the strangest dreams. Someone beckoning... Maria would wake up sweating, gasping for air. She thought maybe it had to do with Hunter, but was wary to ask her friend, doubting that she was experiencing the same thing. She sighed, ‘There's no use worrying about such things.’
Just then Hunter's eyes shot open and she jerked sitting up straight. Quickly realizing where she was, the brunette slouched back into her seat.
Maria eyed Hunter thoughtfully from the corner of her eye. Obviously she was not the only one who was having bad dreams. "So, you're finally up? I don't know how you can listen to your music so loudly and sleep through it, Han-chan." The blond knew not to press her friend about her nightmares.
Hunter shot Maria a dirty look that said 'Don't mess with me!' and muttered, "Why do you have to call me that?"
"Because you are sooo cute!" she said sweetly. She blew a kiss to her companion and continued to drive.
Hunter snorted at Maria's remark. "I guess that I am cute." She ran her hand through her brown hair.
Now it was Maria's turn to snort. Maria knew too well that Hunter thought of . Hunter was about 5'5" and Maria was barely 5'2". True, Hunter was attractive. She was in shape, had a nice face, she had hazel eyes that were mostly brown and yellow, with a bit of green and her hair was a chestnut brown. She was pretty, but because she had defined, athletic build and slightly tanned skin, she probably could not be normally categorized as ‘cute.’ It was not extreme; however the strength of her figure was noticeable. Maria used to joke and say that she reminded her of a bimbo super heroine because of the decent breast size to go along with the athletic body. Maria, on the other hand, was the small and slender one with pale skin. So she understood herself to be the cute petit one.
"So..." Hunter started, "Where are we going to camp?"
"Oh, I don't know," she paused, sighing lazily. "I'll let my instincts show me the way."
"Damn hippy," she grumbled, trying to piss Maria off.
"Yeah, you wish. ...Because maybe then this camping trip would be easier."
"All I'm trying to say is pick a damn spot already! All the trees are the same. They are tall, have leaves and the ground is well... Nothing special! It's just dirt and rocks!"
"Quit bitching. I just want to make our camping experience as enjoyable as possible." They were driving along the woods on the main road. There were on occasion dirt roads or openings in the trees leading off into the deep woods.
"Fine just hurry up! I mean, what does it matter..." She continued to rant on about where they should camp, knowing that Maria was probably not listening.
Maria grinned and continued to drive along. She knew that she was getting close to the 'perfect' spot. Hunter was still complaining, but she was not paying attention. Maria suddenly saw off the main rode an opening in the trees and it looked enticing. Without warning, she made a sharp turn, causing Hunter to steady herself.
The passenger remained silent. She didn't want Maria too lose her concentration and drive into one of those monstrous trees. ‘Jeep or not, I would not be surprised if the Jeep would be wrapped around one of those trunks if she were to run into it.’
Maria kept driving until there were too many trees and the Jeep was too awkward to steer around the trees. She put the vehicle into park and turned the engine off. "Okay, now we walk!" She cheered.
"Yeah, yeah," Hunter sighed and got out of the car.
Both girls grabbed a backpack and Hunter grabbed the duffle bag since she knew that she would be the one to carry it. Maria led the way through the trees. It was shockingly secluded out in the woods.
"So... Where are we going?"
"I'll tell you as soon as we get there," Maria sighed.
Hunter just puffed up her cheeks in annoyance.
Maria walked on as if she was in a trance ahead of Hunter. 'What is this feeling? My heart is beating so fast!' Maria thought to herself. 'Someone, something is calling to me.'
'Maybe she is a hippy or a mountain girl at heart?' Hunter thought silently. Even though she was trying to think lightly of the situation, Hunter had an unsettling feeling about the woods. As if something was out there. "Hey, don't you feel strange? Like something is watching us?"
"It's probably just mononoke." Maria mumbled.
"Mononoke? Ok, someone is an otaku!" Hunter teased, trying to agitate her friend.
Maria whipped around dropping her backpack to the ground. "Oh yeah?" She put her hands on her hips and grinned. "Who said that only hippies and elves like the woods?"
"I did," she said nonchalantly. She narrowed her eyes and shifted the duffle bag onto her other shoulder. "So what about it?"
"There are no such things as elves."
"So even less types of people like the woods, right?" Hunter countered, smiling.
Maria opened her mouth but quickly shut it. She had nothing to say.
Hunter noticing that Maria didn't respond decided to change the subject. "So, when can I put the bag down so we can get settled?"
Maria face brightened, "Right here is the spot!"
Hunter dropped the duffle bag to the ground and sat down. "Finally!"
After Maria and Hunter got situated and the tent and gear out it, was already dark out. They had left the last duffel bag of the pots and pans for cooking in the locked Jeep. That didn't matter. They would just wait till the morning to go and get the canned foods and pots. For now they just changed into their sleepwear and went to bed.
End Notes:
Darraðarljóð: Darraðarljóð is found in "The Story of the burning of Njáll." The poem is actually longer, but I only quoted parts of it.
Visas: Waiting for visas was mentioned in the chapter... The visas were independent of the traveling plans. They were waiting for student visas. After undergraduate, it's not uncommon to continue schooling. And in order to study in Japan, at a university (even as a research student), you need a student visa. If you apply by mail, you have to send in the paperwork, along with your passport. It takes about a little over a week if you pay for the fastest mailing option. ...But during the summer, Japanese consulates get kind of busy. They would've used the Japanese consulate in Atlanta. And they wouldn't have been able to travel out of the country without their passports.
With the names: Maria's name, the 'Mari' part is pronounced like that in 'Mario' but with an 'ah' sound at the end. The nickname is 'Mari' and not 'Mary' afterall.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Lord of the Rings or Lord of the Rings characters. However, the original character/Mary-Sues are mine, along with the story tied in with the Sues.
Blood rains from the cloudy web on the broad loom of slaughter.
The web of man grey as armor is now being woven;
The Valkyries will cross it with a crimson weft.
The Valkyries go weaving with drawn swords.
Spears will shatter shields will splinter,
Swords will gnaw like wolves through armor.
It is horrible now to look around
As a blood-red cloud darkens the sky.
The heavens are stained with the blood of men,
As the Valyries sing their song.
-Darraðarljóð
Chapter 1: Summer Vacation
"Ah! Finally, I'm done with finals! I thought that I was gonna die!" A brunette girl yawned to herself as she stretched her arms over her head, plopping down onto the brown and maroon, upholstered couch in front of the television. ‘Now, time for TV!’ she thought happily. Picking up one of the three black remotes sitting on the coffee table in between her and the television, she hummed casually as she flipped through the channels. ‘There are more channels here, but nothing seems to be on,’ she idly thought, still channel surfing three minutes later.
Suddenly, another hand from behind her snatched the remote away. Frowning, the brown-haired girl turned around to get a view of the culprit. "You know, maybe if you would have actually studied, you wouldn't have had such a hard time," the long haired girl said as she leaned over the couch from behind, slightly akimbo. There seemed to be a twinkle in her blue eyes as she grinned. She waved the remote in a teasing manner toward the girl on the couch.
"Honestly Hunter, you shouldn't still be complaining about such things!" She ran her left hand through her long, wavy and dirty-blonde hair.
Hunter was still sitting on the couch, but her facial expression had changed to feigned bashfulness. "Well Mari, you know I’m lazy," she said, averting her gaze from her friend.
Whirling around, Hunter rose quickly attempting to reach for the remote that was in her friend's right hand. The longhaired girl just turned quickly, evading her grasp. "Yet you-how do you say it- like to kick your own butt at the gym training..." She laughed, continuing to dodge Hunter. “I’d hardly call that lazy. ...I offered to study with you, but...”
She narrowed her eyes, "Yeah, well you know that I hate to study." She attempted to grab the remote from Maria's hands, but failed again. "And, I wouldn't want to spend more time with you than I do already!" she playfully retorted and leapt for the remote in the other girl’s hand.
Maria just gracefully twirled out of her friend’s way. Having little patience for the game, Hunter just went to lie back on the couch. "Oh, I know you love me." Mary smiled as she tossed the remote onto shorter-haired girl’s head and walked around to sit on the couch with the other girl still sprawled across it. "And since it is summer, I think we should go on a trip!"
Hunter sat up on the couch, making more room for her friend and brushed her shoulder-length hair back in place. She had the remote in her right hand again, but did not make a move to flip through the channels. Instead, Hunter smiled from ear to ear, "That sounds like so much fun. I love to travel! It's a great idea!" She looked at Maria, wishing for her to continue.
"I know, I thought of it!" Maria grinned.
"If not you, I would’ve eventually though," Hunter retorted, narrowing her hazel eyes.
"Yes, but this is going to be different from what we’ve done," Maria said smugly.
"How's that? Are we going to Thailand? Because we need to wait for our student visas, you know. We can’t go abroad."
"No, not abroad."
"To New York? Because I’ve been to New York a couple times...”
"No."
"Not somewhere overseas right?" For some reason, Hunter liked to travel a lot. And whenever she did, she liked to get as far away from her home as she could. Something about traveling and meeting new people, Hunter enjoyed doing things such as seeing new places, meeting new people. Staying in one place always made her restless.
"Right." Maria grinned at her friend. She knew how Hunter was when it came to vacations; she wanted to get away from it all. Maria thought that it was childish on a certain level, but she didn't pay too much attention to that. Maria was very similar when it came to traveling.
"So what then?" Hunter pouted slightly. “What are we going to do? Go to the beach?” she asked. A tinge of annoyance had inched it way into her voice, not enjoying her friend’s little guessing game.
“What do you think about hiking?” Maria asked slyly. She gazed at her friend mischievously.
"Go camping in the woods, you mean?" She asked jokingly.
"Bingo!" Maria smiled. "That's exactly what we are going to do! I think that it's a great idea. I mean, we might as well use what we got nearby."
"Eh, I don’t know, what will we be doing?" Hunter paused for a moment and continued, "The only people who like the woods are hippies and elves."
"Come on, Hunter, it'll be great! We can go hiking in the woods, and swimming in the lakes. It'll be a great workout."
Hunter perked up to the whole 'great workout' thing. "Yeah, that would be nice. I mean, sure we do physical stuff here around here until our visas come in, but doing something new would be nice."
"So you agree! Ok, we'll leave on Friday. So that gives us a couple days to get all of our stuff together!"
"Um... How long are we going to be away?"
"Oh, just a couple weeks." Maria giggled.
"A couple weeks? Jeez, what the hell are you? As if you can live in the woods for that long."
"I won't be alone." Maria threw her head back dramatically. "If I faint, you can carry me and our stuff too!"
"Oh God."
"Oh God," she groaned, feigning annoyance. Truth be told, Hunter was actually looking forward to the trip.
Neither or the girls had been camping in a long while and they certainly had never gone on a camping expedition together, so this was an opportunity to do something different. The next day, the girls headed out, mid-morning.
Maria hummed as she drove her car. She wasn't sure where they'd be camping and just decided to go along with her instincts. They had been driving; well she had been, for the past three hours. Maria glanced over to look at Hunter in the passenger seat. The brunette had her headphones on with the mp3 player volume at its loudest, but she was sound asleep. Maria focused back on the rode ahead. All of their other belongings were in the back of her green Jeep.
They obviously had over-packed. Maria had insisted on bringing extra items and even went as far as to pressure her friend into packing more than she had planned to as well. Maria smiled softy at the thought of her bringing her laptop computer along with her DVDs. She thought back to her argument with Hunter over whether or not to bring it.
“Don’t bring that! You don’t need it for camping.” Hunter had went to pull the laptop from Maria’s grasp, but the blue-eyed girl had pulled it farther out of the other’s girl’s reach in a defense manner.
“It’s my laptop, so I can ring it if I want to,” Maria argued.
Hunter sighed, running her right hand through her hair in a flustered manner. “But it’s an extra ten pounds or so and it’s more fragile than almost anything else we’ll bring along. Why can’t you just bring your mp3 player, DS or something?”
“Will you bring yours?” Maria asked hopefully.
“What, my DS? Ah... I really don’t want to. I might lose it or get water in it somehow.”
“Please, I won’t bring my laptop then.”
“...Fine,” Maria’s friend had sighed.
Maria had successfully gotten her way in some manner, which made her feel slightly triumphant, even though she had to leave her laptop behind.
‘Yeah, this was real camping gear.' Of course they had a tent, sleeping bags, food and so on.
Perhaps there were not any long, heated arguments because they shared so much in common. Both Maria and Hunter shared a similar interest in movies, books, manga, and studies. In fact, by chance the girls had become best friends while they were both staying in Japan as exchange students for two years. And both girls continually ran into each other time and again, almost as if they were drawn together by some force. Additionally both had experience times where they thought they could almost feel the other’s presence. Various times the girls were able to locate one another in crowded and areas such as downtown Tokyo.
However Maria had started to feel something different, calling to her. Lately she had been having the strangest dreams. Someone beckoning... Maria would wake up sweating, gasping for air. She thought maybe it had to do with Hunter, but was wary to ask her friend, doubting that she was experiencing the same thing. She sighed, ‘There's no use worrying about such things.’
Just then Hunter's eyes shot open and she jerked sitting up straight. Quickly realizing where she was, the brunette slouched back into her seat.
Maria eyed Hunter thoughtfully from the corner of her eye. Obviously she was not the only one who was having bad dreams. "So, you're finally up? I don't know how you can listen to your music so loudly and sleep through it, Han-chan." The blond knew not to press her friend about her nightmares.
Hunter shot Maria a dirty look that said 'Don't mess with me!' and muttered, "Why do you have to call me that?"
"Because you are sooo cute!" she said sweetly. She blew a kiss to her companion and continued to drive.
Hunter snorted at Maria's remark. "I guess that I am cute." She ran her hand through her brown hair.
Now it was Maria's turn to snort. Maria knew too well that Hunter thought of . Hunter was about 5'5" and Maria was barely 5'2". True, Hunter was attractive. She was in shape, had a nice face, she had hazel eyes that were mostly brown and yellow, with a bit of green and her hair was a chestnut brown. She was pretty, but because she had defined, athletic build and slightly tanned skin, she probably could not be normally categorized as ‘cute.’ It was not extreme; however the strength of her figure was noticeable. Maria used to joke and say that she reminded her of a bimbo super heroine because of the decent breast size to go along with the athletic body. Maria, on the other hand, was the small and slender one with pale skin. So she understood herself to be the cute petit one.
"So..." Hunter started, "Where are we going to camp?"
"Oh, I don't know," she paused, sighing lazily. "I'll let my instincts show me the way."
"Damn hippy," she grumbled, trying to piss Maria off.
"Yeah, you wish. ...Because maybe then this camping trip would be easier."
"All I'm trying to say is pick a damn spot already! All the trees are the same. They are tall, have leaves and the ground is well... Nothing special! It's just dirt and rocks!"
"Quit bitching. I just want to make our camping experience as enjoyable as possible." They were driving along the woods on the main road. There were on occasion dirt roads or openings in the trees leading off into the deep woods.
"Fine just hurry up! I mean, what does it matter..." She continued to rant on about where they should camp, knowing that Maria was probably not listening.
Maria grinned and continued to drive along. She knew that she was getting close to the 'perfect' spot. Hunter was still complaining, but she was not paying attention. Maria suddenly saw off the main rode an opening in the trees and it looked enticing. Without warning, she made a sharp turn, causing Hunter to steady herself.
The passenger remained silent. She didn't want Maria too lose her concentration and drive into one of those monstrous trees. ‘Jeep or not, I would not be surprised if the Jeep would be wrapped around one of those trunks if she were to run into it.’
Maria kept driving until there were too many trees and the Jeep was too awkward to steer around the trees. She put the vehicle into park and turned the engine off. "Okay, now we walk!" She cheered.
"Yeah, yeah," Hunter sighed and got out of the car.
Both girls grabbed a backpack and Hunter grabbed the duffle bag since she knew that she would be the one to carry it. Maria led the way through the trees. It was shockingly secluded out in the woods.
"So... Where are we going?"
"I'll tell you as soon as we get there," Maria sighed.
Hunter just puffed up her cheeks in annoyance.
Maria walked on as if she was in a trance ahead of Hunter. 'What is this feeling? My heart is beating so fast!' Maria thought to herself. 'Someone, something is calling to me.'
'Maybe she is a hippy or a mountain girl at heart?' Hunter thought silently. Even though she was trying to think lightly of the situation, Hunter had an unsettling feeling about the woods. As if something was out there. "Hey, don't you feel strange? Like something is watching us?"
"It's probably just mononoke." Maria mumbled.
"Mononoke? Ok, someone is an otaku!" Hunter teased, trying to agitate her friend.
Maria whipped around dropping her backpack to the ground. "Oh yeah?" She put her hands on her hips and grinned. "Who said that only hippies and elves like the woods?"
"I did," she said nonchalantly. She narrowed her eyes and shifted the duffle bag onto her other shoulder. "So what about it?"
"There are no such things as elves."
"So even less types of people like the woods, right?" Hunter countered, smiling.
Maria opened her mouth but quickly shut it. She had nothing to say.
Hunter noticing that Maria didn't respond decided to change the subject. "So, when can I put the bag down so we can get settled?"
Maria face brightened, "Right here is the spot!"
Hunter dropped the duffle bag to the ground and sat down. "Finally!"
After Maria and Hunter got situated and the tent and gear out it, was already dark out. They had left the last duffel bag of the pots and pans for cooking in the locked Jeep. That didn't matter. They would just wait till the morning to go and get the canned foods and pots. For now they just changed into their sleepwear and went to bed.
End Notes:
Darraðarljóð: Darraðarljóð is found in "The Story of the burning of Njáll." The poem is actually longer, but I only quoted parts of it.
Visas: Waiting for visas was mentioned in the chapter... The visas were independent of the traveling plans. They were waiting for student visas. After undergraduate, it's not uncommon to continue schooling. And in order to study in Japan, at a university (even as a research student), you need a student visa. If you apply by mail, you have to send in the paperwork, along with your passport. It takes about a little over a week if you pay for the fastest mailing option. ...But during the summer, Japanese consulates get kind of busy. They would've used the Japanese consulate in Atlanta. And they wouldn't have been able to travel out of the country without their passports.