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fredbassettTitle : Grey as a Mouse, Big as a House
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval/The Lord of the Rings
Rating : 12
Characters : Ryan/Stephen, Connor, Finn, Faramir
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Abby and Stephen have a large, grey problem to solve.
A/N Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
louisedennis’s ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
primeval_denial Gift Box.
“They’re impressive buggers,” Ryan said. “Just a shame we haven’t got any really, really big sheepdogs.”
“Palaeoloxodon namadicus,” Connor said, busily getting as much film of the herd as he could while still keeping an eye on his monitoring kit.
“And again in English, mate…”
“Asian straight-tusked elephant,” Finn supplied. “Were you kipping in the Prof’s last lecture, boss?”
He hadn’t been kipping, but he had been playing footsie with Stephen under the table. Now that Finn came to mention it, he did remember something about bloody great big elephants.
“Might be a subspecies of Palaeoloxodon antiquus.” Connor was staring at his magnetometer in some concern. “Er, guys, could we maybe hurry ‘em up a bit? Magnetic strength’s dropping a bit. It has been open most of the day …”
“Stephen, Abby, could you ask ‘em nicely to get a move on,” Ryan ordered over the comms channel. “Something just short of a stampede would be nice.”
****
“On it,” Stephen replied. The elephants had been responding reasonably well to being herded by quadbike but neither he nor Abby wanted to panic the creatures, is that happened none of them would get home.
He nodded to Abby and they both accelerated slightly, gunning the engines just enough to push the herd along, but not enough to get their backs up, and with a shoulder height of just over 5 metres, he didn’t want to get their backs up any more than strictly necessary.
The herd leader had already reached the anomaly and was walking through calmly, its huge snake-like trunk already scenting the air. Where the matriarch of the herd went, the rest were pretty sure to follow.
The only one they were particularly concerned about was a young female, slightly smaller than the matriarch. She’d spent most of the afternoon slightly apart from the herd, almost as if they were shunning her for some reason. Stephen didn’t know enough about elephant behaviour to know if they did that sort of thing, but he had come across it in mongooses, who would shun a member of their friendship group, usually for some form of anti-social behaviour. When he’d raised the possibility with Abby earlier in the afternoon, while they’d been waiting for the quadbikes to arrive, she’d told him that incompatibility issues did sometimes arise in matriarchal herds in zoos, and on one occasion, a mature female had been relocated when it became clear she couldn’t safely stay at Wellington Zoo.
“Missy’s veering away again,” Abby said, a thread of urgency in her voice. “Keep her with the others’ Stephen. We’re so close now …”
Only four more elephants to go.
Stephen came slowly alongside Missy, as they’d dubbed her, trying to encourage her to stay with the herd, then, as so often happened on anomaly shouts, everything went spectacularly tits up.
****
“Fuck!” Ryan watched as the elephant Stephen and Abby had been most concerned about suddenly threw back her head and trumpeted in fear.
The effect on the other three was electric. They speeded up, going through the anomaly at a run, whereas the other one dug its heels in and threw its head up, long tusks waving from side to side as its trunk coiled back.
The broken shards of time expanded rather than contracting and to Connor’s wide-eyed amazement and Ryan’s equally wide-eyed horror, the anomaly proceeded to divide in the air, the left side expanding and glowing a pale rose gold while the other side remained pale and silvery and started to contract.
A heartbeat later, the original anomaly had vanished, leaving the new one lazily spinning in the late afternoon soon.
The remaining elephant promptly charged through it.
“Don’t follow!” Ryan ordered.
Cutter broke into a run, with Ryan on his heels.
Connor picked up his various boxes of tricks and scrambled after them.
****
“We need to know where it’s gone,” Abby said.
“Agreed, lass, but we need to know that’s stable first,” Cutter told her. “Connor?”
Stephen watched as Connor ran through his various tests. Eventually, their resident genius ran a hand through his messy hair and shrugged. “I can’t account for the colour, but apart from that, the readings are strong and within the normal range for authorising a recce.
“Cutter, we can be in and out fast,” Stephen said. “Abby’s right, we need to know where – when – it’s gone.”
Cutter exchanged a questioning glance with Ryan who nodded. “Make it bloody quick. No more than an hour, whatever you find on the other side.”
“Finn, Kermit, you’re with Abby and Stephen.”
“Got it, boss,” Finn said, shouldering his LA96AI.
Kermit grinned and cradled his M4 against his chest.
Stephen and Abby both had EMP rifles slung over their backs. He’d prefer not to try his luck with one on one of the biggest elephants to walk the earth, but he’d do that before authorising the use of more lethal force.
They were as ready as they ever would be.
****
As they stepped into the anomaly, Abby felt the familiar prickle on her skin and the tug at anything metallic attached to her clothing and kit bag then they were through.
The air was breathable. Always a good start.
The ground beneath their feet was firm. Even better.
And nothing was immediately trying to eat them. Positively peachy.
They were in a temperate, broad-leaved forest, with oak, ash and what looked like alder growing on a gentle slope in a pleasantly verdant valley. Grass underfoot told her that at the earliest, this was the late Cretaceous, but it could equally well have been last Tuesday near Stroud. With a very large elephant on the loose, she wasn’t sure what she preferred.
“Stay exactly where you are,” a strangely accented voice said in the tone of a man used to being obeyed. Ryan and the other soldiers sounded exactly the same on a shout or when defending their last bottle of beer at a party. “If you are carrying weapons, then I advise you not to touch them.”
From the flicker of surprise in Stephen’s eyes it was clear they were having the same thought; they had ended up in a time period where the inhabitants spoke English but did not recognise their various rifles and handguns as weapons.
Abby appreciated the fact that neither Finn nor Kermit felt the need to say anything. She gave a slight nod to Stephen. Better if he did the talking for now. Some men didn’t take well to being addressed by a woman. First rule of contact: don’t piss off the locals unnecessarily.
“We intend no harm to you,” Stephen said. “We are searching for a very large … creature that came this way. We are here to follow its tracks.”
“That would not be difficult, not even for a blind man.” The voice held a hint of amusement.
He was right. The elephant’s route through the undergrowth wasn’t hard to pick up.
“By what right have three men and a woman followed a Mûmak through the shattered light into this land?”
Second rule of contact: choose your words carefully.
“The Mûmak should not be here,” Stephen said, not quite succeeded in copying the man’s pronunciation. “We are hoping to return it through the shattered light to its own homeland.”
“You are keepers of the shattered lights?”
The plural didn’t go unnoticed by any of them.
“You are familiar with the lights?”
“I advise you not to answer a question with a question, stranger.” The man’s voice had taken on a sharper, more dangerous edge.
Abby’s senses placed him in front of them and to their left, maybe four metres away, but she still could not see anyone. The soldiers and Stephen had probably got a more accurate fix than that. Too far for them to try anything without knowing whether he had back up and what weapons were trained on them.
“We are not the keepers of the lights. They have no keepers. We try to help the creatures that come through them. And we try to protect people from the creatures where needed.”
A heartbeat later, a tall man dressed from head to foot in comfortable looking clothes of green and brown steeped out of the undergrowth and stood in front of them. He was carrying a long bow with a quiver of arrows at his side and a sheathed sword on his other hip. A hunting horn and a knife hung from his belt.
Five other men stepped out in a ring around them, dressed in the same clothing. Like their leader, they were all tall, dark-haired and grey-eyed. Bows were in their hands, arrows nocked and aimed.
Neither Finn nor Kermit moved a muscle.
The tallest of the men, the first to have shown himself, spoke to Abby. “Your pardon, lady, it is not our habit to hold a woman at arrow point, but I have no wish to do you the insult of underestimating any danger that you might pose.”
Abby grinned. “Thanks for the compliment – I think.”
A slight smile lightened the serious expression on the man’s handsome face. “No man who has met my wife would make the mistake of underestimating a woman. Not even one so strangely garbed.”
Abby looked down at her short tartan skirt, thick black leggings and Doc Martin boots topped with a bright yellow sweater. “It’s my job to handle the creatures, not pretend to be a tree. I’m Abby Maitland, by the way. My friends are Stephen Hart, Rob Finn and Darren Cooper.”
“Strange garb and strange names. And yet you speak the Common Tongue.”
Abby nodded. “Will you tell us your name?”
The man looked thoughtful, then nodded. “I am Faramir. I keep watch over this land.”
“Will you let us look for the … Mûmak?” Abby was pretty sure her pronunciation hadn’t come out any better than Stephen’s attempt.
“I will join you in the search for the Mûmak, Lady Abby.” Faramir turned his eyes on Stephen and the soldiers. “Will you give me your word that you will take no hostile action against us?”
Stephen nodded. “Yes, you have my word.”
Finn and Kermit said the same, eyes wary and watchful. The two men still looked deceptively relaxed, but Abbey knew them too well to believe for a second that either of them would let their guard down around armed men, especially when they had no bloody idea where – or when – they were.
Faramir nodded to his men, who lowered their bows.
The elephant’s trail wasn’t hard to follow. The panicked creature had run headlong down the valley, huge feet trampling the bushes and shrubs, squashing the grass and breaking off any low hanging branches that had got in its way.
They followed the trail of destruction through the wood and down into the valley. A wide river sparkled in the sunlight and tall reed beds wavered in a light breeze.
The Asian elephant had come to a halt in the middle of the lush water meadow and was busily uprooting grass and stuffing it into her mouth.
“Easiest tracking job ever, miss,” Finn muttered.
“Makes up for you not finding that pig-thing last week even when it left a trail of shit a mile wide,” Kermit said.
“In his defence, there were six of them crapping everywhere and we were in Hampton Court maze,” Stephen said. “Abby, any idea how we’re going to get this beauty back home?”
“None whatsoever,” Abby admitted.
A loud trumpeting noise from an alder grove by the waterside broke the silence that greeted her comment. Finn made to swing his rifle into his hands but stopped at a slight shake of the head from Stephen who’d noticed that neither Faramir nor his men had shown any surprise at the noise, or any concern.
The elephant they’d nicknamed Missy threw up her head and trumpeted in response.
From out of the trees strode an elephant even larger than Missy, with long, straight tusks like hers, a greyish brown leathery hide and ears that flapped like sails. Abby watched as the two approached each other cautiously, and rightly so. Those tusks could do lethal damage in an instant and even with the size difference, Missy, like all female elephants was quite capable of defending herself.
“Er, where the hell did that one come from?” Finn asked. “We only followed one through the anomaly.”
“This Mûmak has been here for ten years,” Faramir said. “He was turned into a weapon of war by the Southrons. They placed a tower on his back and rode him into battle. We saw many like them on the Pelennor Fields. Alas those poor beasts perished, but this one escaped an ambush my men and I set for his abusers. He broke free of the trappings of war, and he has roamed by valley ever since.”
“He’s magnificent,” Abby said quietly.
Faramir smiled. “He is a peaceful beast now that he is free of abuse by men. He roams the valley but never strays far from here. We check on him from time to time, but there are none here to bother him and he does no harm.”
Missy took a few tentative steps towards the other elephant, swinging her head from side to side in a sign of distress and confusion, faced by an unknown bull.
The Mûmak looked equally uncertain but continued to approach.
“Is he going to attack her?” Finn asked.
“I don’t think so.” The creatures weren’t showing signs of aggression, just uncertainty. “Give them a minute.”
The Mûmak came close enough to Missy to reach out with his long trunk and touch her shoulder. She moved a couple of paces forward and snaked out her own trunk to delicately touch the bull on his enormous balls.
“That’s a bit familiar,” Finn said, amused.
“They do that when they’re comforting each other,” Abby said.
Kermit grinned. “Nice one. Always reckoned my spirit animal was an elephant.”
“You call them oliphaunts, too?” Faramir asked.
“Close enough,” Stephen said.
The Mûmakgently ran the tip of his trunk over Missy’s face then popped it into her mouth.
“Pretty successful meet and greet,” Abby said, as the solution to a very large, very grey problem started to resolve itself down in the valley.
“The Mûmak has been lonely for many years,” Faramir said. “I think he has finally found the happiness he deserves.”
Abby smiled up at the tall stranger. “You’re a kind man, Faramir.”
“And you are a caring woman, Abby Maitland, as are your friends.”
“Love at first sight,” Finn said, grinning widely. “Sweet, innit.”
Faramir looked faintly puzzled but nodded in agreement.
“Problem solved,” Abby said brightly. She checked her watch. “And we’ve got precisely 15 minutes to get back before Ryan and Cutter send a search party.
They made it back through the anomaly with ten minutes to spare.
Faramir had smiled and wished them well, promising to watch over Missy as he had over the Mûmak.
Abby had flung her arms around him and given him a hug. He’d looked surprised but had hugged her back.
As they’d stepped back into the waiting anomaly, she’d heard him say to his men, “I think Master Samwise would like to hear of this.”
In response to the questioning look on Cutter’s face, Abby declared. “All sorted. She’ll be happy there.”
“You’re writing the report,” Stephen muttered.
The report ended up bland in the extreme.
For once, Lester didn’t ask any awkward questions.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval/The Lord of the Rings
Rating : 12
Characters : Ryan/Stephen, Connor, Finn, Faramir
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Abby and Stephen have a large, grey problem to solve.
A/N Written for
louisedennis’s primeval_denial Gift Box.“They’re impressive buggers,” Ryan said. “Just a shame we haven’t got any really, really big sheepdogs.”
“Palaeoloxodon namadicus,” Connor said, busily getting as much film of the herd as he could while still keeping an eye on his monitoring kit.
“And again in English, mate…”
“Asian straight-tusked elephant,” Finn supplied. “Were you kipping in the Prof’s last lecture, boss?”
He hadn’t been kipping, but he had been playing footsie with Stephen under the table. Now that Finn came to mention it, he did remember something about bloody great big elephants.
“Might be a subspecies of Palaeoloxodon antiquus.” Connor was staring at his magnetometer in some concern. “Er, guys, could we maybe hurry ‘em up a bit? Magnetic strength’s dropping a bit. It has been open most of the day …”
“Stephen, Abby, could you ask ‘em nicely to get a move on,” Ryan ordered over the comms channel. “Something just short of a stampede would be nice.”
****
“On it,” Stephen replied. The elephants had been responding reasonably well to being herded by quadbike but neither he nor Abby wanted to panic the creatures, is that happened none of them would get home.
He nodded to Abby and they both accelerated slightly, gunning the engines just enough to push the herd along, but not enough to get their backs up, and with a shoulder height of just over 5 metres, he didn’t want to get their backs up any more than strictly necessary.
The herd leader had already reached the anomaly and was walking through calmly, its huge snake-like trunk already scenting the air. Where the matriarch of the herd went, the rest were pretty sure to follow.
The only one they were particularly concerned about was a young female, slightly smaller than the matriarch. She’d spent most of the afternoon slightly apart from the herd, almost as if they were shunning her for some reason. Stephen didn’t know enough about elephant behaviour to know if they did that sort of thing, but he had come across it in mongooses, who would shun a member of their friendship group, usually for some form of anti-social behaviour. When he’d raised the possibility with Abby earlier in the afternoon, while they’d been waiting for the quadbikes to arrive, she’d told him that incompatibility issues did sometimes arise in matriarchal herds in zoos, and on one occasion, a mature female had been relocated when it became clear she couldn’t safely stay at Wellington Zoo.
“Missy’s veering away again,” Abby said, a thread of urgency in her voice. “Keep her with the others’ Stephen. We’re so close now …”
Only four more elephants to go.
Stephen came slowly alongside Missy, as they’d dubbed her, trying to encourage her to stay with the herd, then, as so often happened on anomaly shouts, everything went spectacularly tits up.
****
“Fuck!” Ryan watched as the elephant Stephen and Abby had been most concerned about suddenly threw back her head and trumpeted in fear.
The effect on the other three was electric. They speeded up, going through the anomaly at a run, whereas the other one dug its heels in and threw its head up, long tusks waving from side to side as its trunk coiled back.
The broken shards of time expanded rather than contracting and to Connor’s wide-eyed amazement and Ryan’s equally wide-eyed horror, the anomaly proceeded to divide in the air, the left side expanding and glowing a pale rose gold while the other side remained pale and silvery and started to contract.
A heartbeat later, the original anomaly had vanished, leaving the new one lazily spinning in the late afternoon soon.
The remaining elephant promptly charged through it.
“Don’t follow!” Ryan ordered.
Cutter broke into a run, with Ryan on his heels.
Connor picked up his various boxes of tricks and scrambled after them.
****
“We need to know where it’s gone,” Abby said.
“Agreed, lass, but we need to know that’s stable first,” Cutter told her. “Connor?”
Stephen watched as Connor ran through his various tests. Eventually, their resident genius ran a hand through his messy hair and shrugged. “I can’t account for the colour, but apart from that, the readings are strong and within the normal range for authorising a recce.
“Cutter, we can be in and out fast,” Stephen said. “Abby’s right, we need to know where – when – it’s gone.”
Cutter exchanged a questioning glance with Ryan who nodded. “Make it bloody quick. No more than an hour, whatever you find on the other side.”
“Finn, Kermit, you’re with Abby and Stephen.”
“Got it, boss,” Finn said, shouldering his LA96AI.
Kermit grinned and cradled his M4 against his chest.
Stephen and Abby both had EMP rifles slung over their backs. He’d prefer not to try his luck with one on one of the biggest elephants to walk the earth, but he’d do that before authorising the use of more lethal force.
They were as ready as they ever would be.
****
As they stepped into the anomaly, Abby felt the familiar prickle on her skin and the tug at anything metallic attached to her clothing and kit bag then they were through.
The air was breathable. Always a good start.
The ground beneath their feet was firm. Even better.
And nothing was immediately trying to eat them. Positively peachy.
They were in a temperate, broad-leaved forest, with oak, ash and what looked like alder growing on a gentle slope in a pleasantly verdant valley. Grass underfoot told her that at the earliest, this was the late Cretaceous, but it could equally well have been last Tuesday near Stroud. With a very large elephant on the loose, she wasn’t sure what she preferred.
“Stay exactly where you are,” a strangely accented voice said in the tone of a man used to being obeyed. Ryan and the other soldiers sounded exactly the same on a shout or when defending their last bottle of beer at a party. “If you are carrying weapons, then I advise you not to touch them.”
From the flicker of surprise in Stephen’s eyes it was clear they were having the same thought; they had ended up in a time period where the inhabitants spoke English but did not recognise their various rifles and handguns as weapons.
Abby appreciated the fact that neither Finn nor Kermit felt the need to say anything. She gave a slight nod to Stephen. Better if he did the talking for now. Some men didn’t take well to being addressed by a woman. First rule of contact: don’t piss off the locals unnecessarily.
“We intend no harm to you,” Stephen said. “We are searching for a very large … creature that came this way. We are here to follow its tracks.”
“That would not be difficult, not even for a blind man.” The voice held a hint of amusement.
He was right. The elephant’s route through the undergrowth wasn’t hard to pick up.
“By what right have three men and a woman followed a Mûmak through the shattered light into this land?”
Second rule of contact: choose your words carefully.
“The Mûmak should not be here,” Stephen said, not quite succeeded in copying the man’s pronunciation. “We are hoping to return it through the shattered light to its own homeland.”
“You are keepers of the shattered lights?”
The plural didn’t go unnoticed by any of them.
“You are familiar with the lights?”
“I advise you not to answer a question with a question, stranger.” The man’s voice had taken on a sharper, more dangerous edge.
Abby’s senses placed him in front of them and to their left, maybe four metres away, but she still could not see anyone. The soldiers and Stephen had probably got a more accurate fix than that. Too far for them to try anything without knowing whether he had back up and what weapons were trained on them.
“We are not the keepers of the lights. They have no keepers. We try to help the creatures that come through them. And we try to protect people from the creatures where needed.”
A heartbeat later, a tall man dressed from head to foot in comfortable looking clothes of green and brown steeped out of the undergrowth and stood in front of them. He was carrying a long bow with a quiver of arrows at his side and a sheathed sword on his other hip. A hunting horn and a knife hung from his belt.
Five other men stepped out in a ring around them, dressed in the same clothing. Like their leader, they were all tall, dark-haired and grey-eyed. Bows were in their hands, arrows nocked and aimed.
Neither Finn nor Kermit moved a muscle.
The tallest of the men, the first to have shown himself, spoke to Abby. “Your pardon, lady, it is not our habit to hold a woman at arrow point, but I have no wish to do you the insult of underestimating any danger that you might pose.”
Abby grinned. “Thanks for the compliment – I think.”
A slight smile lightened the serious expression on the man’s handsome face. “No man who has met my wife would make the mistake of underestimating a woman. Not even one so strangely garbed.”
Abby looked down at her short tartan skirt, thick black leggings and Doc Martin boots topped with a bright yellow sweater. “It’s my job to handle the creatures, not pretend to be a tree. I’m Abby Maitland, by the way. My friends are Stephen Hart, Rob Finn and Darren Cooper.”
“Strange garb and strange names. And yet you speak the Common Tongue.”
Abby nodded. “Will you tell us your name?”
The man looked thoughtful, then nodded. “I am Faramir. I keep watch over this land.”
“Will you let us look for the … Mûmak?” Abby was pretty sure her pronunciation hadn’t come out any better than Stephen’s attempt.
“I will join you in the search for the Mûmak, Lady Abby.” Faramir turned his eyes on Stephen and the soldiers. “Will you give me your word that you will take no hostile action against us?”
Stephen nodded. “Yes, you have my word.”
Finn and Kermit said the same, eyes wary and watchful. The two men still looked deceptively relaxed, but Abbey knew them too well to believe for a second that either of them would let their guard down around armed men, especially when they had no bloody idea where – or when – they were.
Faramir nodded to his men, who lowered their bows.
The elephant’s trail wasn’t hard to follow. The panicked creature had run headlong down the valley, huge feet trampling the bushes and shrubs, squashing the grass and breaking off any low hanging branches that had got in its way.
They followed the trail of destruction through the wood and down into the valley. A wide river sparkled in the sunlight and tall reed beds wavered in a light breeze.
The Asian elephant had come to a halt in the middle of the lush water meadow and was busily uprooting grass and stuffing it into her mouth.
“Easiest tracking job ever, miss,” Finn muttered.
“Makes up for you not finding that pig-thing last week even when it left a trail of shit a mile wide,” Kermit said.
“In his defence, there were six of them crapping everywhere and we were in Hampton Court maze,” Stephen said. “Abby, any idea how we’re going to get this beauty back home?”
“None whatsoever,” Abby admitted.
A loud trumpeting noise from an alder grove by the waterside broke the silence that greeted her comment. Finn made to swing his rifle into his hands but stopped at a slight shake of the head from Stephen who’d noticed that neither Faramir nor his men had shown any surprise at the noise, or any concern.
The elephant they’d nicknamed Missy threw up her head and trumpeted in response.
From out of the trees strode an elephant even larger than Missy, with long, straight tusks like hers, a greyish brown leathery hide and ears that flapped like sails. Abby watched as the two approached each other cautiously, and rightly so. Those tusks could do lethal damage in an instant and even with the size difference, Missy, like all female elephants was quite capable of defending herself.
“Er, where the hell did that one come from?” Finn asked. “We only followed one through the anomaly.”
“This Mûmak has been here for ten years,” Faramir said. “He was turned into a weapon of war by the Southrons. They placed a tower on his back and rode him into battle. We saw many like them on the Pelennor Fields. Alas those poor beasts perished, but this one escaped an ambush my men and I set for his abusers. He broke free of the trappings of war, and he has roamed by valley ever since.”
“He’s magnificent,” Abby said quietly.
Faramir smiled. “He is a peaceful beast now that he is free of abuse by men. He roams the valley but never strays far from here. We check on him from time to time, but there are none here to bother him and he does no harm.”
Missy took a few tentative steps towards the other elephant, swinging her head from side to side in a sign of distress and confusion, faced by an unknown bull.
The Mûmak looked equally uncertain but continued to approach.
“Is he going to attack her?” Finn asked.
“I don’t think so.” The creatures weren’t showing signs of aggression, just uncertainty. “Give them a minute.”
The Mûmak came close enough to Missy to reach out with his long trunk and touch her shoulder. She moved a couple of paces forward and snaked out her own trunk to delicately touch the bull on his enormous balls.
“That’s a bit familiar,” Finn said, amused.
“They do that when they’re comforting each other,” Abby said.
Kermit grinned. “Nice one. Always reckoned my spirit animal was an elephant.”
“You call them oliphaunts, too?” Faramir asked.
“Close enough,” Stephen said.
The Mûmakgently ran the tip of his trunk over Missy’s face then popped it into her mouth.
“Pretty successful meet and greet,” Abby said, as the solution to a very large, very grey problem started to resolve itself down in the valley.
“The Mûmak has been lonely for many years,” Faramir said. “I think he has finally found the happiness he deserves.”
Abby smiled up at the tall stranger. “You’re a kind man, Faramir.”
“And you are a caring woman, Abby Maitland, as are your friends.”
“Love at first sight,” Finn said, grinning widely. “Sweet, innit.”
Faramir looked faintly puzzled but nodded in agreement.
“Problem solved,” Abby said brightly. She checked her watch. “And we’ve got precisely 15 minutes to get back before Ryan and Cutter send a search party.
They made it back through the anomaly with ten minutes to spare.
Faramir had smiled and wished them well, promising to watch over Missy as he had over the Mûmak.
Abby had flung her arms around him and given him a hug. He’d looked surprised but had hugged her back.
As they’d stepped back into the waiting anomaly, she’d heard him say to his men, “I think Master Samwise would like to hear of this.”
In response to the questioning look on Cutter’s face, Abby declared. “All sorted. She’ll be happy there.”
“You’re writing the report,” Stephen muttered.
The report ended up bland in the extreme.
For once, Lester didn’t ask any awkward questions.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 04:30 pm (UTC)