The Thurber Hypothesis
Or
A Funny Thing Happened
on the Way to Imladris
By Capella
Four
Xander
squirmed uncomfortably as he reached for another stick of gum. His left buttock was jammed up hard against a sharp twig, but if
he moved any further to the right the branch looked likely to snap. Sitting half way up a tree with a pocket full
of rocks was not his idea of a fun night out.
Much as he liked and respected Legolas, there was way too much elfiness
in this plan for his liking. And at
first there’d been no part whatsoever in it for him. He’d had to argue, bringing out the old ‘help
with burning the bodies’ chestnut as a last resort. Legolas had still seemed unconvinced.
Right
now the elf was nowhere in sight, having shinned up the second sycamore to the
left like a cat of some sort. All very
well for him; he had the build for it and probably hundreds of years of
practice. Plus some sort of
tree-affinity built in at birth, along with all his other talents. Great – another superhero in town. Even
Xander
kicked himself mentally for being so disloyal.
At least they were all on the same side.
He
heard Buffy crashing through the leaves before he saw her in the poor evening
light, running flat out, not looking back.
She dashed through the clearing and swung round behind the big oak,
emerging with the axe in her hand. There
was no upwards glance to check that the reinforcements were in position, no
quip, nothing. Just the waiting stance,
weapon clutched in two hands, total focus on the gap in the trees where all the
noise was coming from.
His
hands were shaking as he delved in his pocket for the three biggest stones,
took one in the right ready to throw, transferred the
others to the left as back-up. There was
no way he could fire a crossbow from up here, and his knife would only be
useful if he had to get down from the tree and wade into the fight. He’d totally intended to do so at the first
opportunity, whatever Legolas might say.
However, one look at the creatures appearing over the top of the ridge
was enough to change his mind. Perhaps a
tree wasn’t such a bad place to be, after all.
They
were big, and there were lots of them, more than twenty. Damned ugly, too, as bad as any demon he’d
seen in the last few years. And the
smell seemed to rush down the slope ahead of them. Perhaps they looked as if they’d slept in a
cess pit for a reason. No wonder the
elves couldn’t stand them.
The
first uruk into the clearing was a tall specimen, broad across the shoulders,
hefting a long curved axe and grimacing horribly. The sight of Buffy standing defiant seemed to
bring him up short – he couldn’t have expected it of the helpless girl who’d
blundered into his camp unawares a few minutes earlier. It was only a momentary halt; as the rest of
his clan started to pour into the clearing, the big brute snarled something
incomprehensible – although Xander would bet it translated roughly as ‘She’s
mine!’ - and
advanced, growling. Five feet from Buffy
he stopped abruptly, then fell forward with an arrow
between his eyes while the Slayer leapt nimbly out of the way.
As the rest
of the uruks looked around them in confusion, Buffy found her voice. “Next?” she cried brightly, swinging the
double-headed axe.
Three more were down before any managed to step forward to take up her
challenge. Jeez, but
that elf was fast.
“Leave
some for me,” Buffy shouted, and brought the axe round hard at her attacker.
The
next few minutes were mayhem. It all
went far too fast for Xander to follow the action properly, or to recall the
exact sequence of events later. At some
point Legolas dropped lightly out of his tree and started fighting with the
knives, across the clearing from Buffy.
Luckily the uruks didn’t seem to have bows of any kind and although most
of them had long-handled blades they were just too clumsy to get them within
range. Xander watched in awe as Buffy
neatly side-stepped and spun away from one lumbering orc, sending the beast
stumbling under his own momentum straight onto Legolas’s waiting knife, while
the Slayer brought her axe down on a second opponent with a sickening
crack. The two blond warriors smiled
briefly at each other before turning back to the fray without a word.
It
struck Xander that Buffy seemed to have met her match, in terms of agility,
speed and strength. If it hadn’t been
for the horror all around them he would have said the sight of them fighting
together was beautiful. It was certainly
absorbing enough for him to forget his own danger – he hadn’t realised he’d
been spotted until he heard an uruk growling up at him from just below his
right foot. A rock in the middle of the
forehead slowed the creature down, but wasn’t enough to finish it. The long blade between the shoulders did
that.
“Thanks,
Legolas.” Xander clambered unsteadily
down from his perch and looked around at the piles of bodies, wrinkling his
nose. “That was some fight. Think there are any more of them?”
“I hope
not,” said Legolas, bending to retrieve his knife from the corpse at Xander’s
feet. “There can be no telling how many
of them were called through to this world, but their instincts would have kept
them together in a herd, rather than splitting them up.” The elf looked down at the lifeless body with
a bleak expression. “Did you see any
escape?” he asked a moment later.
Xander
thought back as well as he could. “No,
but then there was quite a lot going on.
One or two could have got away without me noticing.”
“Better
start getting them together for burning,” Buffy sighed. “I guess every job has its downside, but this
one kinda takes the prize.”
“Right.” Xander
steeled himself to grasp the nearest dead uruk by the ankles. He dragged it to the middle of the clearing
with difficulty. “Can we take on a team
of lightweights next time, please?”
They
worked in grim silence for a while until the distant sound of a helicopter drew
Buffy’s attention. She straightened and
turned towards the sound.
“It’s
coming this way.”
“The Initiative?” Xander said.
“I
wondered when they were going to turn up.
We’ll have to leave this to them.”
It was
one of those strange moments when the same thought occurs to two people at the
same time. Xander spun round to face
Legolas as Buffy said the words.
“Legolas, you’ve got to get away from here!”
The elf
rose from his crouch, a bundle of arrows in his hand, and looked from one to the other. “What is the problem?”
“It
would take too long to explain,” Xander said quickly. “But you can’t be here when these guys
arrive.”
“No,
you can’t. You have to run,” Buffy
continued, “Run
to Giles’s house and tell him . . . tell him to hide you from the
Initiative. It’s really urgent.”
“But what about you? If there is
danger, I should stay with you.”
“No
danger for us,” Xander countered, hoping it was the truth, “They’re not
interested in humans. Now please, stop
talking and just go.”
The elf
glanced from Xander to Buffy once more, then nodded and took off.
“And I
thought I was a fast runner,” Buffy commented, as Legolas vanished silently
into the forest.
“Now
might be a good time to prove it.”
Xander was suddenly quite certain that he didn’t want to be around when
the army boys showed up. The heap of
dead orcs would take some explaining.
“Yeah,
you’re right. We’ll go back round by the
parking lot, so if they see us we can pretend we’re a couple or something.”
“Be
still my heart!”
Buffy
shot him a Look, obvious even in the near-dark.
“C’mon,” she hissed. “The foot patrol are nearly here.”
She grabbed his arm and they set off through the trees.
Xander
hadn’t heard anything approaching except the helicopter. That was probably something to do with the
fact that he was Xander Harris, pizza delivery boy, while she was Buffy
Summers, Slayer, Chosen One, Saviour of the
World. Made for each
other, really. Too bad she’d
never been able to see it.
Once
they got to the main road they slowed down and began the long walk back to
Sunnydale.
Xander
struggled to control his breathing. “The
sooner I get a proper job and a car, the better,” he gasped.
“Xander,
are you alright?” Buffy’s voice was full
of friendly concern. There was no hint
of breathlessness.
“Apart from the imminent cardiac arrest? Just peachy.”
“No, I
meant alright. I mean, you and
Anya, are you okay?”
“Because
she’s not around, you mean?” What a
great time to choose for a heart to heart.
“Yeah.”
“No, I
mean yes, we’re fine. She’s lying low
for a bit though.”
Buffy
waited for the explanation.
Xander
shrugged. “It’s because of Legolas.”
“Legolas? She’s
avoiding him? Is she crazy? Most girls would -”
“I
know, well, at least I can work it out.
Spare me the detail.” He ran a
hand through his hair and attempted to explain.
“She says all that virtue and purity makes her nervous. She thinks he knows she’s a demon.”
“Does
she think he’d do something? I’m sure
he’d be okay about it.”
“I
know, I told her that, but she wasn’t being very rational. You know how she picks up on things, magic
and stuff, she says it sets her teeth on edge.”
“Weird.” Buffy shook her head. “But then having an elf on the team is hardly
run-of-the-mill, is it?”
“Hardly.”
“I bet
the Initiative would just love to get their mitts on him.”
“I’ll
bet they would.” Xander looked sideways
at Buffy. “But you’ve got your man on
the inside, haven’t you? Couldn’t you
explain to him about Legolas?”
“Riley’s
out of town at the moment, and besides . . .” she seemed to be casting about for the
words. “I wouldn’t want to put him in a
difficult position.”
Too right. Obedience to the line of command and duty before all things. That much Xander remembered clearly from his
brief spell in uniform. It was far too
early in the relationship for Buffy to try testing those sorts of
loyalties. Maybe it was a good thing her
boyfriend was away.
“D’you not think they’d be able to
tell a good non-human from a bad one?” he ventured.
“I’m
not so sure, but I kinda imagine a ‘shoot first, ask
questions afterwards’ policy, don’t you?
It could all go horribly wrong.”
“Right. I hope
Legolas got back okay.”
“Oh,
he’ll have got back. What I’m worried
about is whether Giles has got any way of hiding him from their sensors. It’s all pretty high-tech stuff.”
They
looked at each other for a moment in the orange light of the streetlamp.
“Go
on,” said Xander. “You’d better. I’ll catch up.”
Buffy
nodded, then broke into a run.
To be
continued…
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