Silmarils Are Forever by whitewave

Serving the Bond

Read Serving the Bond

The Soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZU_xftwlp4

Chapter 1 -  Serving the Bond

Isle of Himling

The clear blue-green water sparkled under the bright early morning sun.  The pristine beauty of the scene soothed and comforted him.  Even before he and the others had agreed to serve the Bond, he had promised himself that he would make a pilgrimage to this place but his duties had prevented it thus far; which was why this visit as nothing short of a miracle.   The slight breeze caressed an exposed ear and blew a few strands of red hair into his face; the air seemed to welcome him back.

With a mixture of regret and excitement he realized how much had changed since he had been here last, and not just the landscape.  He had been told that the island is uninhabited and most mariners avoided it when they could because there were rumors that it was haunted by fell wraiths.   This dubious distinction made it perfect for solitude and meditation.

The others had dropped him off to the island early that morning. He took his time to enjoy the fresh air as he waited.  By noon he had hiked to the other side of the island, where he found a shaded grove of trees and a pool with calf-deep water. He took off his shoes, folded his trousers up to the knee, then dipped his feet in the cool water.  From his hidden spot he had a clear view of the small, natural harbor edged with beige sand.

The sparkling sea waters looked so inviting that he decided to take a dip in the ocean, if only for a short while. He pulled off his tunic and was about to sprint to the water when he saw a person partially emerge from the ocean some distance from the shore.  He frowned. The island was not supposed to be inhabited given the reconnaissance reports he and the others had pored over days before.   He stood his ground and waited for the person to come closer.

The unexpected visitor was wearing a diving mask that covered most of his face, except for the mouth.  Probably a scout for the corsairs? He clenched his fists and decided to observe first. What happened next totally surprised him.

The person was a woman! The tall female emerged gracefully from the water and he saw that she is wearing very skimpy strips of white cloth such as he had never seen before that barely covered the essentials.  He noticed her pointed ears even while he had a hard time tearing his eyes away from her wet, barely clad body. She had a thin belt with a long sheathed knife on her side. And yes, the sight of her just proved that all the major appendages of his new body are functioning perfectly. Valar! What a day for surprises indeed!

And then she started to sing in perfect Khuz-dul. 

He listened intently as she sang a remotely familiar dwarvish ditty about a ‘marble tree’.  He had last heard the song not a few yenni ago—it was a about a dwarf couple who met secretly under a marble tree.

She kneeled on the sand well within his line of vision and started to look at her loot. She looked very much excited when she opened the bag, so much so that she forgot everything else, including the fact that she still had her mask on.  The view had drastically improved!  The way she innocently leaned forward gave him a commanding view of certain round and proud features of her anatomy: it was easy to imagine what the covered bits would have looked like.

He stared transfixed as she shook the water off of the small objects:  wall braziers, a few  round boxes, a few pieces of large door knockers.   He looked at his timepiece and decided to act now; he picked up a curly shell from the ground. Emerging from his little nook he addressed her in Khuz-dul:

“A good day to you, my lady.”

“Who are you?” Her reply, also in Khuz-dul, was combative.

“It’s all right, I am not supposed to be here either and I take it you’re not." He could tell that she was assessing him very suspiciously. If only she would take off her mask.

“What are you doing here?  Looking for shells?”

“No. I’m just looking.” He smirked slightly and he meaningfully let his gaze sweep over her. It looked like she did not notice that she is indeed quite exposed.  Before she ran away, he started to walk closer to her, all the while holding the shell like some sort of offering.

“Stay where you are!” she barked with panic in her voice.

He stopped. “I promise I won’t steal your Himling loot.”

“I promise you you won’t either,” she sneered with the perfect accent of a Khuz-dul matron.

His smirk very obvious now, he tried to approach her again. 

This time she dropped what she was holding and took her knife out of its sheath. “I said stay where you are.”

“I can assure you my intentions are strictly honorable, my lady, you have my word.”

---

Onboard the stealth sea vessel “Ilterendi”, anchored some distance from Himling

They had decided to use the newest palantir today and Q was able to have the rainbow-colored rings pass through the communication gadget.

“Now pay attention you two,” Q admonished while forming smoke rings on his pipe.  He was deep within his workshop back in Lindon, while the twins were surrounded by ocean on all sides near Himling, but they could see each other as clear as though they were just sitting across the table from each other. 

“Ai, Q, isn’t smoking in your workshop dangerous?” a red-haired male asked as he avoided a smoke ring that looked eerily like a ship.

His twin dodged an arrow-shaped smoke. “Yes, remember the last time?”

“R made this fire-proof one for me,” he held the smoking pipe for their inspection through the palantir for a few seconds, “Now, shall we continue?” He put his pipe aside and leaned closer to his palantir.    “This new device senses the where you are and gives a glimpse of your condition—if you are wounded or where you are focusing your essence. It is capable of transmitting images but not sound, but your earpieces should be able to do that.”

“Sounds very helpful, care to give us a demonstration?”

“Can we use this on kelvar as well, Q?”

“Yes and yes, except for Ents. Choose your first subject.”

The twins looked around them.  Inside the spacious cabin were 002 and 005 preparing plans for their next mission, for preliminary review by 001 (who was not in the boat at this moment), which would be discussed with M on the morrow.  004 sat in his dark corner hunched over his code-breaker (another device made by Q to decipher the opening words of dwarven doors).  Such was their life since they had all agreed to serve the Bond, as wergild for their past transgressions with the Oath.

Q instructed the twins on how to work the blinking little knobs on the side and they were able to see colorful body-shaped images of the other three. 

“There is nothing amiss with these three subjects--notice the serene flow of their essence around their bodies?  No bright red spots and that is what you need to look out for.”

“This is magnificent. How many did you make?”

“One for each of you seven, one for the Watcher and one for me. Which reminds me, R added a feature in that device that you can use that to locate each other remotely and he wants it to be called the ‘Finder’.”

“Great! We’ll use this on our next mission then,” the twins said in unison, as they were wont to do whenever they were excited.

Just then 003 passed by in front of them, wearing his usual preening expression whenever he talked with his female ‘friends’. His hand is tightly clutching his personal palantir (a hound-shaped one) near his mouth. “Melmenya…I missed you most profoundly…why did you want to speak with me?”

The twins exchanged knowing looks with Q and pressed the specific knob on the “Finder” that stood for ‘003’.

The image on the Finder showed red ‘flashes’ all over 003’s body that seemed to mimic his agitated state. All three of them watched as the red seemed to become more and more vivid with each second. 

Q snickered, “Take cover twinlings.”

The image on the screen seemed to explode when all the red streaks jumped to 003’s head, “What do you mean you’re taking the dog and leaving me? How could you wound me so, Melamin?”

A long pause and they could hear the female’s placatory tone on the other end of the palantir. “Of course I care more about you than the dog my sweetness, how could you even think of saying that?”

A deck window opened from the inside and the concerned faces of 002 and 005 looked out at them.  They took one look at their agitated companion and turned to the twins. 002 spoke, “Has he contacted any of you? We asked the Watcher and he is not answering us.”

005 chuckled at this, “I think the Watcher’s probably just sulking because he can’t join us again.”

“He has not contacted us either, but we can see what our great leader is doing right now with this new gadget!” one of the twins answered.

The other twin adjusted the controls and, lo and behold, a strange and unexpected sight greeted them:  The image of 001 appeared on the screen—he was standing near the beach, his groin glowing a bright red, while in front of him stood a female, who was also exhibiting the same color ‘pattern’, along with pronounced red glows on her chest.

“What do you think is happening?” 002 asked, sounding puzzled, as he flipped through their leader’s detailed, color-coded daily planner: “There’s no mention of this meeting in his timetable. She might be an enemy spy.”

They all looked at the screen again and saw 001’s image jump on top of the female’s. Both started to roll in the sand.

005’s tone was positively mirthful when he said, “I think he’s using more physical means to assess her…”

“Besides, I doubt it if he would note ‘Will go trysting later with anonymous woman’ on his planner. Would you?" 004’s voice startled them. They did not notice him peering over their shoulders and looking at the panel.

“Should we be watching this though?”  002 asked when they realized, nay, assumed what the two figures on the screen were doing. 

One of the twins turned the device off gleefully and turned to the others saying, “What do you all say to some congratulatory drinking for our leader later?”

Q cleared his throat, pretending not to hear the part about the drinking.  Eru knows they have also not told on him for his smoking.  “Right then, I have a complaint to lodge against all of you,” Q cleared his throat, “about the sorry condition of my gadgets after you use them on the field.”

“Ai-ai!  She’s leaving me for a Thinda! The false jade, the…” 003’s loud shout cut the sermon short.

---

There were at least a dozen of them:  gnarled and ancient-looking, they emerged like ghosts from the woods behind him. Huorns! One of them even rose, as if waking up from a deep slumber, from beneath the sand and in close proximity to the elleth.  He lunged at her protectively to cover her.  The Huorns adopted threatening stances. 

She put up a lively struggle, which surprised him just as much as seeing Huorns in the island.

“Let go of me, you oaf!” she shouted in Khuz-dul, and she dug her sharp fingernails into his shoulder, drawing blood.

The Huorns let out a collective, fierce war-cry and started to approach him.

In a split second, he had her over his shoulder despite her vehement protests.  He attempted to run for safety towards the rocky islet not far from the beach.  He tried to reach for his palantir but realized with a groan that he had left it in his tunic pocket and he had left the tunic in the nook. 

One of the Huorns grabbed his free shoulder and flipped him to the ground, causing him to drop his cargo; she landed with a loud thud on her buttocks and the strap of her scanty upper garment broke.  Ignoring him, she covered her chest with her arms, got up and turned to the Huorns.  What she did next surprised and vexed him to no end in the days to come: She spoke in a harsh-sounding Entish dialect to them and they stood stock still like meek lambs.  One of the Huorns even bowed low, in what appeared to be an apologetic gesture. 

“Who could she be?” was the last thought on his mind before she turned to him and promptly kneed him in the groin.

“How dare you touch me like you own me, lecherous scum!?” The words in Khuz-dul rang in his ears as he fell doubled over and in pain, on the wet sand. 

He could not tell how long he lay there, distracted as he was with the pain in his groin, but when he looked up again, the Huorns and the elleth had disappeared, leaving behind a few pieces of her loot.   He groaned, ‘As soon as the pain subsides, I’ll get those and have Caranthir find out who she is.’ 

Later that day, as he tried to clamber a bit awkwardly aboard the Ilterendi, he almost snapped at the mischievous expressions on the faces of his six companions. It was as if they knew something that he did not.  His scowl deepened when he saw several bottles of wine, ice buckets and roasted fish on a nearby table.  He pointedly ignored their curious, questioning looks for the time being and threw them an irritated glare.

“Caranthir!” for once he ignored their Mission code names, “I want you to access the Dwarven Kindred’s list--find out all registered female speakers of Khuz-dul.  I want a list of them on my desk tomorrow.”

Caranthir’s eyes took a slightly dreamy expression:  “You mean you want me to break into their extremely secure lore-base with the complex numerical opening words that renew in differing sequence at illogical intervals?”

“You heard me.”

“If you say so. Does this mean it was that good?”

Another furious shout, one that drove all the fish away, made the boat shudder a second time that day. 

-To be continued-

The Bonds will return in:   Leptalaurë (GoldFinger)

 

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Chapter End Notes

Credits:
• Titillating introductory songs mostly composed by John Barry with the individual performers acknowledged as needed
• Songs/Opening credits downloaded from Youtube (from user MovieTitleSequences)
• Film posters taken from Wikipedia.
• Quenya/Sindarin names and words taken from Quenya Lapseparma, Ardalambion and Hisweloke.
• Only the crazy cross-over plot and the Original Characters belong to the author.  Each chapter will allude to two or more Bond films and to events in the Silmarillion but not necessarily in “canon” or chronological order.