“HEY!” She jammed her elbow into his abdomen as hard as she could.

  “ZUG-AUGH!” he cried out.

  “GET OFF ME!”

  He pushed her away, a wretched scowl of wounded pride on his face, and he yelled, “SHA SNAGA ORC BITCH! SHA LOOK LIKE AN ELF SLUT!” He raised a fist.

  Githarie whipped The Lord of the Rings out of her overalls pocket, gripped two corners of it tightly, and-

  THWACK! “Puh!”

  Swung the book as hard as she could right into the skai sha hai cis het scum snaga orcboi’s shitty nakaz lil ugly face. His tusk tore a jagged scar through the cover, but the heft of the book – thick hemp paper and large words to make reading easier, not to mention the length of it in full glorious form, not divided in three volumes – smashed into his jaw like a brick. Pure orcan anger, powered by twisted malformed perception from the bad trip, disgust and revolt had triggered the latent surges of berserker rage from the fall earlier rote, it had ebbed away in weakness but now had surged back like a wave. So, the blow knocked the nuk-nuk orc up in the air like an uppercut – Githarie was shorter than him so the strike angled up – and then he tumbled to the soft earth save for a small, jagged stump left by a felled bamboo that the Lions had not bothered to uproot. It tore straight through his latissimus dorsi.

  “HR-AAAGH!”

  The booing had come to a crescendo and finally the ego-rekt deejay ceased his horrid scratching just as the orcboi ceased screaming, and so orcboi could not be heard.

  In the madness of the booing, she pushed her way desperately and managed to squeeze between two couples each lost in their own make out seshes, and only because she was slight she was able to slip away.

  But now the commotion had piqued the interest of the crowd, now quickly dissipating in the absence of music. Cliques of Rotheran youth jostled each other or merged and joined to plan the afters in large circles of passed tokes, but now one or two more leery of these swiveled their heads around to gawk at this orcan gurl all alone.

  A pair of orcan gurls approached her immediately sensing her dire need – the same Elichiribehetans she was shoved up next to during the whole ordeal – orcans from her own community gave Githarie a sense of calm.

  “Hey, we saw sha get molested over there by that nakaz orc fuck.” Undercut and fringe.

  “Are you okay, hun? Where are sha friends?” Ponytail.

  But upon the speaking of that word – friends – Githarie began to doubt. She didn’t know them. They were not her friends. They were not pham. They were not even Rotherans. She was still frayed.

  “Ugh, I- I-” … “I, ah-”, She tried to stammer a response but found her faculties for language now entirely lacking. She felt cooked just trying to get away from zug-zug orcboi. Paranoia washed over her as the clash of all the different neurotransmitters being fired in her brain swirled into maelstroms of bouncing thought. Still the overbearing paranoia said: say nothing. Nothing. We can’t find our pham right now if we wanted to anyway.

  But that just meant freaking out in front of a large group of orcans milling about her. Now all eyes were on her, and her knees went weak and knocked, but she found her grit before she slumped all the way to the ground.

  Githarie looked left and right at all the orcans now looking at her. What were they thinking? Were they in on it? The rational part of her mind reminded her that she had consumed a consciousness altering substance and that therefore irrational thoughts were to be expected and ignored. But thoughts could not be ignored.

  “Sha ‘kay?”

  “Take a nakaz bit more than sha can handle there, nakaz zug?”

  The racing thoughts mounted and mounted and now because so many people were talking, what were beautiful synaesthetic landscapes had warped into many little hideous dancing patterns repeated ad nauseam, infinite fractals splitting off everywhere but spiraling into nowhere, and she knew she couldn’t have been hearing such a thing but in her mind’s ear began to pick up a faint and ambient cackling in a voice that was so deep and alien.

  Despite her best efforts, those irrational racing thoughts could only conclude that it was some sort of demon.

  Agh burzum ishi krimpatul.

  And then the shrill whine of, “Sha! Where did that cunt hai go, hai?” somewhere in the crowd – unmistakably her molester – and now the demon’s voice and the boi’s voice and indeed all the collected voices, now with some in protest concerning the boi’s own conduct, merged into some sort of even worse knot of twisted fear that she couldn’t cleanse. She wished she could retch, purge this toxic mushroom out of her poor mind. She considered trying to force it again.

  She had scarfed seven grams of psilocybes. Too late. Already digested. She was going to keep peaking for a while, orcan or not, that’s just a heroic dose.

  The limping orcan boi burst through, blood pouring out of his back and leaving a bold trail of it behind him, snarling, “YA HAI! I gave sha a puff! This the thanks I get, HAI? I am gonna rek you hai, sha gonna come with me and I’ll show sha a real - bubhosh - ghash.” He drew out these last words slowly, elongating them. It was clear what he meant.

  Spite and fear brought Gith back to life, “GEREKT POKGAI!” Do go fuck yourself and die!

  “Sha fuckin’ rekt, rapeboi.” Undercut and fringe and lip rings lunged and started choking the detestable boi who had just finally wrestled his way to Gith.

  “Ya skai! Ya creepy skai! Fuck you! Fuck you!” Ponytail.

  “Wurl Sta-ah!”

  With the passerby’s cry, instantly a ring formed around them with some chants of ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’, others ‘Stomp that rapey orc out!’

  Githarie bolted. She ran as far and as fast as she could, tears streaming down her cheeks, but she dared not make a peep lest this evil force hear her. The burz was really all around her now. The words just kept repeating. In darkness bind them, in darkness bind them, and it contracted and contracted until like that damn polymeter which she had never enjoyed as much as the other elements, it became like a shrill howl:

  Burzum Burzum Burzum.

  Krimp. Krimp. Krimp.

  She ran past the edge of the clearing and into the depths of the bamboo forest, leaping and throwing her way through spindly branches that raked her like fingernails, but she did not care, for to stop running would be to let them dig it and grab her. She fell many times, the snaky runners reaching to grab her by the ankles or smash her in the calves, but still she ran. She picked herself back up and ran.

  Finally, surrounded by bamboo, deathly quiet and only the faintest hint of hubbub, did she start to come to her senses and pick her way back through the dark towards the closest light.

  At the very edge of the razza was a smaller clearing, it could have been part of the bamboo woodsmen’s supply route, or the Lions might have chopped down this bit just to place a huge bonfire filled with pyrolysed bamboo. Where the clearings met was the very back of the temple stage, just a little outcrop of bamboo thickets.

  The smoky stench wasn’t that bad for Githarie though. Orcans did not mind the smell of ash or soot. The point of this bonfire, one of five, was just to light up the temple stage. This bonfire – though no one was there – cast a great undulating light on the outside of the bamboo fence.

  She had completely forgotten all about finding Lawrah, all she needed to do was try and calm down now. Though the peak was finally coming down, just a little bit, and the adrenaline of escaping from orcboi had returned her body from paralysis and weakness, something corrupting lingered. She took out the book that had saved her from that orc, examined the raking scar over the cover by tracing it with her fingertip – oh, she was going to get rekt by Meldy slowly and painfully – dropped close to the bonfire. There were small scratches, abrasions, and bruises all over her body.

  How did her birth rote turn out so wrong?

  Without anything else better to do, she opened to the page she dog-eared and continued to read by the firelight.

  She just had to focus on something! Anything! Just to get her mind out of torment, a torment which she could feel deep inside her- it was coming from within.

  At first the words seemed to swim together. All mixed up. She couldn’t focus on any particular sentence before her eyes bounced away to another. Reading felt impossible. But she grit her teeth and forced herself to keep trying. Just read! Read, damn it! Read! She felt like she had reread the same paragraph at least a dozen times!

  But every time she lost her place, she forced herself backwards. Do it again. And again. Read. Just keep reading. Just keep reading!

  Her eyes fixed on the next word, and then word by word, she pushed forward. She let nothing else enter her mind.

  Slowly, she began to make progress.

  She had now come upon the exposition of how the One Ring came to be. Though she came upon mention of elves, here they were presented as the last resistance against the true enemy, the real big bad evil guy- Sauron. She made no note of it, trying to keep her mind blank. And it was working.

  And then she came upon a word that almost split open that calm naz blankness and almost opened all the fraying that she had just begun to weave back together. She had to read it again out loud, just to steady herself, remind herself they were just words.

  The Orcs of the Mountains… were the bad guys?

  A crumpling sour sorrow opened within, a blossoming melancholy. Her precocious mind immediately had questions; she started reading with hunger for meaning instead of merely as a distraction. Why didn’t the Orcs just keep the Ring for themselves? Why were they working with Sauron in the first place? Where were they from, what were they like? There was an entire chapter dedicated to these boring, lazy, trolly halflings- but no mention of Orc culture. She could find nothing.

  Gandalf brusquely moved on, as if Orcs were not even worth further mention. Yet - it was the absence of meaning that let her carry on. She had all the room in her imagination to make up whatever she wanted about Orcs, and she mostly filled it in with her own understanding of her people. Perhaps, later in the story, she would find a good Orc character? Just one representation of the diversity of what people could be, what these fictional Orc people could be. That would be all she needed, and she was sure she would find that person somewhere in this big, thick tome.

  It was just enough that she could imagine herself in the story. There were Orcs in this book. With the ability to relate, she could now really let herself be transported to this other universe.

  Now she was on the story of Smeagol, and his transformation into Gollum.

  Because of the nazge.

  The One Ring.

  She was now planted by the fire, entranced, her nervous energy settling as she put all her effort into reading. The mention of Orc kept her unable to tear herself away, rapt.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Of course, the story had to start on Smeagol’s birth-rote, just like it started on Bilbo’s Birth-rote. What was up with this book and birth-rotes? Anyway-

  -What the hell, Smeagol, why’d sha do that? Why’d sha kill Deagol? He gave you a present already, buddy! She could remember with her comparison of the Ring’s powers and orcan transmogrification of camouflaged skin that it made the wearer invisible. That would have been in handy earlier for her, wouldn’t it. So, she understood Smeagol’s snooping and spying. Naturally curious, Githarie snooped herself too - she had spied on Zhak! She loved secrets. The thought of her brother finally letting loose and expressing his sexuality gave her great joy, and that lift of her spirits made her read faster.

  She felt a little bad for nakaz Gollum. Loneliness was something that she knew too well after the last few hours. But she also knew why Gollum’s village had to banish him. He was being a dick. She blew a lip trill. She certainly knew quite a few dicks herself. She wondered if it would be better to just run away from Rothera, go nomad, and go to a completely new village, setting up a brand new life for her there. But the thought of Da came back immediately and she banished the plot.

  This was home. This was where she belonged.

  She really disliked Frodo now – couldn't believe that Gollum was related to his kind. He found it abominable. Abominable? She only briefly thought about herself as exactly that- an abomination, a mutated monster, something that shouldn’t have existed and outside of nature. But the thought hurt her too much, and she had felt too much hurt already to take more. Go skai sha self, nakaz hobbit, I wouldn’t want to be related to you either.

  The way she saw it, it wasn’t really Gollum’s fault, was it? The Ring did it. It was the Ring that made Gollum evil. Gollum didn’t have any choice in the matter, right? Just like the berserker rage – atul gets off whatever collateral damage happens when you’re fighting for survival – you’re not held accountable.

  Frodo felt that the ring would have preferred to seek an orc instead of a halfling. Hah! She knew it! Orcs were gof in Middle Earth. She forgave Frodo immediately for being mean to Gollum. Now this halfling knows his shit! She didn’t notice, but she had broken out into a wide grin, her eyes transfixed.

  She grabbed her own nazge when she read that Gollum called the Ring his ‘precious’ and his ‘birthday-present’. She was relieved that the heft of coin was still there in all the climbing and running and dancing.

  And then Gandalf bullied Gollum.

  She was taken aback. It wasn’t clear whether Gandalf actually hurt Gollum, he used fire, to make him afraid.

  The awe that she had for the wizard gave way to slight unease. She had thought Gandalf was the ghash cool protagonist, but now – she figured he must have been like a Godlike Being, same size and weight – he had picked on someone smaller than him. It was orcan culture to ‘pick on someone sha own size’, since any orcan could transmogrify to whatever size they really wished to be, it was an edict that was generally followed. Any time it wasn’t, the olog would be labeled a bully and the others would gang up on him. Such was the orcan way. Githarie had seen it too many times to doubt, it was basically universal to orcans, this whole dynamic. It was why no one ever picked on Githarie. Anyway. If Gollum was a halfing-like creature, and halflings were- she tried to to remember- two meters tall? Sheesh. Here was Gandalf picking on someone less than half his size!

  If the Ring was really that important, maybe he just needed to do what had to be done, she justified. She kept reading.

  She got a little frustrated with the slow pace now, and that was bringing her anxiety back. She noted that Gollum was afraid of orcs, and she thought- as well he should. We’re gof. She thought that the poor creature must truly be afflicted with some malignant curse to be afraid and hate the sun – orcans loved the sun, they got free lunch from the sun – and more and more she was convinced it was the Ring that was evil, and not Gollum. He didn’t fear the sun before he wore it, right? Before it wore him.

  She made herself a mental note of the plot – bring the Ring to Mount Doom in the Land of Mordor, got it – Leeroy, fools. She was ready for an epic of action, adventure, and plenty of violence, as orcans do. She was ready to be entertained. Gandalf was a long-winded speaker, wasn’t he?

  She paused a second on the words-

  Mercy: not to strike without need.

  -And then kept reading.

  Then Frodo said something she could not forgive.

  He said that Gollum was no better than orcs. She frowned.

  And an orc was just an enemy. Her eyes narrowed.

  Gollum, like orcs, deserved death. The frown now bared her teeth and tusks, into a snarl.

  Well, fuck you too, Frodo! She wanted to spit but her mouth was dry, she wanted to yell at the book but didn’t want to attract attention lest orcboi find her. But Gandalf calmed her down, though she was a little ticked he did agree with Frodo:

  Could you give death to those who lived, but deserved to die? Could you give life to those died, but deserved to live?

  If she could give life she would. She thought about Uncle Ghorto – how happy that would make her parents.

  But could she give death?

  Keep reading. Don’t think about death.

  She didn’t think that this ‘Frodo Baggins’ could resist this ring now. She felt the hobbit sure to fail in his quest- Frodo would succumb. He just wished for Gollum to die! He might succeed, for a while, holding the One Ring at bay, but she doubted he could make it to the very end. Not without help. Now she wanted to know if she was right, so she kept reading.

  She made a mental note of the plot – Ring goes into volcano in Mordor, OK got it – should be simple enough, just a long walk, how hard could it be to go There and Back again? Bilbo did it. She couldn’t remember the exact details of that part but whatever. Like Guldung said, piece of cake.

  This nakaz hai, Frodo, just make up your mind! Sha rich now, Master of Bag End.

  Impatient now, Githarie started skimming over details both unimportant and very important, skipping bits more and more. Yada yada yada. What was up with this Sam’s fetish with evil elves? What’s autumn? Does Frodo not know how to get there? There was a map – she flipped back – yes, there was a map. Towards danger but not too rashly, and not too straight? What kind of vague advice is that? Why not just leave with Gandalf? Huh. September 20th. That was yesterrote. Oh, but what does it matter anyway? Sha just sent off the movers is all, what does September 20th even matter? Buy new stuff when you get there, skai.

  It went on like this, but at least, though she wasn’t aware of it, the simple act of having to focus on reading calmed her down, slowly, little by little.

  She wished she had friends like Merry, Pippen, and Sam, who were helping Frodo out and sticking with him every step of the way. Unlike that ditcher Lawrah. Oh wait- Sam! Sha snitch! Ai-sha, Gandalf told sha not to tell anyone, including Merry and Pip- ah, they’re okay. She assumed it was because of the name, but she liked Merriweather, for not much other reason at all.

  But these dawdlers. Wasn’t it urgent to get the Ring into Mount Doom? Why did they feel the need to rest, and sleep, and nap, and sup, every time they walk just a few hours? Hurry up, lazy hobbits. Big Bad Evil Sauron’s coming. She sighed at Frodo’s gezzno Road song.

  And what was up with all the detailed descriptions of trees?

  Why are the elves walking? Shouldn’t they be riding dragons? Why is this adventure so ting ting calm and, well, boring? Irritated, her stomach began to growl on the mention of wildberry drink, and she almost got mad at Frodo for nearly getting them all caught just to steal some mushrooms from Farmer Maggot. She thought about the cursed mushrooms she herself had eaten and hoped she had retched it all out at the Ziggurat.

  But the calm of the early start was really starting to sink into Githarie’s vibrations, and her frayed mind was knitting itself back together, neuronal thread by neuronal thread.

  Groaning, and wanting almost to give up and just stare at the bonfire as they were making their way through Buck Hill and Brandy Hall, she landed on one word-

  ‘-bath!’

  The razza disappeared. The bonfire disappeared. Reath disappeared. She was there, with them, now. She lost herself.

  Pippin cried out- 'A bath!' He blessed Merry.

  Githarie gave Pippin a hug. ‘O magosh, Merry, indeed!’

  Frodo asked what order they should go in.

  Githarie jumped into the tub first, before any of them could say anything.

  In Thraxes lilt she started singing Bilbo’s Bath Song out loud as she imagined herself back in the hot tub on the Defiant, but in her own words, the song made a little simpler., and a little bit more orcish.

  “Hey! For the bath at close of late, that washes weary mud away!

  A glob is he that will not sing: Oh! Water Hot is a noble thing!”

  How dearly she wished she could take a bath right now! Back in the Defiant all they had was cold water- she wouldn’t say shower; it was more like a large faucet – it was just a pipe-out – a thick stream of cold Orcan saltwater would hit you in the face like a hose. She should have taken a hot shower in Lawrah’s ensuite bathroom when they were getting ready, she had only rinsed her face and arms in the sink for her makeup, and even then, the warm water was soothing. But she was just too excited to go to the razza.

  She thought back to the hot tub. Time machine, please take me back there! But there was no time machine. Time could only be rewound in the mind, and not in reality. She couldn’t just teleport right back to Chief Raigo’s junk. Even if she did – she thought about it, what did that entail? A sudden repositioning in space. Would her original body be destroyed as a new one appeared wherever she was jumping to? Even if that body had precisely the same memories- would that body still be her anymore? It was a bizarre thought.

  She finally began to genuinely feel connected to these halflings. Though at first, she was judgmental of how sloven they were, she came to understand the reason why they were so hesitant to leave the Shire. Why they spent so much time shooting the breeze, spilling the tea, chitting the chat, and talking shit with all the characters in the book: Gandalf, the Gaffer, Fredegar Bolger, Folco Boffin, Gildor the Elf, Farmer Maggot, Fatty Bolger, and even Lobelia and Lotho Sacksville-Baggins.

  It was because the Shire was their home.

  The Shire was where they belonged.

  Her hammerspace.

  Shoryuken

  It ain’t right: parasites, triggers, and fleas crawlin’.

  Scryer, you may notice orcboi has naught one line of description of his appearance, his age, his name, his countenance, his predilections, his hopes or dreams or needs or wants, well- it’s clear what he wants. He doesn’t need it. He doesn’t deserve it. We spirits figured it wasn’t worth it to describe him. We certainly didn’t care about him. Maybe best to imagine someone hated when orcboi get rek tang tang.

  Do put a feather here, we’ll come back real soon.

  Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up again.

  It reminded them of barbeques or hookahs.

  It would remain. Trauma, carried in the body.

  Her mind reflexively bounced back to her waiting for Lawrah to get dressed.

  For it was not an internal mental illness that was tearing Githarie’s mind asunder, but the external force of a potent psychedelic. And thus, it fit the definition of psionic fraying.

  This is exactly what the Horde Master was afraid of, and why the book was in the forbidden section of the library.

  She skimmed about, flipping through pages and keeping her place, she left off marked with a finger wedged in. But nothing.

  …plus the pinch of meth.

  But there would be one secret she would learn that she couldn’t bear to know.

  She wondered what happened to Gollum’s grand mum, the matriarch. Why didn’t she make things right for Gollum and the rest of his family? Couldn’t she just tell Gollum what’s what?

  But, cah’mon, subtext, we should all know what that meant, right?

  She briefly wondered what happened to orcboi after Undercut and Ponytail got on him.

  Is there really no such thing?

  Let’s fly!

  Are you not entertained?

  But one does not simply just walk into Mordor.

  Like, perhaps, a giant dragon, and a war – her own people participating – of five armies.

  Make your gardener do it, if sha can’t.

  She completely missed that the Black Riders might be more nefarious than she assumed, for example. She also skipped Bilbo’s Bed song, and A Elbereth Gilthoniel.

  Since she could remember that in the old archaic way her birthday was September 21st, she could immediately note that September 20th was when it all began.

  Githarie couldn’t understand that the Hobbits were not gifted with orcan stamina, like she was.

  She would be way too young to understand the significance of the Road Song would have to her, in time.

  There’s vomit on her sweater already. Mom’s spaghetti.

  One bath per revolution? Now that is unhygienic. These hippie halflings! Oh, wait, wait, day meant rote, right, right.

  The mystical, mysterious shroominess was still feeding alien and otherworldly philosophical questions into her mind.

  Where the fuck did Gandalf go? She thought.

  She was excited when Mrs. Maggot bustled in, only to be disappointed when she just bustled back out again. Githarie wondered- where the heck are the gurls in this book?