Written because the world simply wouldn't be right without grumpy Rangers.

Prompt 47: Storm
Ficlet: It Can’t Get Any Worse
Rating: PG
The Middle of Nowhere, Late Third Age

He wasn’t lost. He knew exactly which direction he was headed; that was certainly easy enough to figure out. At least he knew he was heading northeast before the heavy cloud-cover completely overtook the sky a couple hours ago. The fact that he now had to use other methods to figure out which way was north was no problem. No, the problem lay with the cloud cover.

Simply put, the Dúnadan was not ready for the threatening, dark grey clouds that were above him. Last week he would have been completely ready- but last week he had all of his gear. Unfortunately for him, a small group of wandering orcs had found his campsite a couple of days ago in the dead of night. He had quickly awoken and fled the moment he heard their presence, but did not have enough time to gather much. The Ranger had quickly climbed a tree on the border of his camp, and once he saw their numbers, knew that he would not be able to retrieve his things without facing a rather meaningless death. With that realization, he had quickly used the dense trees and their overlaying branches as a makeshift path through the forest and away from the orcs.

Aragorn let out a small sigh of regret as the first drops started falling. He pulled up his hood and continued on, looking for some sort of suitable shelter from the rain. However, while the trees had been dense a couple days ago, they were hardly an adequate cover now. Nature happily reminded him of this fact as the rain turned from a drizzle into a downpour. Within minutes he was soaked.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a storm with absolutely no supplies was not the way he preferred to travel. ‘It cannot get any worse than this,’ he thought darkly. Nature, once again, happily reminded him that things can always get worse.

No one could say for sure what made a rather large branch break from the tree and hit his back. One can say with all certainty, however, that the branch was large enough to knock him into the ground, which at this point of time was a large mud puddle. While he was not seriously injured, his back now had a rather large bruise on it, and he was now wetter and filthier than before.

The Ranger picked himself off the ground, scowling. “Wizard or not, once I see you again Gandalf, you will suffer with me to find this Gollum.” With a few muttered curses under his breath, he continued on in the rain, all the time looking for some shelter that he was sure he would not find.