Author's Notes:

Firstly, I would like to thank my fantastic beta Galenfea, who was kind enough to go through this and make sure it was at least legible, even if my own natural talent means that it will never actually make any real sense.

Secondly, this here story is actually a secret love child of my main writing project at the moment, 'Mostly Harmless' (which can of course be found on my main page). If 'Mostly Harmless' is a king, then 'A Salty Conundrum' is the bastard son born of the bed-pan cleaner, who the king only allows to live in case one day something should ever happen to every single one of his legal heirs. As such, this story might make (a slight amount) more sense to you with that kept in mind. You don't really NEED to have read 'Mostly Harmless' to get amusement from this piece, you need only know that I wrote this in a fit one day, because I continue to have epic problems with 'Mostly Harmless' and this became my way of working through those issues in 'Mostly Harmless'. 'Mostly Harmless' (that's my other story, guys).

So I'm not just plugging my story 'Mostly Harmless' here (not that I have a problem with that, obviously). This is information that might help you with the reading of this story. :D

Probably, you can look forward to another chapter here the very next time I get a mental block on my ACTUAL story ('Mostly Harmless') (which you should read and review).

Now that we've got that out in the clear...

Chapter 1 - "The Conundrum"

She lay sprawled across her bed, dangling face-first off the edge, brow scrunched in concentration while her fingers tapped rapidly against the scratched silver laptop angled beneath her. Bumps and crashes and shouts and noise wafted up the stairs as the rest of the household tramped along on its daily, obnoxious business, and though most people would find themselves entirely distracted by the violent din that engulfed the majority of this home, she considered this a quiet afternoon, and continued with her typing utterly unfazed.

Her knees bent up behind her, fluffy bunny slippers waving gently in the air as she blew at a mass of dark curls dangling before her eyes, and paused. One finger tapped contemplatively against the faded 'J' key for a while, and then she sighed rather dramatically and flopped in defeat, her elbows jutting out on either side of her head as her shoulders sagged closer to the cream carpet beneath her.

Something was just not right with what she was typing.

"Saltwater!" came the faint cry from the kitchen, barely making it to her ears through all the other household noises. "Salty, dinner'll be ready in a minute!"

She huffed irritably, disturbing a few of the messy strands curled on the carpet by her chin, and yelled back half-heartedly, "I'm busy!"

"What?" came the reply, followed by a loud clatter and a high pitched squeal of pain.

"I'm not hungry!"

"…I said dinner'll be ready!"

With a mutter under her breath that even she didn't understand, Saltwater started typing once more, feet swinging more violently in the air and causing the loose mass of dark brown curls falling over the front of her face to spring slightly.

The most frustrating thing, the most frustrating thing, was when the story she was attempting to create stopped writing itself onto the page. Because then she was forced to think about what she was doing, and thinking was a dangerous pastime, often leading to overanalysing and over-description and a lot of angry frustration.

With a twitch of one chocolate coloured eye, the sound of clicking hesitantly slowed once more, and a rather awkward and pathetic attempt at a growl filled the room in its place.

"Curses…" she muttered under her breath, glaring heartily at the keyboard because lifting her head high enough to glare at the screen hurt too much. How on earth was she supposed to get her story done, when it wouldn't let her?

With an unintelligible sound of Ultimate Wrath, she rolled onto her back and reached for her bottle of water, hoping that somehow, downing a healthy dose of H20 would magically resolve all her problems.

However a gymnast she was not, and since she had been in a rather unconventional position to begin with, it's no far stretch of the imagination to picture her manoeuvre failing miserably, and ending with her slipping off the bed, pulling her quilt cover down with her and tipping the entire contents of her hugely unorganised night-stand onto her head.

Thankfully, she was not hurt. Unless you counted her concussion, and the subsequent hallucinations that followed.

.~.~.~.

With a groan, her brows furrowed together and she registered pain.

"But where did she come from?"

Someone was whispering beside her, though she couldn't concentrate enough to form coherent thoughts, let alone decide if the whispering was a good or bad thing. Her fingers curled involuntarily by her side, and she gasped slightly as her body began paying attention to where it was.

Pain and cold cold cold.

She shifted, which caused more pain and made her realise that the cold icy cold seemed to be coming straight off the ground. Icy cold and… crunchy?

"How long do you think she's been here?"

Pain and cold and ice and someone was prodding her. There were definitely prodding fingers involved.

She groaned again and batted at the hand, cracking open an eye to the hazy view of nine male faces leaning over her.

Her eye slipped shut again, and then after a moment, both eyes snapped open and stared in shock.

There was a pause as everyone involved assessed each other.

Then, Saltwater said "Aaargh!" in a very loud voice, and scrambled away from everyone, bolting upright in the process.

"What… you… who are you? Kidnappers! Psychopaths! What have you done to me?" Her sharp voice did not lessen in volume, much to the irritation of present company, and she pointed an accusing finger at them all.

"What did she just call us?" a midget enquired politely, staring questioningly up at an old man wrapped entirely in grey by his side.

"Where have you brought me, you freaks?" Saltwater demanded, glancing at the mountain peaks surrounding her with angry suspicion.

"Here now, we're not –"

"Freaks, freaks, freaks!" she shrieked, messy curls quivering with her rage as she stomped a bunny-clad foot. "All of you, all of you! Take me back home right now!"

"Take you back? Are you somehow implying it was us who brought you here?" A burly man clad in greens and browns huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and causing his great, football-sized muscles to ripple.

"Yes, captain stupid-head. Thank you for that, I'm glad you've decided to join the class."

"Captain – excuse me?"

One of the bigger midgets sniggered, his wiry black beard shuffling around as he fought to contain a smile.

"Now see here, girl," the affronted man snapped, "A captain I may be, but I am not –"

"Well that's what you get for violating my rights as a semi-dependent working student in a modern day society –"

"Violating what –"

"Kidnapper!"

"Ah, not that it is my intention to get involved," came a cautious interruption from the side, distracting Saltwater from her current prey.

'Too late,' her dark eyes seemed to say, as they snapped across to the tall, lithe figure who had spoken.

"But," the pale figure continued, unfazed. "It's only, your voice…" His blue eyes met calmly with her own fiery gaze, and he tilted his head to the side. "Well it's rather shrill, is it not? And my hearing is quite…" He shrugged with a pretty smile, and gestured at his delicately pointed ears.

Saltwater's mouth dropped open.

"I'll give you 'shrill' in a minute!" she shrilled, her voice cruelly raising a pitch or two higher as she unconsciously advanced towards the group, anger colouring her cheeks. "Don't you get me started, blondie! Just because you're skinny doesn't mean I won't hit you. And another thing –"

"Excuse me," came a rather reasonable voice from the back of the bunch. "Might we move past all this obligatory yelling and get straight to business? I've had a long day."

Saltwater blinked at the dark figure who had stepped out from the group and taken over the situation.

"But," she said.

"No," the figure enforced quite firmly, lifting a finger in a clear signal for her to shh. "I can see that you rather enjoy feeling wronged, as it gives you the perfect excuse to argue and fight, but really. You know who we are, don't you?"

"Well… yes," she admitted, her shoulders sagging as her arms relaxed out of their passionate gestures.

"And if you look around properly, you can place where we are, too."

"Yeah," she grumbled, dropping her eyes to the snow-covered floor.

"And when you put all of this together and think for a moment, just think, does it make any sense at all that we are the reason for your appearance here?"

"No, sir," she muttered glumly, scuffing a fluffy toe into the snow.

"Thank you," Aragorn sighed, relief washing over his features. In fact, everyone in the fellowship seemed suddenly awash with pure, unadulterated gratefulness at the promise of no more yelling from the short girl.

She noticed this, of course, and her face scrunched up. "Hey…"

"Ah-ah!" Aragorn lifted his finger once more, and Saltwater closed her mouth with a pout.

"Now, let's get to why you are here."

"And why, by all things green and growing, you're naked!" one of the midgets – well, Sam said, both his hands firmly covering his eyes.

Saltwater realised that he had been standing that way the entire time, and turned her gaze down to her white tank top, and blue-and-white striped shorts. And white, fluffy bunny slippers.

"Um, I'm not naked," she stated.

"You're darned naked enough!" he snapped, and then his cheeks turned a bright, crimson red beneath his palms. "Oh pardon me, pardon me, I know it ain't right to talk as such in front of a lady, even a naked one, it just ain't…"

Frodo patted Sam's arm consolingly.

"Now, let's get to why you are here." Aragorn repeated after a pause, and everyone's gaze (excluding Sam's) swivelled towards Saltwater once more.

"Uh," she hesitated, staring around at everyone in return. "Well. Is anyone here inexplicably in love with me?"

If crickets could have survived in such a climate, they would have legged it to the scene and started chirping right then.

"Er, no," Frodo ventured, just to make it clear.

"Damn it." Saltwater sighed and ran a hand through her hair, making it puff out a little around her. "Well, in that case I dunno."

She looked around for a nice dry place to sit, discovered there was a rock immediately behind her, and plonked on it.

After a moment the rest of the group decided this was a good idea, and went about finding dry places to seat themselves on too.

"Could your presence here have anything to do with them?" Boromir said as he threw his shield directly onto the snow, and sat on it. He pointed off to where two women stood frozen as statues, gestures and expressions caught in motion as the sun glistened off their perfect skin. "Because you have to admit, they're rather odd."

"Ah!" Saltwater exclaimed, standing abruptly from her seat only to have it immediately re-claimed by Merry and Pippin.

She took a step towards the statues, not even noticing the thieving hobbits. One of the girls was frozen mid-step, blonde hair and frosty-blue dress fixed in a dramatic swirl behind her as she gazed mysteriously into the distance, face tilted defiantly and a fierce power blazing in her blue eyes. The other sat on a low jut of stone behind her, caught in the shadow of the blonde one, her perfect black ringlets framing her face delicately as she sat with her chin in her hand, gazing adoringly up at her companion.

"Ah!" Saltwater exclaimed once more. "Ah! Ah! My Sues, they're my Sues!" She grinned as she walked towards them, and began circling the figures. "What are you doing here, my pretties?"

"I suppose it would be too much to ask you what 'Sues' are, why they are here, and how you came to own them?" Gandalf asked with a grunt as he slowly manoeuvred himself into a chair, one hand pressed against his back.

"Just as I suppose it would be too much to ask a wizard to do anything useful for anyone else around him," Aragorn snapped, glaring at Gandalf's well-cushioned seat while trying to scrape snow off a small patch of dirt with his sword. The wizard simply ignored him, and settled back with a sigh.

"I made them," Saltwater answered the first supposition, not really caring about Aragorn and his poor, tired legs. "Sues are… well for me anyway, they are a literary device, and a plot device. They are perfection personified and thus make for terrible characters, and I, being the genius that I am, have let them loose on the fellowship."

"On us?" Legolas stood with his arms clasped behind his back, and an expression of deep betrayal in his big, blue eyes. "But, why?"

Saltwater didn't look up from where she was joyfully caressing the seated Sue's face. "Because everyone else was doing it and I wanted to be cool. To see what would happen. For the thrill of making bad writing good. Because the voices in my head kept saying it was a terrible idea."

"Alright," Frodo said, carefully directing Sam to an overturned pan before plucking himself on a nice large pot. "But what about –"

"To hook in more reviews."

"Yes –"

"Because Jesus told me to."

Frodo placed his hands in his lap and stared at Saltwater mildly, his eyebrows raised. She smiled sweetly at him.

"…What about that one?" he asked after an uninterrupted pause, and then nodded to the left of the Sues. "Is she another Sue, then?"

Saltwater's head snapped around in excitement. "Omigod, Millie?" she squealed, much to the discomfort of everyone present. She bolted towards a third figure, who stood a few paces back from the other two girls, facing them with her arms crossed tightly over her motionless chest. Messy, caramel-brown strands of hair fell into her glowering brown eyes, and a short-sword and dagger lay discarded at her feet.

"A Sue!" Saltwater scoffed as she reached her third creation. "A Sue? This one? You don't think she's a…" She whirled around with a pleading look in her eyes, hair twirling dramatically about her as she stared beseechingly at the group of men, who all stared back at her as if they didn't care (except for Sam).

"…Eh, probably," she answered Frodo's question, as her dark hair flopped messily back into her face. She turned once more to the sour looking statue. "I mean hopefully not, you know. I'm obviously trying really hard to make sure she isn't, but in all honesty it's a fine, fine line."

After a moment, she sighed and wrapped her arms tightly around the angry statue, a blissful smile on her face as she lay her head against Millie's shoulder.

"Now. Let's get to why you are here." Aragorn reiterated for the third time, throwing his sword down with disgust and crossing his own arms. Then a rather terrified look passed over his features, and he fell to the ground after his weapon, lifting it gingerly off the snow and placing a reverent kiss on its hilt.

Saltwater nuzzled against her OC. "Well, now that I think about it, it's probably got something to do with the trouble I'm having with my story."

"The story in which you've exposed us to the Sue's?" Legolas asked, his voice soft and deceptively calm, as he made a slight gesture towards the two perky statues.

"Yep," Saltwater chirpily confirmed.

"The story in which you've left us, helpless and in the dark, to defend ourselves against them?"

"That's the one."

"The story in which –"

"Yeah, I'm really struggling with it, and I hardly even know why. You guys are probably supposed to help me work through my problems, or something."

Saltwater was too wrapped up in her OC to notice as Legolas's eyes narrow into two, dangerous slits.

"You want us," Legolas said, his voice dipping icily as his hands fluttered to his sides. "To help you continue prolonging our torture with this story. Is that correct?"

The atmosphere suddenly chilled, and most of the fellowship drew nervously away from Legolas. Saltwater, however, remained painfully oblivious, and began to arrange Millie's hair.

"You're a doll, Leggy!"

The elf's fingers twitched, but before anything else could happen, Frodo stood up with a clatter.

"Oh, you know, you know what I was wondering?" he cried, laying a placating hand on Legolas's arm and staring up at him with the biggest, most hobbity eyes he could make.

"Yeah whassup, Frodo-B?" Saltwater walked in front of the statue, her back now to the group.

"Uh," the hobbit wavered and glanced to his left, where Gandalf was leaning forward on his chair, staring raptly between Saltwater and Legolas with a look of glee on his wizened face.

"Merry and Pippin!" Frodo exclaimed with a little too much enthusiasm. "Yes! Yes, why haven't they spoken a word to us since we left Rivendell?"

Saltwater bent over, her stripy ass up in the air as she began fumbling with Millie's weapons on the ground. "Oh, prolly because in my story, at this point they're no longer with you. In the fellowship. Joining you on your quest."

A hiss escaped from Legolas's lips, and though he had no weapon on hand, everyone, even Sam, was becoming increasingly afraid for Saltwater's life (except for Gandalf). The elf tensed, and shifted his weight forward.

"Uh, uh," Frodo stuttered, his eyes darting around, looking for some sort of distraction. Boromir was leaning forward with a look torn between terror and curiosity, Aragorn was leaning back and staring wide eyed at Saltwater's wriggling ass. Sam was shaking and muttering "What's going on, what's going on?" from underneath his palms, Merry and Pippin were sharing an apple on their stolen seat, and Gimli was shuffling around looking for his pipe.

"Gimli!" Frodo shouted, and the dwarf started and dropped an axe. "Why is it that Gimli doesn't talk either?"

Everyone paused, wondering what would happen next. Saltwater stood slowly.

She turned around with a sheepish expression on her face, and rubbed her arm. "Oh, um, Gimli? Well… okay. Uh, okay, let's see…"

Suddenly and quite inexplicably, Gimli's wiry black hair flashed to a bright, fiery red, and before the horror could properly settle into the dwarf's eyes, he opened his mouth.

"Ocht!" he bellowed at the top of his obnoxious lungs. "Wha' a wee li'l lassie, d'yoo happen ta have any haggas? OCHT! Me stomach's a-rumblin'!"

The silence that followed was so deafening, so all consuming, that Caradhras itself thought for a moment that it had died.

Slowly, Gimli's beard faded back to black, and he made a desperate little choking noise at the back of his throat.

Then Legolas burst into hysterical laughter.

"I, uh… I can't…" Saltwater rubbed at the back of her neck, her cheeks as red as Gimli's hair had been. "I can't do him… very well."

"Very well!" Legolas choked, tears welling in his eyes as he doubled over, resting his hands against his knees.

Saltwater looked mortified. Legolas looked like he couldn't now kill a puppy to save his own life. Gandalf looked pretty disappointed.

Frodo sat himself back on his pot heavily.

"It's alright, Sam," he murmured reassuringly, rubbing circles over his friend's back. "It's all over. You can look now."

Sam hesitantly peaked out from behind his fingers, and flinched. "Still naked!" he squeaked, and shoved his hands back over his eyes.

"Oh, right," Frodo muttered.

Legolas began gasping for air, his cheeks turning faintly pink.

"What… what… is… haggas?" he managed to wheeze out, one hand coming up to cover his eyes as a snort escaped his lips.

"It… It's Scottish, okay! I can't help it! Everywhere I look, everyone writes Gimli with this ridiculous brogue!" Saltwater looked quite distressed at this point, her fingers wringing in front of her as she stared around. "I mean all he does is eat meat ripe off the bone, or talk about eating meat ripe off the bone; and then he just stumps around trying to defeat everything and laughing inappropriately and being on the Sue's side to prove that she's not a Sue, and, and… and I can't do it! I can't!" There was a telltale glisten to her eyes.

Legolas tried to stand up straight again. His laughter was beginning to fade, though he was still giggling quite uncontrollably, and he waved Saltwater over. She sniffled, and hesitantly moved forward.

Behind her, Aragorn snuck towards the dark haired Sue.

"I'm trying so hard…" she whimpered as she shuffled across the snow, her bunny slippers quite wet and dejected looking by now.

Legolas tried valiantly to control his wheezing, and put a hand on Saltwater's back, drawing her consolingly to his side.

"It… will be alright…" he huffed, wiping at his eyes with his free hand.

"No, it wont," she moaned pathetically. "I can't do it, I can't! I hate this all, stupid Gimli!"

Sauron's flaming eye itself could not have mustered a glare as deadly as the one Gimli threw at Saltwater in that moment. His mouth, however, remained firmly shut.

"Oh, I don't really mean it," she sighed at the dwarf, hoping not to get on the wrong side of him and have him somehow deliberately sabotage any of her future attempts at writing. "It's the whole damned story I'm having issues with, I just don't know…"

There was a muffled thump behind them, as Aragorn kicked the dark Sue into the snow and began shuffling her off with his foot.

"How, might I ask, did you get to that ridiculous point with the son of Gloin to begin with?" Gandalf asked, propping his staff on the ground beside his chair and leaning his shoulder against it.

"I dunno!" Saltwater wailed, ignoring Legolas's wince from beside her. "The movies made it… stick in my head! John Rhys-Davis managed it so convincingly, and then everyone else just does it and, and…"

"Peace, child!" Gandalf stomped his staff against the ground with a glare. "Legolas is right, your voice has such a whine to it!"

"Please, naked lady, what do you keep referring back to all them other writers for?" Sam asked the space of air far to the right of Saltwater. Frodo gently turned his chin in the right direction.

"Sam is right, you know," Aragorn put in, leaning smugly back on his new rocky seat and resting a foot against the downed figure of the dark haired Sue. "This is your story, not theirs. What in Middle Earth do they have to do with it?"

Saltwater opened, and then closed her mouth with a frown.

"Look around you," Legolas said seriously, only a faint warble in his voice to indicate the struggle he fought to keep from further giggling. "Take in the essence of this place, the soul of the landscape. Embrace it. Live it."

"Look inside your heart," Frodo added, as faint, inspirational music could be heard taking up in the background. "What does it tell you? Trust your heart, Saltwater. Follow it."

"But," Saltwater wavered, staring around at everyone's suddenly earnest faces. "But my heart turned Gimli into Groundskeeper Willie!"

"Yes, well… follow the creator's heart, then," Boromir said, encouraging the music to pick up again where it had faltered at her proclamation. "Go back to the source and follow the guidelines it sets out, you'll soon learn. Go back to the book…"

Back to the book…

Back to the book…

.~.~.~.

Her eyes snapped open, and after a painful and disorienting moment, she pushed her wooden side-table off her neck.

Huh, she thought, as she remained in the awkward position she lay in, her quilt wrapped restrictively around her legs. It was all just a dream… Just a dream…

She ignored the violent throbbing at the back of her head, and concentrated instead on regaining the feeling in her lower body.

She wriggled her toes inside sodden bunny slippers, and thought for a moment.

And then she noticed something almost directly in her line of sight. A very thick book sat innocently propped in an exact and rather unlikely way, so that she could perfectly read the title; 'The Lord of the Rings'.

…Huh.