Disclaimer: I don't own it. Not even the ferret, which belongs to SkyFire and her plotbunnies. Lotr is Tolkein's.
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Author's Note: Thanks to SkyFire's plotbunny generator, which gave me the plotbunny for this. And Young Padfoot, who is rather like Gandalf in this story. Lastly, please review! It's really not that hard to click that little box and type a short message.
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The Voices
"You know of whom we speak," they said. And, unfortunately, Gandalf did. The subject of the discussion was a rather foul-tempered ferret. The last time Gandalf had seen this particular creature was a few months ago, when the rodent had had an obsession with playing checkers near the Paths of the Dead. The ferret was old news, though. The voices, however, were quite new.
"We are a part of you; we are not new." In fact, this funny little voice inside his head had started around lunchtime. Oh no, he thought, it isn't... Unfortunately, it was. You see, Gandalf had eaten lunch with Glorfindel, which was beginning to be quite dangerous. And now, Gandalf had voices in his head.
"Where else would you expect us to be?" they asked. "I don't care, as long as you get out of here!" Gandalf shouted. More than a few heads turned at this. However, the Elves of Rivendell were quite used to strange occurrences, as Glorfindel lived here. They quickly returned to their own business upon seeing that Gandalf was the cause of the disturbance. Things like this could be considered normal for a wizard.
"The ferret must not continue thus!" Gandalf started to growl at the voices, but then realized where he was and quietly whispered, "I don't care about the ferret! Now leave me alone!" Due to their excellent Elven hearing, half the people in the corridor heard him anyway. They politely ignored him.
"This ferret will be either the salvation or the damnation of all Middle Earth!" Gandalf forced back a laugh when he noticed that everyone was very politely not looking at him. He said "Salvation OR damnation? Pretty big difference there, isn't it? But no, I'm not going to kill him or some such." It was at this point that people started edging away from the wizard. Even in Rivendell, some things were just plain scary. Loony wizards talking to something no one else could see about topics such as killing and damnation certainly fell into that category.
"You should. It is the right thing to do." By this point Gandalf was quite annoyed. Completely forgetting that the hallway was full of other people who were used to sane wizards, he angrily shouted, "WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW? IF THAT BLASTED THING IS MIDDLE EARTH'S SALVATION, WOULDN'T KILLING HIM BE A BIT DETRIMENTAL TO THE CAUSE? NOW, LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!"
All the people in the corridor (who, by now, weren't even pretending to do anything but openly stare) scattered, tripping over each other in their haste to get away from Gandalf. There were even a few assorted screams. This seemed to make Gandalf realize that he'd been talking aloud. Or, rather, screaming. A few seconds later and everyone was out of sight. Gandalf sighed.
"You can't be all alone. We are part of you. And if the Paths of the Dead are thus obstructed, aid may arrive too late, or even not at all, when it is needed most." Gandalf was now rather upset with himself, the voices, and the world in general, so he didn't hear Elrond come up behind him and ask, "Are you all right, Gandalf?"
Gandalf replied to the voices in his head, not Elrond, using the soft, dangerous, don't-mess-with-me tone of voice, "I'll tell you what you can do with that ferret. You can shove it up your..." It was at this point that Gandalf realized that Elrond was standing behind him. A dead giveaway would have been the sound of the Elven-lord's jaw hitting the floor. The wizard gave Elrond time to pick up his jaw. Gandalf then attempted to explain the situation to Elrond. "Sorry, I wasn't talking to you."
"If you had stopped arguing with us, then none of this would have happened. Now, about how to dispose of the ferret..." At the same time, Elrond said a bit testily, "Then would you mind explaining exactly who you were speaking to?" Gandalf, of course, didn't really here Elrond and replied instead to the voices. "Would you stop it!?! You're going to ruin what little reputation I have left!"
"Oh, really," Elrond said icily. "I think you have taken care of that on your own." Gandalf looked confused for a moment before he realized that Elrond had thought the wizard was talking to him. Judging from the look on the Elf-lord's face, Gandalf would have been a real idiot not to figure things out fast. He wasn't stupid, only insane. Gandalf glared back and said, "Not you, them." Elrond lifted an eyebrow and asked, "And who would 'them' be?" The voices chose that moment to say, "The ferret! Something must be done about the ferret!"
"SHUT UP ABOUT THE BLASTED FERRET!!!!!" Gandalf shouted at the top of his lungs. Then, looking at Elrond, he started to explain, "Not you..." He was cut off by Elrond saying, "I know. Not me, 'them'. However, you have yet to explain this 'them'." Gandalf nodded. "They're just the voices in my head."
After this exchange, the voices seemed to have a disagreement. "The ferret may be the one thing keeping the Paths of the Dead clear! To destroy him is madness!"
Some other identity currently residing in Gandalf's head seemed to disagree. "What if it is only Isildur's Heir that the ferret delays? Such a thing could bring all to ruin! Besides, with his stench and temperment, he fits right in with Sauron's Orcs!"
"It would not bring all to ruin, only the White City at most. And such an action might convince the Valar to aid Middle Earth once more!"
"The Valar will not aid us! Why would they defeat for us an enemy that exists because of our own folly? No, it is up to the people of Middle Earth to save Middle Earth. And if the delay causes the White City to fall, then Gondor will fall with it. And after Gondor, Rohan. And then Mirkwood. Then where will we look for aid?"
"The ferret will not challenge Isildur's Heir so late in the conflict! He has not the courage, not when the Army of the Dead follows behind!"
During the time this argument was distracting Gandalf, Elrond said (using the special voiced reserved for senile old wizards), "Gandalf, I think you might be schizophrenic. But I need you to come with me for a while, before you hurt yourself or someone else. Now let me see that marvelous staff of yours..." Before Gandalf knew it, he was tied down to a bed in a plain, boring room with no windows. He also seemed to be missing his staff.
It was at this point that the voices reached the end of their argument. Since Gandalf was still busy being distressed by his situation, it took some work for the voices to get the old wizard's attention. They then stated, "The best course of action regarding this bad-tempered ferret is to do nothing. We apologize for any problems we may have caused you. Good-bye."
That said, they were silent. It was the first time since lunch. Not believing that they were really gone, Gandalf angrily shouted, "Oh, sure! You show up, completely ruin my life and my reputation because of that blasted ferret and now you decide that the best thing to do is nothing! Couldn't you have figured that out before you barged in here?" He was greeted only by silence and the somewhat comforting feeling of being the only occupant of his head.
Well, that and the sound of a throat clearing. Gandalf looked around for the source of the sound and found Elrond. Having determined that he was the only occupant of his head, Gandalf smiled and said, "Oh, Elrond. I'm glad you're here. You can let me out now. I'm fine. They left." Elrond simply stared at the wizard for a moment, then said, rather politely, "Then perhaps you could explain to me exactly what's going on." After a short pause, he sarcastically added, "That is, if it's not some top secret operation set up to rescue the world from invisible squirrels." Gandalf blushed at the mention of the reason for his last visit to this room.
The wizard managed a feeble laugh at the sarcasm, then said, quite seriously, "Oh no, nothing of the sort. There were just a pair of voices in my head trying to resolve the issue of what to do about that foul-tempered ferret that likes playing checkers near the Paths of the Dead." The ancient wizards smiled disarmingly. Or, at least, he tried to, and finished with, "Don't worry, they're gone now."
Elrond gently replied, "You know, Gandalf, you really should take vacations once in a while. I hate having to deal with you after you take a mental vacation. But don't worry, compared to last time, we'll have you fixed up and out of here in no time at all."
The assistants who were to take care of all the day-to-day tasks groaned and began to put on as much armor and padding as possible.
THE END
A/N: I didn't mean for that to get as complicated as it did with the argument, but the voices insisted. The original plotbunny from SkyFire's generator was "Gandalf talks to voices in his head about a foul-tempered ferret that likes playing checkers near the Paths of the Dead."
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