A little story I started a few years ago.
Obligatory Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or locations, I just like to play with them. :)
The four young hobbits, Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam, wearily made their way toward the Shire. They were exhausted, aged, and more than a little rank, and Frodo's finger hurt in the worst way. As they traveled farther and farther away from the deathly stillness and monochromatic scenery of Mordor, the land around them began to grow green and lush again. In fact, the rocks and trees sparkled as if someone had been a bit too free with the fairy dust.
"It's nearly time for second breakfast, isn't it?" Pippin asked, his stomach growling as they entered a clearing.
"I would have to agree," Merry said. "Can't we stop to eat?"
"Can't you two think of anything but your own stomachs, what with Mister Frodo hurt and all?" Sam grumbled.
"Mister Frodo's finger doesn't need food where it's at, but my stomach does," Pippin argued, and Sam moved to hit his fellow hobbit.
Frodo held up his wounded hand to stop Sam from denting the frying pan again. "No, Sam, let us rest. I am…weary and we have…far yet to go. We may stop…for a while." He spoke as if he were breathless from pain, or at the very least doing a bad Shatner impression. He was much changed since they had left the Shire, and apart from a sudden penchant for Star Trek and bodysurfing, was very weak and strange.
Merry and Pippin thumbed their noses at Sam and they stopped to have a bite to eat, all of them glad to have more than lembas in their knapsacks. "If I never see another piece of bread again it will be too soon!" Merry exclaimed.
"What I wouldn't give for a pint as we had in The Prancing Pony," Pippin said, licking his lips most lasciviously.
"When you gave us away, you mean?" Sam sneered as he turned the sausages.
"I've never seen you turn away from a drink, Sam Gamgee," Pippin said, looking slyly at Merry. "'Specially when it's served by a certain Rosie of the Shire." The two burst into gales of girlish laughter as Sam's face and ears turned red.
"Go…find some mushrooms," Frodo said from his bed of moss, hoping to deter more physical violence. Still laughing, the two hobbits skipped away from the campsite.
"What a couple of Momma's boys," Merry said when they were out of earshot. "I swear, ever since we dumped that piece of tin into the flames they've been pretty boring."
"I know, Merry. I'm getting sick of Sam being so overprotective. It's not like we're going to have to go on another quest or something. There's usually a one quest limit on these things, 'specially when they're of this magnitude. I mean--" His speech ended when he tripped over something and fell on his face. As he sat up and looked at his hairy hobbit hooves, he spied something. "Oi! What's this?"
Merry plucked it from his toe. "Oh! It's a gummi peach ring. These are delicious!" he said, and began to pop it into his mouth despite the fact it had been snugly around Pippin's toe seconds earlier.
From out of nowhere a voice said "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Merry dropped the ring and Pippin snatched it up as they ran back toward camp.
When they arrived there was a beautiful dark-haired young woman wearing a sparkly white ball gown and cradling Sam in her arms crying, "Oh, Toby, I've found you at last!" Sam, his head between her breasts, couldn't even mumble a reply. Pippin got the feeling he really didn't want to.
"Um, Miss…Lady…that's not Toby. Not even…close," Frodo managed to say. Sam made a frantic gesture for him to shut up, but it was too late. The woman pulled him away from her chest, looking a bit confused. She backed away as if she were afraid, and Sam looked angry.
Pippin, not being one to follow the rules of decorum, held out the peach ring and said "Look what I found!" The hobbits crowded around him, then jumped as the girl screamed. They all looked at her, mouths agape, and suddenly she took on an ethereal glow.
"This ring must be destroyed," she said, her voice filled with an ominous foreboding. The hobbits looked at one another with a 'here-we-go-again' expression on their faces. "It was forged by an evil ruler to hold power over all--"
"That's original," Pippin muttered under his breath, and Merry hid a laugh behind his hand as the girl gave them a dirty look.
"He lost the ring in battle long ago, and since then it has passed from person to person, place to place, in a journey to return to its creator."
"Really lady, we've heard all this before," Merry said.
"Yes, it has quite a familiar 'ring' to it," Pippin put in, and they all began laughing again.
"Stop laughing at me! All my life everyone has laughed at me, called me a whiny brat, a baby, spoiled. It's not fair!"
"Lady, just tell us what we have to do--" Merry began.
"I'm not going on another ruddy ring quest!" Frodo yelled, sounding much like his old self. "Pick someone else, because it's not gonna be me! I'm sick of ponying my ass around all over Hell and beyond giving of myself to save mankind!" His face grew red with anger and spit flew from his mouth as he raged on.
"Last time I almost got a sword in my heart which nearly turned me into Skeletor's twin brother, my ass kicked around by a giant cave troll, led all over by some creep who constantly ate nothing but sushi and I cannot tell you how much that reeked, up into a cave where a giant spider tried to make me an entrée, where after I was trotted around carelessly by the Orc Express!
"When I finally made it to the stupid mountain, I lost a finger to fraggin' Aquaman! The only good thing to come out of this whole stupid mess was…well frankly I don't know. I'm haunted, aged beyond my years, and I'm pretty much never going to get laid, so you can bloody well see why I'm not in such a hurry to do it again!" The other hobbits stood there, mouths agape in shocked silence.
"But the reward is great," the girl said, tossing her long, dark hair and looking at him suggestively.
"I'll take it!" Sam cried.
"No, I will!" Merry and Pippin chorused, and they all jumped for the ring.
"Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck, and that Fool of a Took!" a voice thundered across the land.
"Dammit!" Pippin said as they turned to see Gandalf the White standing before them. He was wearing Bermuda shorts, a straw hat, and a shirt with brightly colored parrots on it, a margarita fishbowl in his right hand.
"Gandalf the Tan now," he joked, eliciting a chorus of groans.
"What are you doing here?" Pippin asked, still miffed over the 'Fool of a Took' remark.
"I came to save you from certain death," Gandalf said.
"The peach ring?" Sam asked.
"What peach ring?" Gandalf asked, his eyes wide and white in his tanned face. "I just meant don't eat the sausages. It seems Gimli let them sit out for a few days before packing them and he and Legolas are laid up with severe food poisoning. As small as you are I thought the bacteria might kill you. Now what's this about a peach ring? And who is this pretty young thing?" He looked at the girl and waggled his bushy eyebrows.
"Go get a wax job," she said, moving swiftly away from him.
"I found it in the woods," Pippin said.
"Then it is your responsibility," Gandalf said. "You must take it to the Bog of Eternal Stench and drop it in, destroying its peachy goodness and its master in one fell swoop."
"How hard can that be?" Pippin said, laughing. "Just point me in that direction and I'll be back before lunch."
"Do not underestimate the power of the Goblin King," the girl said. "His tights are hypnotic and he will try to mesmerize you with his balls."
"Lady, after seeing Denethor roast his own weeny nothing can scare me."
"Ah, the double entendre," Gandalf said as he threw back the rest of his margarita. "Still the most delightful of all comedy devices." He hooked his arm around the girl's waist and waved to the hobbits. "Have fun, and don't hesitate to call me if you need something. I'm taking this little tart to paradise." The wizard and his consort disappeared in a puff of strange-smelling smoke and strains of reggae music.
"Well gents, what do you say? A quick trip to the Bog of Eternal Stench and then back to the Shire?" Pippin asked, winking.
"Sure, and maybe we'll get a few postcards while we're there," Sam replied, the sarcasm thick.
"Why can't you just eat the damn ring?" Frodo asked. "Surely that's almost the same thing."
"Ah, a poem by Frodo. Be sure to put that in your book," Merry said and picked up his pack. "Bog of Eternal Stench, here we come!" Grumbling, Sam and Frodo picked up their things and followed Marry and Pippin into the woods, their tainted breakfast forgotten.