All standard disclaimers apply, and this is supposedly humourous, so tell me what you think pls!!
The Fellowship of nine walkers – Gandalf, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli – finally left Rivendell/Imladris/the-Last-Homely-House one fine Tuesday late in September. Seven days, ten wrong turns, 198 pipes later, three things happened.
One, after days of trying to persuade him, Legolas finally tried pipeweed – and promptly got stoned.
Two, Gandalf admitted they were lost.
And three – possibly the most earth-shaking (although that may have been the fact that they were all shivering from the cold) – they met an elf standing leaning against a tree that for the purposes of this story had sprouted in the middle of the road.
Now the first words out of Gandalf's mouth were not, 'Who are you?' They weren't even, 'What are you doing?' They were as follows.
"Why on middle-earth is there a tree sprouting out of this newly tarred road?"
The elf leaning against the tree straightened and stretched. They all stared. The elf, was in fact a she-elf. She looked at them challengingly.
"Any problems?" she asked, a slight edge to her tone. They all quickly muttered words to the effect of:
"No, no problems, just staring at the…" they searched for an excuse.
"The random tree," Pippin finally came up with. The elf grinned broadly.
"Ai, cause everyone who comes across a she-elf and a random tree in the middle of a newly tarred road are going to find the tree more interesting," she raised an eyebrow. "You're lost," she offered the obvious.
"You're stating the obvious," Gandalf muttered.
"So are you Grey," she replied lightly, "so you're the Fellowship I'm supposed to be excruciatingly nice to. Now that's gonna be a task and a half."
They all bristled. Well actually, Boromir, Aragorn, Gandalf and Gimli bristled as they were the only ones with beards that could bristle. The others merely looked outraged. The elf sighed.
"I guess I'd better follow my orders and set you back on the right track," she muttered, "I'm Erin by the way."
"Do you happen to know any good inns?" Sam asked. Erin's grin reasserted itself.
"Guys," she looked around, "are you honestly telling me you don't know where you are?"
"Em…" they all shook their heads.
"By Eru! Am I surrounded by…? Hold on…" she thought about it, "never mind, over there," she pointed at a nearby patch of smog, "is Bree, and the Prancing Pony."
"Oh," Aragorn muttered. "I should know that."
"Yes, you should," Erin muttered moodily, "and I thought Rangers and future Kings of Gondor were supposed to be good at telling East from West, North from South, and otherwise be good at directing people."
"Well it's not my fault I'm going to be the future King," Aragorn huffed, prompting Gandalf to suggest that they retire to the Prancing Pony in light of the recent addition by the author of knives to Erin's belt.
They quickly went into the inn where Butterbur was busy attempting to keep some semblance of order to his common room. Any semblance of order was quickly banished with the Fellowship plus Erin's appearance. Erin grinned faintly and disappeared towards the bar where she secured several drinks and bought a round of the closest thing Middle-earth has to vodka shots for everyone.
Everyone immediately started cheering, singing, laughing, dancing, and randomly jumping around all over the place. At the same time Gandalf led the Fellowship plus Erin out of the room. Erin distributed drinks with the ease of a barmaid and neatly laid her cloak over the back of her chair. They looked around uneasily.
"How did we end up here?" Frodo finally piped up. Erin gave him a look that spoke volumes of her lack of respect for men.
"I took a wrong turn somewhere," Gandalf muttered, "and I can't for the world of me think where."
"The second right you took after the third left, after the ninth southwards headed turn should've been a left," Erin explained.
Gandalf slapped his head, and faster than you could say Fellowship, they were back on the right track and on their way to Mordor. Erin grinned.
"Thank Eru for that, I don't think I could've stood them for much longer!!"
That's all folks!!