The Strange Case of the Missing Pottery
Elfchicks, with special guest writer, HaldirofLorien13
A/N: This story is not meant to be a serious reflection of my knowledge of Middle-earth. I know very well that the Fourth Age Elves did not have iPods or chain guns. I have taken artistic license in my inclusion of modern references and anachronisms. And timelines. And general randomness. Whew. Now that that's out of the way, I shall carry on. Forgive me, Tolkien – I mean no disrespect to your marvelous characters. Let the mystery (and the madness) begin!
One beautiful evening in the Fourth Age of Middle-earth, an elf by the name of Ondollo was sitting on a grassy hill near a verdant forest enjoying the warm sun. He gazed off to the East, towards his home village of Arta-pelar. The nearby river was scintillating and dazzling to behold, and the colorful town seemed to glow in the fading remnants of golden light. As he continued to soak in the sun, Ondollo remembered the important letter to Elrond he needed to finish by the next morning, and reluctantly rose to his feet and headed down towards the village…
Sadly, Ondollo never made it back to the village. He slipped on a banana peel placed on the ground by some young elflings. He then fell onto a hairbrush, injuring himself further. He was taken to the elvish hospital, where his caretaker was, strangely, an orc! Now, this orc was no ordinary orc, or Ondollo would surely have good cause to be alarmed. This orc was a reformed orc. As you should be aware of if you are an average to avid fan of the books and movies of LotR, Orcs are supposedly twisted Elves, so it makes sense that they can go either way. It's a rare occurrence, I know, but this orc was truly reformed. I mean, what would he be doing working at a government-sanctioned healthcare facility if he wasn't? While his appearance was still kind of questionable (he wore a mangy wolf pelt and a rusty chain maille skirt, which Ondollo passingly thought looked rather unsanitary), one could tell at a glance that his was a kind and caring demeanor. He offered Ondollo a bottle of soda, 7-Up to be exact, which he thought might help with the unfortunate elf's nausea.
Ondollo, wandering in and out of consciousness, forced a weak smile and gently pushed the soda away, sickened by his caretaker's unkempt appearance, but not wanting to be rude. "I need to… I have to… write that letter to Elrond," he mumbled incoherently, feebly trying to get up.
The orc looked on sadly. "No soda?" he asked, as gently as an orc can. "How about a stick of chewing gum? Some Lembas, perhaps?"
But Ondollo was already out the door. He ran to his "house" by the edge of the forest. He glanced around. Everywhere he looked there were tubes of toothpaste: in his bed, on his table, even in the sink, there was toothpaste. He groaned. He cleared off a section of table and began to write his letter.
It read:
"Dear Lord Elrond,
"I write to you to discuss an urgent matter. The Númenórien pottery that we had put away for safekeeping has been stolen. I do not know who did it, so I am asking for your expert detective skills to help me solve this crime.
"Good-bye,
"Ondollo"
Then, thinking that perhaps this hastily-writ letter in its current state of utter brevity and tactless prose might cause Elrond to view him with disdain and perceive him as inept, Ondollo compulsively wadded it up and tossed it in a trash can overflowing with tubes of toothpaste. Pulling out another sheet of parchment and dipping his quill pen, he started to revise his letter.
It read:
"Dear Lord Elrond,
"I take my pen in hand to inform you of some dreadful news. I am referring to the theft of the priceless and irreplaceable Númenórien pottery we concealed for safekeeping. I was, of course, occupied with urgent matters when the theft occurred, and therefore unable to have prevented it in any way, shape, or form, though I did all in my power to discover the perpetrators of this heinous crime, and have been looking for clues day and night for a week now. I would have written you sooner, but I was indisposed.
"You know that I had all of this pottery hidden away in the secret storeroom beneath the only crabapple tree in Arta-pelar. As Manwë is my judge, I inspected it closely every day, making sure nothing had been disturbed, and for many years, everything seemed in order. Except last Monday, when I found the doors to the secret entrance flung haphazardly open (the lock picked!) and all of your pottery missing, all except for a broken urn. Yes, the clumsy crooks destroyed one of your most precious little pieces – the one that resembled an upside-down fedora. 'Twas a shocking discovery, to say the least.
"As it stands, I believe the best course of action would be for you to make all speed here at once, lest these premeditated pilferers escape to some distant land with these invaluable heirlooms of the ancient past and hawk them ignominiously at a street market like those of Far Harad, squandering the profits on foolish, exotic baubles, like a pair of those tremendously rare pink sunglasses or one of those fabled, indestructible monocles… or worse, a legendary toupee that causes all maidens in the vicinity to fall madly in love with its wearer. I pray you will come as quickly as you can manage, before it's too late.
"Your humble servant,
"Ondollo"
Ondollo took this carefully crafted letter to HIS servant, and for good measure, enclosed an iPod for Lord Elrond.
It only took a few days for the letter to reach Lord Elrond in Rivendell. The day had started out well for Lord Elrond. It was a bright sunny day, and his favorite "I heart Rivendell" tee shirt was clean. He pulled it on, along with his favorite blue jeans. It was dress down day in Rivendell. As he sat down next to his obese tabby cat to eat a bowl of oatmeal, he heard a great commotion coming from outside.
Lord Glorfindel came dashing into the room, out of breath. "My lord, a letter from Ondollo has arrived!" he panted.
Elrond, furious at Ondollo's long lapse in correspondence, brusquely tore the proffered letter from Glorfindel's hand and ripped it open. Glorfindel and the servants, as well as Arwen, Estel, Elladan and Elrohir (who had come running when they heard Glorfindel shout), watched intently as Elrond's eyes scanned the letter, noting the elf lord's face growing darker and more intense.
"What's it say, Ada?" said the twins in unison, unable to contain their curiosity any longer. Arwen and Estel looked at them strangely. How did they do that? Did they have a psychic link?
Elrond scowled, wadding up the letter angrily. The iPod fell out on the ground. The angry elf-lord fiercely snatched up the device and glared at it, as if to place the blame entirely on its shiny, blue and red, plastic surface. As he glared and thought, thought and glared, he gripped the tiny gadget so tightly that the bystanders were sure he would crush it. At length, remembering that the twins had asked of the contents of the letter, and feeling everyone present's eyes on him, he decided to tell them… something, though he wasn't at liberty to speak about the Númenórien pottery, even if he had felt at all inclined to do so. "It… uh… says that Ondollo was reading a bedtime story to a manatee when, suddenly, he was carried away by flying monkeys. He wants me to go… uh… rescue him right away."
Everyone looked at him exceedingly skeptically. Perceiving that they didn't believe him, Elrond gave them the horrible, terrifying, appalling "look" feared the world over: the Evil Eyebrows of DOOM! They all recoiled and, talking and tripping over each other, made hasty, lame excuses to leave. Within a few seconds, Elrond was alone. Just the way he preferred to be. Now he could scheme in peace and quiet.
Sadly, the twins managed to find the angered Elf Lord several minutes later, as he was walking back to his study.
"Ada, can you tell us the bedtime story that Ondollo was telling?" asked Elrohir.
Elrond turned around, surprised. "No, I am busy."
"Please?"
"No."
The twins finally managed to get Elrond to read them a story, which he actually made up as he went along, and after that, they left him alone.
Now it was time to get to work. Who would have stolen the pottery, and how would they have done it? The pottery had been protected with an ancient elven magic, so it was almost impossible to open. HOW? HOW? HOW?
Elrond began to get a headache. He decided to visit his pet manatee to relieve some stress. But when he arrived at its tank, he discovered that the manatee had also gone missing! Impossible! The walls of the tank were ten feet high, and the water level didn't even come close to reaching the top. He looked more carefully at the tank and saw a large, perfectly round hole made with a sawsall that could easily accommodate a manatee… and all the water in the tank. He noted stone-facedly the eroded trail the gushing water had made in the turf, and he also thought he could see manatee-like footprints in the mud, leading away into the woods.
"Drat!" said Elrond aloud to himself. "This has not been my day. Next they'll be telling me my llama herd has gone missing." Striding back inside the main portion of his beautiful and elegant abode, Elrond sat down a minute to think. "Stolen pottery and sabotage. Could there be a connection?" He pounded his fist on the armrest of the chair. He would do as Ondollo had advised, and head to Arta-Pelar at once. Perhaps if he could be at the scene of the far more critical crime, answers might offer themselves. First, however, he needed to pack.
He decided to travel light, taking only the necessities. "Kevlar vest and chain gun, yes, yes," said Elrond thoughtfully, checking off a clipboard. "Bow and arrow, slingshot, yes, yes. Hmmm… what am I missing?"
Sadly, Elrond did not figure out what he was missing. He left without ever packing his butterfly net. He completely forgot about it. He was so convinced that he was done packing that he set off into the wilderness just a little bit unprepared.
As Elrond meandered through the woods, he came to love the sound of the trees waving their branches in the air. He loved the sound of the creek, rumbling low to the ground. He loved everything about the great outdoors. Except the insects. Every single little insect that Elrond found bit him. Hard. Welts popped up all over his arms, legs, and face. And there was no way he could figure how to stop them from itching. Elrond was being driven to the brink of insanity. Racing haphazardly through the woods, manically swatting at the pursuing pests, he eventually had a bizarre idea, which was probably the desperate last resort of an elf-lord in peril of his life.
He stopped, pulled out his handy chain gun, and began unloading it into the huge swarm of bugs. He went through thousands of rounds, discharging and reloading at an amazing rate. Eventually, there were no more bugs. There was also no more forest in that direction for several hundred yards, as the trees had all been riddled with holes and reduced to large clumps of branches, leaves, and sawdust on the ground. Elrond's rage cooled. He stowed the smoking gun, leaving an enormous pile of empty shell casings, and calmly continued on his way through the woods, occasionally itching at his scalp.
Presently, night fell and he was compelled to search for shelter. Being none too keen on sleeping up in trees, unlike his woodland cousins, he decided to look for a cave. He was fully aware that he probably wouldn't find that which he sought, but that certainly didn't stop him from trying. Amazingly, just as the last vestiges of sunlight filtering through the trees had nearly faded into darkness, he spotted the mouth of a massive, dark cave yawning blackly before him. He couldn't help but feel a little trepidation, but he reminded himself that he was Elrond. Everyone and everything was scared of Elrond, with good reason. This comforted him. He stepped inside.
The beauty of the cave was unmatchable. Crystals of every color imaginable were streaked along the walls, and massive stalagmites rose from the floor. With the dim light, he could see that the cave stretched out for a while, and he could not see the back. He decided that he would sleep right where he was. After some amount of tossing and turning on the cold, packed cave floor, he drifted off, dreaming of being trapped in a 1,000 foot high tree house with his grandma.
-To Be Continued-