More mischievous fun with other people's characters. Maybe not as hilarious as advertised, but it has an irreverence I enjoy.
A few hours later, the Bog of Eternal Stench was nowhere in scent, and there was more than one hobbit whose panties were in a twist. "Where the hell are we?" Frodo said, kicking at the ground with his calloused hobbity toes. "Why didn't you ask Gandalf where the Bog was?"
"It's always the same thing with you isn't it, Baggins? 'Why didn't you ask Gandalf? Why did you get the bigger sausage? Why did Aragorn take you off into the woods all the time instead of me?' Nothing is ever enough for you, is it?" Merry cried.
"Why did Aragorn take you into the woods all the time?" Pippin asked, nibbling on the edge of the ring.
"Free Ranger lessons," Merry said quickly and smacked Pippin on the back of the head. "No eating the peach ring!"
"Oh why does it matter?" Pippin said. "What's going to happen if I take a bite of it? Am I going to start wearing revealing tights? Playing with my balls?"
"You mean more than normal?" Sam muttered, and he and Frodo chuckled.
"You were given a quest by Gandalf," Merry said.
"Yes, and he's off shagging some bimbo and smoking all his old lungs can take. He doesn't care what I do with it."
"Fine, bite it then!" Merry said, his eyebrows pointed in anger.
"Don't dare me, I will!" Pippin cried, getting in Merry's face.
"Peregrine Took, I dare you to take a bite of that peach ring!" Merry yelled, spit flying from his mouth onto Pip's cheeks.
"Fine!" Pippin threw his pack to the ground, opened his mouth to take a bite, and was tackled by a large gobliny creature wearing more jewelry than Galadriel.
"What the hell?" Pippin cried, pushing the creature off him and jumping up. The gobliny thing stood up and brushed himself off, muttering under his breath.
"What kind of orc are you?" Merry asked, laughing behind his hand.
"I'm not an orc, I'm Hoggle, and I'm here to keep you from making what could potentially be the worst mistake of your life." He looked at his wrists, then at the ground. "Now, has anybody seen my faux pearl bracelet?"
After a few minutes of fruitless searching and some quiet tears as Hoggle mourned the loss of his favorite accessory, he sat the young hobbits down for a little chat over a handful of nuts and berries.
"I assume you know the story of the ring," he said, "so I'm not going to rehash it. In my opinion, the average number of times any normal being can handle a ring legend is about two before they start wanting to choke someone. I'm not too fond of physical violence when it concerns my own well-being, so I'm going to skip over that part. What I want to talk to you about is its creator."
"Well, we already heard that too. Some pervert who likes to mesmerize people with his balls, we got it." Sam said, rolling his eyes.
"Think you know everything, don't you? Well, take it from someone who knows: you don't. So you just sit there and stuff your little chipmunk cheeks and take a listen, because Uncle Hoggle's gonna tell you a little tale.
"Jareth wasn't always a bad person. It took having his heart broken to do that to him, and you can thank that little tart who ran off with your granddad for that. In all his time running the labyrinth, all the years playing games with people, he only ever hurt a few . Well, okay, there were those two or three odd ones that were maimed accidentally by the cleaners, and maybe the Fireys took off a head or two, but other than that, he was as nice as pie. Well, an entrail pie laced with arsenic, but with a pretty decorative crust, scalloped edges and little hearts cut out on the top just like Grandma used to--"
"You were saying?" Frodo said, gritting his teeth as he interrupted the goblin's insane utterings.
Hoggle harrumphed at the hobbit's impertinence, but continued on. "When Sarah refused to be Jareth's queen, the poor sod lost it. He had always been in complete and utter control. He had even controlled me, until she came along and mixed up my feelings and made me think I could be noble, not to mention gave me a few nice pieces for my jewelry collection." Seeing that Frodo was reaching to his side for Sting, he cut the tangent short.
"Jareth went a little nuts, sat in his castle day and night, stopped showering, greasy pizza boxes and half-eaten sandwiches laying around everywhere, dark circles under his eyes. He even stopped playing with his balls, and you apparently know how much he enjoyed that. Finally one day I say to him, 'Look man, you've got to get over this. You're not doing yourself any favors moping around all day, and the labyrinth's going to Hell in a hand basket. Take a little time, maybe go somewhere private to recuperate, get your old self back.' To my surprise he actually agreed without threatening me.
"So he goes away for a few weeks, and when he comes back, he's just like the old Jareth again! Same magic dance, same manic spark. It's as if he never changed! So I ask him, I go 'Jareth, what's your secret?', and he tells me that when he was at the clinic he met the most wonderful man, they got on really well, and the man told him how he could get his power back. All he needed to do was forge an ensorcelled ring, and his subjects would be powerless beneath him, so to speak." Hoggle cleared his throat and looked away awkwardly.
"Sauron? He met Sauron at a clinic?" Sam was incredulous.
"Well, he said the guy called himself Sal, but it could have been an assumed name," Hoggle admitted.
"Why did he make it a gummi peach ring? I mean, metal would have been the more obvious choice," Pippin said, still eyeing it up for a nibble.
"You have to understand, Jareth's medium is peaches. So, he went with what he knew. The first rings were made directly from peaches, but he found that they went mushy and turned to rot in a few days, so he turned to gummies with that peachy flair. Worked, obviously. He filled it with poison so anyone who took it from him would suffer the consequences, and returned to his throne."
"So how did the ring get away from him?" Merry asked.
Hoggle blushed and looked away in shame once more. "Well, you see, I've never been able to resist pretty things. Purses, shoes, lingerieā¦but jewelry is my main weakness. So one night while he was asleep, I took it. But I knew if I kept it, he would find it on my person and that would be the end of me. So I took it to the woods and hid it where I could go back and admire it from time to time, knowing it was mine."
"Out in the open?" Merry asked.
"I didn't say it was a good hiding place, did I?" Hoggle replied, making a slight jingling noise as he crossed his arms.
"I think you lost it," Sam said, elbowing Frodo. "I think you lost it and are helping us to get it back. We have history with you accessory queens."
"I'll thank you not to call me names!" Hoggle cried, pushing Sam. Sam pushed back, Frodo got involved, and it all escalated until everyone but Pippin was rolling on the ground in a cluster.
"Guys?" he said, clutching his stomach. "Guys?" The others kept fighting, so he threw a rock into the scuffle to break it up, hitting Merry square on the cheek.
"What'd you do that for?" the enraged hobbit asked, making to tackle his friend, but Pippin fell to the ground.
"What did you say was in that peach ring?" he said. "I don't feel so good."
Hoggle stopped instantly in mid-punch. "You didn't!" he cried as Pippin dropped the half-eaten confection to the ground.
"You really are an idiot, Pip," Merry said, shaking his head. "Gandalf was right."
Pippin didn't answer. His eyes were focused on something in the distance, and everyone looked to see a bubble floating their way. It looked suspiciously like a soap bubble, and Sam went to pop it, but Hoggle stopped him.
"It's got to play out now," he said. "Gentlemen, I hope you know how to waltz." They grabbed each other's hands and held on to Pippin, and the bubble picked them up in one fell swoop. Jareth had taken the upper hand.
