Hello again, my fabulous readers! The Hourglass comes up soon, yay! Probably next week. And we're definitely looking forward to this second installment! Thanks to all who reviewed, it always makes my day! It's nice to know people are reading. Reminder to all that we still are taking suggestions and we'll be writing as quickly as possible! So enjoy this extremely funny chapter!


Hallie - June 22nd - The Travel Agency of Middle Earth

It was some time before we were able to take another trip via Liz' book. But in the meantime, we wrote down places we wanted to go, things we'd always wanted to see with our own eyes.

"The Battle of Pelennor Fields." I said, smiling.

"How about Council of Elrond?" Liz returned.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, "I know! What about the party after the Battle of Helm's Deep?"

Liz' smile widened, and I knew that we had our place for the day. We were at a park, backpacks loaded with supplies should we end up somewhere... strange. We stashed the backpacks behind some trees and sat there in the cool shade for a moment before Liz pulled out her copy of The Lord of the Rings. Slowly and carefully, we flipped to the pages describing that party.

We placed our fingers on the words, and in a flash of blinding light, we found ourselves in the middle of a shindig. Rohirrim were wandering around holding pints of ale. Liz and I glimpsed Merry and Pippin over by the bar. I turned around, smiling in complete and utter bliss, and almost walked straight into Gimli.

I dropped my head immediately. None of the characters should be allowed to see us- we'd agreed on that. We might change the outcome of the book.

"Watch where you're going, boy," Gimli grumbled as he walked over to a table where Legolas and Eomer were waiting, presumably to begin the famous drinking game. I rushed back over where Liz was leaning against one of the walls.

"This is so cool," I breathed.

"Yeah it is." She smiled. "Look who it is." I followed her finger to see Aragorn and Eowyn having their awkward one-sided flirting moment and almost burst out laughing.

Aragorn seriously had no idea she was in love with him.

"We should stalk them," Liz said, laughing. My eyes grew wide and my smile wider.

"Yes, yes, yes!"

And so we did. For about thirty minutes or so, we watched Aragorn and Eowyn's increasingly awkward interactions. Aragorn stopped by to watch the progress of the drinking game between Legolas and Gimli, laughing at Gimli's strange, garbled phrases and Legolas' stranger reaction to drinking.

"Still don't feel a thing," Legolas would mutter. A few minutes later, he'd say something along the lines of: "This drink tastes horrible. Elvish wine is much better."

Once or twice, I would catch Gandalf's eye on us. He seemed to be a mix of confused and amused by our appearance. Each time I noticed him staring at us, Liz and I would move farther into a crowd.

We were standing behind a column, staring at Eomer and Aragorn as they watched the party. A drunk Rohirrim walked by, looking us up and down. He stared at us. "You boys need an ale?" he asked.

We shook our heads no, hoping he would just nod and pass us by, leaving us to our fangirl-y moments. But he didn't.

"We have beaten back the orcs at Helm's Deep!" the soldier shouted, gaining the attention of a few of his buddies. "You have a right to celebrate!"

Liz and I stared at each other. This was not going to end well for us.

"In fact," he continued, as his friends wandered over, "you should participate in a drinking game."

Liz - March 5, 1419 - Why Do I Ever Listen to Hallie?

Just for the record, it was Hallie's idea to come here.

And therefore, anything that happened to us here was definitely her fault.

The Rohirrim soldier- his name was Talrin- wouldn't leave us alone. After a while, we found ourselves at a table, staring at pints of ale.

I've never had beer before in my life. And I had decided a long time ago that I wasn't ever going to try beer. I'm pretty sure Hallie tried it at home with her parents once, and she said it tasted horrible.

For some reason I was involved in a drinking game. Against Hallie. A bunch of Rohirrim were around us now, cheering. I was trying to think of a way to quietly bow out when Legolas walked by, obviously curious about the ruckus.

I panicked, okay? We weren't supposed to let any of the character see us, and I figured Legolas had a long memory. If he saw me now, he would totally recognize me later. So I grabbed the pint. And chugged.

After that, Hallie had no choice but to grab her pint too, because now we were involved in a full-fledged drinking game.

This is not a good moment for me.

About a pint and a half later, we were both starting to feel the effects of the ale. My head was fuzzy, my fingers were numb, and I felt like I was floating.

"I fought a fire-breathing Buster once," Hallie said.

I giggled in a very unlady-like way. It was probably okay, though, because the Rohirrim thought we were guys. Given our short hair and pants. "Shhhh..." I muttered, looking at her over my glass. "The government told us to keep that all hush-hush."

Hallie took another sip. "Buster wasn't very cool, ya know? He was all like, 'Rawr, I'm gonna eatcha,' and I'm all like, 'Dude, I'm not a kabob, how come we can't just be friends?'"

"You know who was less cool?" I said. "Greg. That guy had some sort of emotionally-scarring backstory."

The Rohirrim were laughing at us now. But for some reason I didn't care.

Hallie leaned closer. "I think Haldir had a man-crush on him." I could smell the ale on her breath, and I'm pretty sure I was just as bad. "Or maybe they call it an elf-crush. Who knows."

"Haldir?" I looked up to see Aragorn staring at us. Oh great. This guy was such a party pooper.

Oh wait. Haldir just died. Fudge...

"Different elf, Your Highness," Hallie said, staring boldly back at him. "Heck, you should know, you were there." I was so thankful that the halls were dark that night.

Regaining some of the intelligence I had left, I altered some of Hallie features with shadows. Imperceptibly. The arc of her nose. The color of her eyes, the shade of her skin. So she didn't look like Hallie. I did the same for myself. And I was honestly surprised I didn't turn us into cats or something.

"Different guy." I muttered to Hallie. "Different time."

Her eyes widened and she chugged some more ale.

This was honestly not my moment.

Hallie - March 5, 1419 - Oh My Eru I'm Drunk in Rohan.

"Oh my emu," I said, loudly, "I'm drunk in Rohan."

"Yeah, not Australia." Liz retorted.

Thankfully Aragorn had moved on, attributing our strange behavior to our drunken state. I hated being drunk. I almost completely ruined our experience. Bleh.

I think at that point I'd had seven pints and Liz had seven and a half. The half came from a time when Legolas had stopped to stare, and Liz was telling the story of dropping ale in his hair. I was still trying to catch up.

"You know what?" Liz said, staring at her empty pint. Fudge. You'd never know it, but the girl can down her ale.

"Hmm?"

"I could probably beat Gimli in a drinking contest."

"Sure ya could," I muttered, chugging the rest of my glass and finally catching up with Liz. "Legolas, though, is a completely different story."

"Of course he is. He's got too many Sues hangin' around his head. Can't ever get close to the elf." She looked up at one of the Rohirrim. "I went on adventure with him once. Me and my friends and the three Musketeers- well, one Musketeer and a pointy-eared tree-hugger, two of 'em actually, and a short guy with a beard."

"M-hm," I responded. "You know what would be weird? Two bacon dragons kissing."

"Dude!" Liz shouted. "We should go talk to Smaug!"

"And what? Tell him to leave Erebor peacefully? He's just gonna be all, nope."

I glanced down at my wrist as if looking for a watch. When I glanced back up again, Gandalf, Aragorn, and Legolas were all staring at us. I really hope Liz made us look different.

I could feel my face heating up. I leaned over to Liz. "We really gotta go. It's the Musketeer, the tree hugger, and the voice of impending and certain doom."

She glanced up. "I have something to say to each of you."

Facepalm.

"You were an idiot for breaking up with Arwen. You need to tell me the secret of your long and luscious hair. And you," she pointed to Gandalf, "really need to work on not speaking in riddles. It gets really, really annoying." They all stared at us like we were crazy. She stood up and bowed.

"We're outta here."

We linked arms (which caused Liz to start laughing hysterically) and walked out of the room, and across the balcony. We could hear some shouts behind us, but we didn't listen.

We walked right off the edge.

Liz - June 14th - *Banging Head Against Wall Repeatedly*

Luckily for us, our time in Middle Earth was up as we walked off the edge of the balcony. If it hadn't been, we would have some broken bones to show for our adventure.

Or I would, anyway. Hallie's invulnerable.

Darn Hallie.

We ended up sitting on a rock behind the trees where we'd left our stuff, my book open between us. I had a pounding headache, but other than that, I felt fine. Maybe going through whatever portal had brought us home erased our drunkeness.

Oh my gosh. I was drunk.

That will NEVER happen again, I can assure you. My face was already beginning to turn red as I recalled some of what went on while we were involved in the drinking competition.

I looked over at Hallie, whose face was bright red... like a tomato. She glanced over at me.

"Let's... never... speak of that again," she said, slowly.

"Agreed." I reached out to grab my book. The wind picked up suddenly, flipping the pages. Hallie and I slammed our hands down on the book at the same time, and a flash of light blinded us, making my headache worse.

Crap.


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