School's out of seasion for the Company now that the trolls have been delt with. Leara and Gandalf return and they get a new traveling buddy...plus other antics.

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Chapter Four — Troll Horde 221b

Everyone stared at the stone Gentle-Trolls and then at Gandalf and Leara and then their ice cream.

"Did you bring us some?" Bofur asked.

"Nope," Leara shot over her shoulder as she unlocked the chains holding Fíli, Kíli, Thorin, Balin, and Dwalin with one hand. "Your face is really weird looking," she told the itchy bald dwarf.

"Urgh..."

The Altmer and the Istar went around and freed the dwarves and Ulfric, and then Leara noticed Todd.

"Reachfield!"

"Rose-blade!"

The two growled before approaching each other, both tensed like a piece of barbwire.

"What are you doing here?" Leara Rose-blade demanded, getting in the Nord's face.

"If you must know, there is a rather large bounty on a mountain dwelling dragon, not including the untold riches he guards in those ancient mountain halls," Todd Reachfield snapped, flinging spit on Leara's face.

"That's my kill! As Dragonborn!" the she-elf cried, indignant. She stomped her foot for emphasis.

"Just because you can use the Voice and absorb the souls of dragons, doesn't mean you are the Dragonborn!"

"I'm pretty sure it does, you—"

Before Leara Rose-blade could finish her sentence by calling Todd Reachfield several rude names, Odahviing marched into the clearing and — and ate him.

The great red dragon had eaten the annoying werewolf.

The horned Dovah had eaten the string bean-like Nord.

The dragon who allied himself with the Dragonborn had eaten the leader of the puppy squad from Skyrim.

Leara blinked.

Odahviing coughed.

"He tastes like chicken," he coughed again.

"You think everything tastes like chicken," Leara Rose-blade reminded him, rolling her eyes.

Odahviing shook his massive horned cranium. "No, the chicken doesn't taste like chicken."

Balin walked over to them. "Then how do you know what chicken tastes like?"

"Because I am Od Ah Viing!"

Balin nodded, deeming this to be a satisfactory answer.

Meanwhile, some five and a half and three quarter yards away, give or take a foot or so, Gandalf was watching several different verities of wild fowl and birds alight atop the stone trolls, leaving quite the, uh, mess. Thorin approached him, looking quite out of sorts with dried puke all over the front of his clothes, sticks tangled in his majestic mane of luxurious, ebony colored locks, and goop from the Elmer's glue that had been on his desk all in his short little beard. Not half as epic as Gimli's beard, but seeing as he's not here and is, after all, only a kid at the moment by dwarven standards, we can't do a proper comparison on beards.

Moving on.

"These trolls couldn't have moved in daylight," Gandalf mused, munching on his ice cream cone.

"How do you get this goop out of hair?" Thorin asked, ignoring the now messy troll statues he was standing next to.

"There must be a cave nearby..."

"Good!" the disheveled oaken shield wielding fellow exclaimed. "Maybe they have hair products in there to take care of the abnormal, abysmal, abhorrently atrocious stuff in my majestic, miraculously marvelous mane of hair!"

Gandalf stared at him, dumbfounded, and a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream fell from his cone to the ground. "Where ever did you learn such big, complicated words, Thorin Oakenshield?"

Thorin stared at him. "Wha?"

"Never mind," Gandalf shook his head. He then turned around...and spotted John Watson.

John Watson who was still dressed like Bilbo Baggins's identical twin brother, to be exact.

"My dear Mr. Baggins! It seems you have finally decided to join us!" Gandalf exclaimed, looking rather pleased and, dare the Narrator narrate it, smug.

Dr. Watson looked up at Gandalf, startled. "Oh, no, you have me mistaken for someone else, I'm—"

"You know, you're a little taller than I remember you being last evening," Gandalf mused, staring at the fidgety Watsobbit. He snapped his fingers and a small pink fire work went off a couple feet above the grey wizard's head. "I know! You did something with your hair!"

Dr. Watson gave him a bored (or blank or confused, he gets those mixed up) look. He then sighed. "Okay then, you people think I'm some three foot tall elf/dwarf hybrid called a Hobbit or halfling and, not only that, you think I'm the one who is supposed to steal things for you from a dragon who sounds like my flatmate."

Gandalf nodded affirmative.

Grumbling, Dr. Watson crossed his arms. "Fine! I'll help you! If I get a Chinese cat statue in return."

Gandalf nodded again. "Thorin, are there any Chinese cat statues in Erebor?"

The head dwarf shook his head, "No idea."

Dr. Watson shrugged, "Close enough."

Once they were all assembled together, everyone (minus Odahviing) trudged around for fifteen minutes searching for the troll cave/horde/place/thing.

And that was when they found it.

Within the heart of a cluster of boulders, dark and stinky, was the cave.

"You know, I hadn't expected it to be this disgusting," Ulfric mused, appearing thoughtful as he studied the entrance where flies were buzzing and little green fungi grew. It was totally gross.

"Trolls need a healthy amount of flies and fungi to thrive or else they'll shrivel up like dried out mushrooms," Leara Rose-blade explained, standing next to her blond sidekick.

Gandalf went up to the entrance and took a rather large whiff. He then proceeded to turn a rather unflattering shade of green as smoke shot out of his nostrils, ears, and mouth.

"Does...an...y...one...have...a...can...of...Feb...reze©?" he wheezed, coughing between each syllable.

Everyone started rummaging around in their pockets before Bifur pulled out a can of lavender scented air freshener.

"Thanks," Gandalf coughed, taking the can of Febreze© and spraying it like a madman into the cave.

Fifteen and a half minutes later...

"There! The can's empty and everything smells like flowers!"

"It's GIRL SCENTED!" Thorin screamed, forgetting, for the moment, about his ruined hair.

"Well I'm a girl so the scent should love me!" Leara Rose-blade grinned, striding into the now lavender scented cave. Ulfric hastened to follow and Fíli and Kíli, one blond and one ever ready to please the golden Altmer, bounced after them.

The remaining thirteen (eleven dwarves, a wizard, and a Watsobbit) stared after them before, after standing around looking stupid for a few minutes, running in after them.

Inside, Ulfric had found a Mûmikal tusk, Fíli and Kíli had found candy floss (the Narrator would advise not eating food from a troll cave, but they don't listen to the Narrator), and Leara Rose-blade had discovered—

"Swords! Of Gondola! From Italy! Wow!" she cried, holding up a sword with only one stick thingy on the spot between the handle and the blade.

Gandalf walked up to her and looked at the one with two stick thingies instead of one.

Cross-guard. They're called cross-guards.

"These were forged in Gondolin by the high elves of the First Age!"

"My kin?" Leara asked.

Gandalf shrugged.

Thorin walked over (having someone managed to clean his hair in the time when he was not in this scene; the Narrator supposes that the trolls did have shampoo hiding in their cave...somewhere) and Leara handed him the sword with one stick thingy.

"These swords were not made by any troll," he said, looking over the shiny silver sword.

"Dude!"

"We just established this!"

Thorin shrugged, not really caring. "Who made these bad mama jamas then?"

"These were forged by the high elves of the West, my kin," Leara Rose-blade explained. In all actuality, Leara's elven heritage came from her grandmother and she was of stout Altmer decent. No one knows if the Aldmeri of Aldmeris have any connection with the Noldor, Vanyar, or Teleri, but that's not why we're here today.

"You keep creeping me out with your continuous, spontaneous spouts of elven jibber jabber!" Thorin whined, voice void of majesty.

"Quit being such a drama queen!" Leara Rose-blade whined back.

Gandalf then whacked Thorin on the head with his staff...

"Ow-y!"

...and gave Leara a Hershey's© chocolate bar with almonds.

"Thank you!"

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Poor Thorin always gets the short end of the stick whenever Leara is involved. At least he didn't get eaten like Todd did. But is this the last we see of the puppy squad of Skyrim?

Mr. Owl from the Tootsie Pop Commercial: Let's find out! A-chapter f—

Beat it, birdie! ...as I was saying, the world may never know.