Disclaimers: If I owned Lord of the Rings, both books and movies would probably have referenced the hitherto-undocumented Great Gondorian Linen Famine of 3016, and the ensuing scarcity of clothes in that realm.
Further Disclaimers:Yeah, betcha all wish I owned LotR now, eh?
A/n: Though the felicitations are a bit belated,I nonetheless hope that everybody had a wonderful time celebrating the Winter Festival of their choice. I extend my heartfelt and thoroughly secular holiday greetings to all.
Boromir and Faramir would also like to lift a glass of eggnog and toast a "Happy Mettarë" to all my reviewers.
Éowyn, standing on the walls of Helm's Deep and trying desperately to look inconspicuous, was horrified to see Lord Aragorn storming across the ramparts in her direction. Hastily trying to compose herself, she was unable to decide whether to assert a straight pose of confidence or a languid posture of nonchalance, and settled for scratching her rump contemplatively in imitation of a soldier standing immediately in front of her.
"Legolas, what are you doing?" demanded Aragorn as soon as he drew near, dark brows drawn together in a frown.
Pitching her voice to an appropriately masculine timbre, Éowyn said, "Scratching my rump contemplatively?"
Aragorn stared at her as though she had gone mad.
It suddenly occurred to Éowyn that, in this particular case of male-masquerade, behaving in a more overtly mannish manner was probably working against her favor. Quickly changing tactics, she flipped her hair in the way she had sometimes seen Legolas do when affronted and said, "liek omigod woahh!1"
"Liek omigod is right!" replied Aragorn. "What's up with the helmet?" He rapped his knuckles sharply against the crown of her helm.
He touched my helmet! she thought blissfully, her mind reverberating with glee as the metal helmet vibrated against her skull. Gathering her wits once more, she replied, "Well, what's wrong with helmets?"
"What's wrong with helmets?" cried Aragorn disbelievingly. "Elves don't wear helmets! Ever! You've told me so yourself a dozen times!" He peered at Éowyn suspiciously through the helmet's round eye apertures, and she inwardly blessed her blue eyes. "Unless they've got zits or something. You haven't got zits, have you? I thought you'd been out of puberty for, what, two thousand years?"
Éowyn was spared a reply as a fanfare of clear horns suddenly echoed from the rock face, and a mass of dark figures marched into view. Attention distracted, Aragorn muttered, "That is no Orc-horn!" and sprang away down the stairway to investigate, Éowyn trailing in his wake.
Presently, a cry of "Open the gates!" was heard, and into the fortress of Helm's Deep, bearing arms and standards, marched a small army of…
"Elves in helmets. Fancy that," said Éowyn.
"Shut up," muttered Aragorn.
One of the Elves—apparently the leader, and, of the party, the only one without a helmet—stepped forward. Noticing that the width of his shoulders was somewhere in proportion to two of Legolas's whole bodies, she wondered if perhaps a few of her previous conceptions about Elves were unfounded.
The broad-shouldered Elf turned to Théoden, who appeared reasonably stupefied. "I bring word from Agent Smith of the Matrix," he said. "Uruks are a virus."
Everyone stared.
The Elf blinked. "Wow, I did it again, didn't I? I'm sorry… it's just that straying so far out of canon does peculiar things to my memory retention abilities. May I start over?"
"Please," replied Théoden shakily.
"Thank you," replied the Elf. "Ahem… I bring word from… Elrond…. Elrond of… Riverdale? No, Elrond of Riverden. Blast… it's something to do with rivers, I'm sure… Riverdam? Riverhell? No, no, I've got it, Riverdell! I bring word from Elrond of Riverdell!"
"It's Rivendell, but never mind," said Théoden. "Pray continue."
"Right. An alliance once existed between Elves and Hobbits… or was it Elves and Ents?"
"How about Elves and Men?" suggested Éowyn.
The Elf saluted her. "Precisely, mellon-nîn. And we have come to dishonor…"
"Honor," hissed the Elf-warrior directly behind him.
"…honor that allegiance." The broad Elf beamed. "Swell, huh?"
Grinning as well, Aragorn darted forward to envelope the Elf in an affectionate embrace. "Mae Govennan!" he said. The Elf appeared momentarily shocked, but quickly warmed to the hug, causing any admiration Éowyn might have entertained toward him to figuratively fly out of the proverbial window as she fought not to strangle him on the spot.
Finally breaking apart, Aragorn clapped him on the back and declared, "You are most welcome."
"Thank you?" Still appearing somewhat confused at having been unexpectedly cuddled by a man of dubious hygienic status, the Elf's eyes roved the grimy array of Rohirrim that stood grimly before him, his expression lightening as he finally spotted Éowyn. "Le suilon!" he said cheerily. "Manen le?"
Éowyn froze. The Elf was eyeing her expectantly, apparently waiting for a reply, and now Aragorn was turning around also, his expression curious. "Le mae, Legolas?"
Losing her head entirely, she squeaked, "¿Que pasa?"
It was the Elf's turn to stare. "What did he say?" he said in the Common Tongue.
"I know not," replied Aragorn. "He's been acting strangely all afternoon."
"Has he…" The Elf leaned forward, squinting. "Has he crimped his hair?"
"And his nails!" cried Aragorn, snatching Éowyn's hand, who, despite the awkwardness of the situation, was forced to restrain a shiver at the contact. "They aren't manicured!" He dropped the hand. "This isn't Legolas!"
The Elf stepped forward. "Let's find out who this 'Wood-elf' really is!" he said, and before Éowyn could react, he pulled off the helmet.
"Éowyn!" cried the entirety of Helm's Deep in unison.
She stood before them, unmasked and defiant. "(Censored)! And I would have gotten away with it, too, if hadn't been for you meddling men… and your stupid Elf!"
There was a noise not unlike that of ten thousand people bursting into a rousing chorus of "Scooby Dooby Doo, Where Are You?", followed by a sound not unlike that of ten thousand more people shrieking in abject horror and quickly uniting in a noisy rendition "Aníron" in order to drown them out.
Théoden, wandering onto the scene, spotted her. "Éowyn! Whatever are you doing up here?" He grabbed her elbow. "Come on! Back to the caves with you!"
"But Uncle…" she cried as she was steered away.
"Come now, Éowyn, be reasonable," he said firmly. "You can't just throw on a disguise as paltry as a man's cloak and helmet and hope to deceive anyone." A pause. "Wood, Gamling!" Looking around, he saw that Gamling was nowhere to be found. "Ah well, never mind. I'm sure it won't make a difference." Another pause. "Say, Éowyn, is there any way that the phrase 'knock on wood' could be made into a crude pun?"
THE CODE OF LEGITIMATE HUMOR WRITING, SECTION 12, ARTICLE 10
Absolutely not.
Boromir, having been finally (and somewhat violently) ejected from the secret EPA briefing room concealed in the backwaters of the Glittering Caves, where he had been forced to watch continuous and highly disquieting video coverage of sad-eyed puppies and kittens languishing in animal shelters and to recite the Litter Code no less than sixty-nine and a half times in succession, made his way back to the caves where the women and children were based and was met with a most peculiar sight.
Legolas, naked as the day he was born, was sitting in the midst of a circle of stoic-looking Rohirric women, all of whom seemed completely unphased by his current state of undress. Perched atop a large rock, he appeared to be giving an address of some sort to the assembly, and Boromir, approaching tentatively, shortly heard the nature of it.
"No, no, it's left strand over middle strand, and then right strand over middle strand!" cried the Elf irritably. "Honestly, can't you humans do anything?"
The woman in question merely grunted in acknowledgement and continued as before.
"Legolas, what on Arda are you doing?" demanded Boromir. "Where are your clothes?"
"I'm teaching these poor sods to do their hair properly. And never fear, my clothes reside in the capable hands of Lady Éowyn, where I'm sure they will come to no harm."
"I wouldn't be too sure about that," said Boromir flatly. "Just because you can keep your garments perpetually pristine in the middle of a fully-fledged battle doesn't mean the rest of us can. Haven't you got anything else to wear?"
"Well, Éowyn offered to lend me her gown," said Legolas, "but it made my hips look too wide."
Boromir wisely chose to let this statement pass without further comment.
Looking up from his circle of pupils, Legolas spotted a tall figure striding in their direction. "Talk of the Devil! Here she comes now, and in a high temper, I think."
Éowyn strode over to the rock, kicking aside commoners in her wake, sparing a venomous glare for Boromir before turning to Legolas with a curt, "Come on, Elf-boy, you're wanted upstairs," and a jerk of the thumb in the direction of the passage.
"But I've only just started!" he said indignantly. "We haven't even gotten to French braiding yet!"
"Yes, well, life's tough," barked Éowyn as she stripped off Legolas's bow and quiver. "Here are your weapons back." She thrust a bundle into his hands. "And your clothes."
When Legolas had scampered away, she glowered at Boromir again, who backed away slowly. "You've got blood on your nose," she said sharply.
"I know," he said, prodding it gingerly. "I'm lucky it isn't broken. Your Environmental Protection Bureau certainly is a gung-ho lot."
"Oh, cry me a river," harrumphed the shieldmaiden as she plopped down on the seat recently vacated by Legolas.
"Ah. Plan didn't work, I see?"
"Yes. A fat lot of help you are, I might add." She fiddled with a crimped lock listlessly. "What was the point of introducing my character arc if I'm just going to be disregarded before anything interesting happens?"
"Hey, you've hijacked the first thousand words of a chapter of my story and you're still not satisfied?" said Boromir. "Stop moping already! You're going to slay the Witch-king and get a sponge-bath from Aragorn and have ridiculously romantic lines spouted to you by my equally ridiculously good-looking brother, so get over it!"
Éowyn blinked. "Where in Arda did that come from?"
Boromir shrugged. "Funny, I don't know. Must be another one of those Húrin things."
Though rain poured and thunder raged and lightning flashed and a massive army of stuntmen in Orc suits were loping through the valley, an unusual calm had fallen over the fortress of Helm's Deep.
Stately ranks of Elven archers and less-than-stately lines of Rohannic warriors stood side-by-side, faces set in expressions of bleak determination. Shortly, however, the wind changed direction, and expressions of bleak determination turned to expressions of squinted pain as they were pelted in the face by a gallon's worth of bullet-sharp raindrops.
And still the rain poured and the thunder raged and the lightning flashed and the wind howled and the Orcs continued to lope doggedly down the valley and the cameras panned constantly between random close-ups and wide shots of the valley and occasional images of uncomfortable-looking women lurking in the caves.
And then, suddenly, there was silence.
The Orcs, ten yards from the Deeping wall, stopped loping, staring up at the ramparts. Those on the ramparts stared down at the Orcs. No one moved or spoke.
And as they stood there, one army on one side of the wall and one standing on the other, staring and saying nothing, there was a moment in which, abruptly, inexplicably, the whole idea seemed rather stupid.
But then one of the Uruks let out a great roar, and the others, following suit, began to howl and screech and pound the butts of their spears against the sodden earth; and in the midst of the blood-curdling calamity, everyone remembered that this was War and that War makes a really smashing movie, and felt better.
"Fight! No, fine! File! Five! Find!"
Aragorn sighed. "That's 'fire', mate, and I think you should let me direct the archers from now on, Haldir."
"Boromir!" cried Théoden, perched conveniently out-of-range from the raging battle. "Come over here when you've got a moment!"
"I'm—" Clash. "—a—" Crack. "—bit—" Smash. "—busy—" Whoosh. "—just—" Bang. "—now."
"Yes, well, I'll be patient."
Grumbling, Boromir dispatched the combative Orc in a sweeping sword-stroke and trudged back to the ever-tolerant King with an exasperated, "What?"
"I've just thought of a new strategy," said Théoden, "and I want you to spread it among the ranks. I feel that it will turn the tide of this skirmish."
Boromir's eyes widened. "Really? Let's hear it."
"Right." The King of the Mark cleared his throat preliminarily. "Ahem. Everyone aims to kill."
A pause.
"What?"
"I said: everyone aims to kill."
"And?"
"That's it."
"That's it? What the hell kind of strategy is that?"
"No, wait, hear me out. Listen: if everyone aims to kill, ergo, every enemy we aim for will die. Ergo, if we aim for every enemy, every enemy will die. Ergo, every enemy will die. Ergo, there will be no more enemy. Ergo, we win. It's all logic, you see."
Boromir pressed a bloodied hand to his cranium as though willing it to belong to someone else. "I've changed my mind; I'm not going to declare war on Rohan. I'll just build a wall around it and put rat poison in its water supply."
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Your plan is brilliant. Absolutely inspired. I'll go spread the word."
"You do that." Théoden smiled grimly at the carnage around him. "Our victory is guaranteed! Ha! Is this it? Is this all you can conjure, Saruman? Ha!"
Boromir whirled around. "You fool! Don't say—"
KABOOM.
"—that."
"Aragorn!" cried Legolas, limping over to where the Dúnadan was engaged in mortal combat. "Have you got any athelas?"
"Why?" asked Aragorn worriedly, or as worriedly as one can ask in reference to another's well-being while engaged in a deadly duel with a mutant killing machine at least twice one's own size. "Are you—" Crash. "—injured?"
"Yes. It's my…" A wince. "…leg."
"Your—" Splorsh. "—knee? Is it—" Bang. "—life-threatening? Is it—" Swish, duck, crash. "—infected?"
"I'm not sure. Here, I'll show you." Legolas began to slowly and painfully roll his leggings, while Aragorn parried his foe in a wide circle so as to be at vantage to see it.
"What, you mean that huge gash—" Smack. "—on your shin?"
"No, that's from shaving. This is what I'm worried about." Legolas prodded his patella gingerly.
"What,—" Swoosh. "— your knee? It looks like you've—" Smash. "—skinned it."
"Yes. I was trying to slide down the stairs on a tea-tray a few minutes ago and I fell… it hurts so bad, Aragorn!" Large blue eyes welled up with tears.
"Honestly, Legolas, I've got more—" Wham. "—pressing things to do than—" Bam. "—waste my athelas on—" Clatter. "—scrapes."
Legolas pouted. "Well, couldn't you at least kiss it or something?"
"N—" Bang. "—o!"
"Well!" Legolas cried indignantly. "I never! You really are the most insufferable Man, Aragorn…"
"A'll kiss it with ma axe, me bonny wee Elf!" came a gruff voice from somewhere around Legolas's knees. Legolas looked down and saw a Dwarf peering up at him.
"Who are you?"
"Och! A'm Gimli!" When Legolas raised an eyebrow, the Dwarf sighed. "They decided that PerpetuallySmashed!Gimli wasn't fulfilling his designated office as Diminutive Instrument of Comic Relief™ and decided to replace him with OutrageouslyScottish!Gimli. Och," he added as an afterthought.
"And what does being 'outrageously Scottish' entail?"
"It means 'a hafter speak inna relly affected deealect and use wards lyke 'bonny', 'wee', and 'laddie' at graytest convaynience. 'A also hafter axclaim 'Och!' a lawt."
"Do you have to wear a kilt, too?"
"Gawd waylling, no."
"Or play bagpipes?"
"Och, no! Tho' 'a mae be awbliged to sayng a ballad or two."
"I sense—" Clatter. "—that this—" Clash. "—will be a painful experience—" Crash. "—for us all."
"Shut up, Aragorn, no one was speaking to you!" cried Legolas. "I'm sick of the sight of you! I'm going to go talk to Boromir! He'd make a better King than you, anyway!"
"You—" Slash. "—do that."
"Och, layver's tiffs are so haerd ter watch," remarked Gimli as the Elf flounced off.
"Retime? Retell? Retrace? Retouch? Re… re… retreat? Retreat! That's it, retreat! RETREA—argh! Ouch, dammit, there was no need to split my skull open afterwards, I was as good as dead anyway!"
In the bowels of Helm's Deep, a great many industrious warriors were singing uplifting numbers from Les Miserables and working speedily to erect a barricade of reinforcements against the entry of the Keep.
"Say, Boromir, there's someone knocking at the door!"
Boromir, busily helping to blockade the gates against the forcible onslaught of the enemy battering ram, found ample energy to roll his eyes and make the deeply anachronistic but highly appropriate remark of, "No shit Sherlock."
"No, not that door, silly!" said Legolas. "I meant the back door."
Boromir frowned. "The back door? This place has a back door? What happened to 'there is no way out of that fortress; Théoden is walking into a trap' or whatever jargon Mithrandir was feeding us?"
"Well, it's not exactly a back door; I guess it's more of a side door. It leads to a little ledge in the rock face, not far from the bridge." Legolas patted the portal in question.
Boromir's eyes widened. "Isn't that something of a security hazard?"
"Oh, I doubt it, I don't imagine anyone knows it's here… Boromir, would you mind telling all those horrid Men to pipe down? I can't hear a word the visitors are saying!"
"The visitors?"
"Yes, the visitors, you imbecile! Didn't I just tell you they were knocking? And we're being quite rude in keeping them out in the rain, I think."
"I thought you just said that no one knew the door was…"
"What was that?" Legolas pressed his ear to the door, listening. "Oh, Boromir, they're Girl Scouts!"
"What?"
"And they're selling cookies! How sweet! That's just the thing to cheer a body up in the middle of a life-or-death mêlée… Boromir, would you rather have Tagalongs or Samoas?"
"Legolas, don't you dare open that door!"
"Yes, I think Tagalongs, too… and of course I'm going to open the door, how else am I going to give them the check? I bet they look adorable in their little Scout uniforms…"
Boromir set down the two-by-four he had been preparing to nail to the barricade and moved toward the Elf threateningly. "Legolas, I'm warning you…"
"Oh, don't be a wet blanket," said Legolas, and opened the door.
Two point three-five seconds later, Legolas was lying flat on his back, being trampled underfoot as a massive battalion of duplicitous Orcs (none of whom ostensibly bore any Merit badges) swept through the doorway. All Boromir could do was think that he was, once again, obliged to defend someone he'd much rather see dead against an obscene number of foes, and acknowledged this sentiment with a flourish of a his sword and a cry of, "For (censored) Gondor!"
A/n: Well, I didn't get my holiday Húrin fic up in time, but there's always next year, eh? In recompense, I'm writing another short fic to put up in its place, so keep an eye out if you're interested…