YO HO! Back with a new chapter! Thank you sooo much for the positivity! I love your vibes! More romance will come, I promise you!
Christine has been tasked by her parents to go to Mirkwood and find Harlette, however, Christine, being a inexperienced witch, landed not in Mirkwood but in the Brown Lands. Moreover, she lost her only mean of transportation to get back home, the little pocket mirror. Was it stolen by the orcs? Now she is held captive by Gimli and Legolas and is to be brought to Legolas' father. Christine does not know he is Legolas of Mirkwood yet.
Now, the three of them meet queer beings…
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From the Lucky Troll Kingdom
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Without a word, without a move, Christine, Legolas and Gimli watched the bright parachutes float down to the ground.
With its sound reverberating throughout the space and scaring away every beast, the unknown voice yelled into the megaphone: 'Do not try to fight us, or you will be killed.' Whoever or whatever that was, was very small for its silhouette against the sky could not be detailed.
Legolas chuckled darkly: 'Let us look upon the faces of those fools before we slay them. What say you, Gimli?'
'Aye!' the dwarf exclaimed vivaciously, his fists in the air. Christine tried to protest but Legolas toppled her to the ground, and she was face-to-face with the mud again. 'Tskk, lie still, witch,' he ordered, his foot settling between her shoulder blades, keeping her in place. Christine growled and snarled. Legolas smirked down at her before turning his focus back on the parachutists who came to land, a few feet away from him. His brow arched mockingly at the sight of them.
'Hello, women!' the voice echoed through the megaphone. Christine jerked her head up to see the newcomers. Her eyes widened in perplexity. Troll dolls? Did Middle Earth have them?
Seemingly, it did, for there they were, unhooking themselves from their parachute's straps and treading towards her with a swagger. Not more than thirty inches in height (about 76 centimeters), they were stout with long, brightly colored hair rising on their heads. The features of their faces were bizarre; their wrinkled skin was lemon-brown and was left unflattered by a great round nose. Their eyes were brown or grey and they were large. One of the trolls had pink hair and wore a long blue robe with star motifs printed on it. On his head rested a pointy blue hat, and in his tiny hand he held a white wand, a plastic star twinkling grotesquely at its tip. His three travel companions were just as odd as he in appearance; one had bright green hair and wore yellow overalls, while another had blue hair and was utterly nude, safe for a puny leaf to hide his private parts. The last troll, appearing to be of the female sort, had white hair and sported a pink polka-dot dress and a pearl necklace. The four little creatures stopped in their tracks and contemplated Legolas and Gimli with beatific smiles.
Silence.
Christine tried to budge but Legolas' foot on her impeded her from doing so.
'I am pleased to see you chose to be wise, women. I assure you that I am not of the rapist kind,' the pink haired troll in the pointy hat began earnestly, and upon his words, the nude troll thrust his hips back and forth suggestively, a smug expression on his perverse face. 'I got no car and I got no cash, but my personality isn't trash,' he declared, wiggling his blue brows at Legolas and Gimli.
'Stop that, you big balloon,' the troll in the pointy hat commanded; he appeared to be the leader of the small company.
Legolas addressed the troll leader. 'I am not a woman,' he pronounced slowly and clearly, almost menacingly.
Christine sputtered a hearty laugh; Legolas' boot dug into her back in warning.
'Not a woman? Are you sure? You are far too pretty to be a man,' the troll leader stated frowningly. The troll in the pink dress nodded profusely. Legolas rolled his eyes.
Gimli laughed out loud, so loud in fact it seemed he was going to die of a heart attack then and there. The troll leader placed his magic wand beneath his lower lip and inspected Gimli, distaste evident in his composure. 'You obviously are not a woman,' he asserted.
First, Gimli was happy about such deduction, yet when he came to think of it, he grew irritated; was the troll insinuating that he was ugly? Gimli's eyes narrowed dangerously, yet before he could retort, Legolas had spoken: 'Your looks instigate all but fear in us. We merely decided it was best giving you a chance to explain yourselves before we─'
'Killed you!' Gimli interjected.
'Kill us? Why?' the troll leader asked, and his companions began to growl low. The female troll in the pink dress lifted the hem of her skirt, a posture that signaled her readiness to attack.
'Because you are ugly, disgusting little things, that's why!' the dwarf snapped raucously. The trolls tripped backwards as Gimli's sound waves hit them like a bullet, almost causing them to fly off their petite feet.
Legolas placed a firm hand on his companion's chest.
The troll leader laughed. 'And who are you, monstrous, unshaven giant?'
The dwarf's breath was grey smoke. 'I will answer your questions once you are dead and cold,' he told, swinging his axe threateningly.
The trolls shrieked with laugher, until the leader brought their amusement to a stop by lifting his hands up in the air and speaking: 'Listen up, lads, I am Gustav, King of the Lucky Troll Kingdom,' he began, and Gimli puffed at his carelessness. 'This is my wife, Treasure, queen of the Lucky Troll Kingdom,' Gustav went on, and the troll in the pink dress bowed to them all the while picking her nose greedily. 'This is my brother, Wishnik,' Gustav motioned to the nude troll who readied to thrust his hips again, but was smacked by Treasure who reminded him that Legolas and Gimli were men and not women. 'And this is Gonk, my manservant. He is mute.' The troll in the yellow overalls smiled dumbly at them.
Gimli snorted. 'The Lucky Troll Kingdom? What on Middle Earth is that? Some kind of devilry?'
'Middle Earth?' Gustav repeated, his long lashes fluttering.
'Middle Earth. That is where you are now,' Legolas clarified, highly entertained by the queer beings.
'Middle Earth? We are in Middle Earth? This is not possible,' Gustav said and his expression grew bamboozled.
'You are,' Legolas answered.
'Are you sure?' Gustav let out in bafflement, his pointy hat quivering atop his head.
Gimli refused to grant the troll leader with an answer, but Legolas did, and he answered positively.
'Wait. You mean, Middle Earth populated by elves, dwarves and hobbits?' Gustav listed. Legolas nodded. 'But how is this possible?' posed Gustav. 'We are not supposed to be in Middle Earth? This was not part of the plan!' cried he.
Legolas and Gimli exchanged wary glances; seemingly, they had to face other types of lunatics, for destiny had not judged the witch to be enough.
From his yellow overalls, Gonk, the mute manservant, revealed a piece of chalk and a small portable blackboard on which he wrote: 'Middle Earth! It is a land unconquered! Let us conquer it!'
Gustav rolled his eyes and ignored the message.
'He's right, brother! Let's conquer this mother!' cheered Wishnik who was instantly punched by Gustav. Wishnik fell to the ground. 'Middle Earth is not a land unconquered you demons! Aragorn is the King of most of it. Do you ever read the history of the other dimensions?' Gustav chided his company.
Gustav turned to Legolas. 'My lad,' he began. 'How can this be possible? We trolls from the Lucky Troll Kingdom can teleport ourselves to different kingdoms and planets, but only those within our dimension, as it is impossible for us to travel to another dimension. This isn't right!'
'If you cannot travel to other dimensions, how come you seem to know about Middle Earth?' Legolas inquired, much intrigued. Gimli held out an ear, listening to the conversation despite pretending he was not.
'That would be thanks to the Great Wise Travelling Wizards; those who embody magic and belong to no universe. They visit our dimension every hundred years or so, and bring us tales, objects and ideas from the other lands. Yours is one greatly admired by them,' Gustav explained briefly. Legolas nodded; that was very well possible.
'We teleported ourselves and were supposed to land in Brownie,' Treasure, the Troll queen confessed at last.
'This situation doesn't make any sense!' Gustav let out. 'How is it possible for us to be here, in another dimension, light-years away from ours when we have no capacity to do so?'
Silence.
'Some doors in space must have been opened, and it swallowed us in when we were travelling,' Treasure deducted.
'That is impossible,' Gustav said. 'The doors between dimensions are always locked,' he finished.
'Face it bro: somebody somewhere opened them and that's that,' Wishnik concluded, his tone reigned by great boredom.
Silence.
Gustav addressed Legolas: 'Where in Middle Earth are we exactly?'
'In the Brown Lands,' the elf replied. He was growing more and more uncomfortable with the turn of events for he did not understand the troll's conversation. Something odd was happening, and he was ready to bet it was only the tip of the iceberg.
'We must go home!' Treasure cried. 'We cannot stay here!' She turned to Gonk, the mute manservant in the yellow overalls: 'Give me the compass!' she demanded.
Gonk shook his head several times in refusal.
Treasure addressed him anew, her tone darker this time: 'why not?'
Gonk pulled out a piece of chalk and a small blackboard and wrote: 'Uhmm, Uhmm.'
'What did you say?' Treasure asked warningly, a flame of ire flickering in her eye. Gonk ran a hand through his green hair. He wrote: 'I said, Uhmm, Uhmm.'
Treasure flew off the handle. 'I know what you said. But that is not going to be good enough. Where is the compass? Hand it over now!'
All eyes landed on the mute manservant. 'Where is the compass, Gonk?' Gustav asked in turn when the manservant chose to remain silent.
Gonk shifted from foot to foot, his expression overflowing with anguish.
'Gonk,' began Treasure. 'Where is the compass? Our only hope to get out of here.'
A wordless Gonk pulled out from his pants a golden device; a crystal sphere, a golden arrow at its center. However, the crystal, as well as the arrow were broken. Treasure's shrieked in horror. Gustav bellowed: 'What have you done, you freak? You broke it! You sat on it! Now it will take us I don't know how long to repair this mother f─'
'No cursing, Gustav,' Treasure reprimanded her husband who growled and grasped the sphere from a shameful Gonk's hands. He inspected the glass; it was utterly shattered, and it would take months of hard spells to repair it.
Legolas and Gimli only watched as the trolls began to debate on how they were going to mend this disaster. Legolas wished to question them about the dimensions, yet he taught it best to be quite for a while; the trolls did not seem dangerous, yet something had to be done about their presence here in Middle Earth.
Meanwhile, Christine was in pain. She was losing blood, and as the gag prevented her from speaking, she began to wriggle dementedly in an attempt to draw attention to herself. It worked. The trolls glanced curiously at her. Gustav marched towards Christine and inspected her face; he did not know what to make of it; any distinguishing features pertaining to her visage were lost under thick brown mire. 'Even though I'm facing quite an ordeal with Gonk's stupidity, I can't help but ask myself: what is your prisoner? An ogre?'
Legolas glanced at the girl twisting like a worm swimming in a swamp. He smirked, 'yes,' he agreed. 'In fact, you have in front of you the emperor of ogres. It too has travelled through space.'
Christine emitted screeches of horror and she cursed at him, but her words were absolutely muffled, much to Legolas' great delight.
Wishnik, the nudist troll clapped his hands together approvingly: 'Ah, excellent. I loathe ogres, they are so unreliable.'
'Indeed, they always lie,' Treasure, the queen of Trolls annexed.
Gonk wrote: 'Yeah.'
Legolas took pity on Christine and removed the gag. 'I am not an ogre! I am a witch!' she shouted instantly.
'Only an ogre would revel in the dirt as you do,' Gustav pointed out. 'Look at you; you don't even try to get up from it.'
Christine's chin quavered with rage. 'I do not revel in the dirt,' she retorted, standing to her full height and placing a lock of dry mud-covered hair behind her ear. 'They are the ones who pushed me in there. And they shot an arrow at me!' she accused Legolas and Gimli.
'Quiet, ogre,' Legolas demanded casually.
'This is no way to talk to an emperor,' Christine shotback. 'I will curse you!' she vowed and went to stand by a mute Gimli who was still angry at the trolls.
Legolas laughed at her. 'What spell could you possibly cast upon me, little witch?' he let out disparagingly before turning his attention to the visitors. 'Now where were we?' Legolas questioned the trolls.
'We are in Middle Earth,' Gustav reminded. Legolas nodded. 'And you should know that we are the first trolls to set foot outside our dimension. So let's make this trip worthwhile then,' Gustav offered, clapping in glee. Legolas tilted his head confusedly. 'We shall take the three of you as prisoners, right now.'
'Yeah!' rejoiced Treasure and Wishnik.
Gonk wrote ecstatically: 'I always wanted a slave!'
'Well, you get three of them now!' Gustav replied enthusiastically.
Legolas threw his head back and laughed.
'I would like to see you try, little villains,' Gimli said and advanced the small party of trolls, his axe in hand, his expression menacing.
'And so you shall,' Gustav promised, his tone mysterious.
Gustav swung his wand and the trolls vanished in a puff of smoke, only to reappear seconds later: Gustav on Gimli's back, Gonk and Wishnik on Legolas' shoulders and Treasure by Christine's side. Christine and Treasure could not help but smile timidly at each other.
'Teleportation skills do not scare me!' Gimli bellowed, spinning on himself like a dervish, trying to detach the troll from him. Legolas did not move, and only folded his arms across his chest, rolling his eyes as Gonk and Wishnik marveled before the beauty of his hair. 'Where did you get those golden locks?' Wishnik asked, marveling at its glimmer and softness. 'You'd have to ask my father,' Legolas answered casually, laughing at Gimli's noisy manifestation of fury.
Meanwhile, Treasure addressed Christine: 'I will free you if you fight at our side, ogre.'
Christine heaved an exasperated sigh. 'Look, I know you don't see a woman in me in this state, but please, I am not─' Christine began. She straightened her posture. 'Oh what the hell!' she dismissed, 'sure, free me and I'll fight with you.'
Treasure barely had time to attend Christine's bounds that Legolas had grasped her by the hair and lifted her upwards. Treasure screamed, her little feet beating thin air.
'Ey! Put my wife down now!' Gustav commanded indignantly. Treasure flailed her arms, trying to slap Legolas, but to no avail. 'I said, put her down or I will use my most powerful magic against you!' Gustav warned hysterically. Legolas smirked at him, and did not release the little one.
Gustav lifted his wand into the air, and chanted in a foreign language; Christine could have sworn it was Danish. Wind began to blow hard. A wall of dandelions formed into the distance, and it was suddenly blown into by a strong gale. The dandelions shot towards Legolas, and their seeds unhooking themselves from the globes washed over him.
Silence. All waited with bated breath for what was going to happen next.
The dwarf sneezed noisily. Legolas stood silent, still holding Treasure by the hair. He scrunched his nose slightly.
Silence.
'That's it?' Gimli asked after sometime.
The Gustav looked down at his bare feet. 'Yes. That's it. We have no great spells. They are more like little tricks, you see. I was hoping you'd be allergic,' Gustav confessed, 'and our teleportation skills only work through very short distances. We can only travel through time and space with the compass. But it's broken now…' he said and after remaining quite for a little while, his large eyes came to meet that of Legolas. 'Do you take prisoners?' he asked timidly.
'Gonk is a very good cook,' Treasure affirmed tremblingly, her small hands going to her frightened face. Legolas smiled at her, and Treasure promptly smiled dreamingly in return. Legolas placed Treasure down and she quickly came to stand behind her husband.
'We are not just any trolls, you know,' Gustav noted, 'we are good luck trolls. We bring luck and good fortune. Killing us would be a waste.'
Gimli came closer to the elf and whispered in his ear. 'Let us be rid of them, Legolas. They would only get in our way. We already have one prisoner to take care of,' he said in a tone he thought to be quiet but that was actually incredibly loud. 'Let us attach them to rocks and throw them in the lake!'
Legolas pondered the question for a while.
'Please don't kill us! We've done you no harm!'
'You tried to enslave us!' Gimli bellowed.
'No we didn't!' Gustav countered.
'Don't lie, my treasure,' Treasure told her husband.
'We shall return to our home immediately! The compass! Where is the compass?' Gustav whirled to Gonk. 'Quick, now!'
Gonk shifted from foot to foot. Treasure slapped a hand on Gustav's shoulder. 'He broke it, remember,' she whispered.
Gunstav's eyes went green with ire as they fixed Gonk. 'What are we going to do now? We need time to repair this and we've got no time!'
Legolas spoke: 'King Gustav, Queen Treasure, I propose you join us, we are heading back to my father's realm. There you may remain till you find a solution to your ordeal. The Brown Lands are not safe for you to wander around aimlessly, especially now that they crawl with orcs and goblins. And I can assure you, these foes do not fear dandelions.'
The dwarf growled low. 'Why do you ask me my opinion if you never take it into consideration?'
'I did not ask for your opinion. And whenever I do ask for it, I always take it into careful consideration, for if it is a decision that comes from you, I know it is no good at all and that I should find a way to do the exact opposite.'
Before the dwarf could cry out words of hate and betrayal, Legolas addressed the trolls: 'So, what say you, King Gustav?'
Gimli had his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes burned the back of Legolas' skull.
The trolls looked at each other, and then at the unknown lands and unknown skies stretching around and above them. Without further ado, they nodded their consent. 'Please, call me Gustav,' the troll leader invited.
'Call me Legolas,' replied the elf, and both he and Gustav nodded at each other pacifically.
'Ey,' said Gustav suddenly. 'Where is the emperor of ogres?'
'Who?' Gimli answered, his eyes rounding.
'The witch,' Legolas replied, 'where has she gone to now?'
