Disclaimer: a blank look followed by eyes narrowed in suspicion What,
you mean I'm NOT getting paid for this? Damn that Mouth of Sauron, he told
me all rights would be granted to me if I………no, you don't need to know
that. Let's just say he lied, and I still don't own anything. Phooey!
Murphy's Law is Alive and Well in Mordor
The hobbits and their unlikely human companion walked well into the night. They paused seldom, and then only for brief sips of water. An urgency was on them, a sense of time running out. The hobbits didn't know where it came from, but Mary Sue did. She'd read the books repeatedly. She knew damn well Frodo was succumbing to the corruption of the Ring. Hell, she could see it happening in his face and posture. The poor thing was drawn and haggard, bent double with the weight of the damn Ring. He had huge dark circles under his eyes. Mary Sue swore the lines on his face grew deeper hourly. It broke her heart.
Nor was she the only one to see it. Sam positively hovered over his master, supporting him when he stumbled, which was often. The worry lines in Sam's face were nearly as deep as the tension lines in Frodo's. Mary Sue was anxious about both of them, but there was jack shit she could do for them. It bothered her. This whole situation bothered her.
She'd briefly considered offering to lug the Ring for Frodo, just for a little while. Thankfully, she came to her senses and kept her mouth shut. She could just picture the scene in her imagination:
"Jesus, Frodo, you look like shit. Want me to carry that thing for you a bit? Give you a break?" she'd offer.
"NO! Thief! You can't have it! It's MINE," Frodo would scream.
Then Mary Sue's frayed temper would snap, she'd slam Frodo up against one of her handy-dandy rocks and hiss at him "Dammit, Baggins! I don't put up with attitude from my kid, nevermind a hairy-footed half-pint like you! I don't care how evil the Ring is or how tortured it makes you, if you EVER talk to me like that again I will pop your head like a zit!!"
Then Sam would hamstring her for manhandling his master, and that would suck. So Mary Sue's seldom-used better judgment prevailed and she kept her idiot offer to herself. Besides, wouldn't that just be the height of hubris to think she could be Ringbearer instead of the main character? She liked to think she wasn't THAT far gone in Mary Sue-dom. Yet.
As she daydreamed about the catastrophe that couldn't happen, she wasn't paying attention to any that could. So when the sinkhole opened under her feet, she obediently fell right in. She tumbled ass-over- teakettle, hitting every rock in creation on the way down. She landed with a thud, a pop, a crack and a scream.
"Are you all right?" Sam called from the top of the sinkhole. He kept Frodo back from the edge, proving Sam was still the brains of this operation. Mary Sue certainly wasn't!
"No, I'm not fucking all right!!" she screamed, not recognizing Sam's brains-of-the-operation status. She was in massive amounts of pain, stuck at the bottom of a sinkhole in Gorgoroth and this idiot was asking if she's all right??? She would have cheerfully throttled Sam if only she could reach him.
"What's wrong?" Frodo asked softly.
Mary Sue was astonished to hear his voice. He hadn't strung two words together since their last real stop. She managed to pull herself together long enough to answer his question.
"Feels like my hip dislocated," she hissed thru gritted teeth. "And I'm soaked through. I think the water bottle broke."
"Can you climb out?" Sam wanted to know.
Mary Sue just managed to bite back a snide comment. "Not without a rope,' she said instead. "Even then, I'm not sure I can manage," she continued, grunting in pain between her words.
Sam cursed himself for a ninnyhammer. He got out their length of elvish rope, one of the few things he'd kept after abandoning his gear shortly before meeting Mary Sue. He tied one end around a convenient rock (Sam was beginning to see what Mary Sue meant when she'd commented that the rocks of Gorgoroth were her new best friends) and lowered the other end down to the fallen human. Frodo, meanwhile, had fallen to his hands and knees, giving in to his extreme weariness.
"What the hell is going on up there?" Mary Sue bellowed as Sam worked. She'd never handled pain well, though she dislocated that bad hip on a semi-regular basis. The deprivation of the last couple of days coupled with the Dali-esque quality of the whole thing made her low tolerance for pain even lower. She was hurt, tired, hungry, bitchy and homesick, and she took it out on poor Sam. Mary Sue could be a real asshole at times.
Just as she was bitching, the rope came flying down and smacked her on the nose. Mary Sue let off an unprintable oath that the hobbits thankfully didn't understand. She grabbed the rope and tried to haul herself up. Problem was, yoga classes aside, her upper body strength was that of a modern American couch potato. She got nowhere fast.
"Dammit, Sam, this isn't working!" she screamed. Panic was setting in.
"I don't think I'm strong enough to pull you up," Sam pointed out.
"Then get Frodo to help! Just get me the hell out of here!" If she kept screaming like this she could add a sore throat to her list of hurts. On the upside, she still had cough drops if it came to that.
Sam glanced back at Frodo, so pathetic on all fours. "Mr. Frodo is in no condition to help now," he said.
"I don't care WHAT kind of condition Frodo's in! Get me the flying fuck out of here NOW!!" Mary Sue really WAS an asshole sometimes.
Sam was ready to leave this troublesome female where she was. Not care about Mr. Frodo, indeed! He knew she was bad news from the moment he'd set eyes on her.
Just as Sam was about to walk away, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. Frodo had pulled himself out of his misery. "I will help," he said quietly.
Though soft, Frodo's voice carried. Mary Sue heard him from the bottom of the sinkhole. "Hell yeah!! You go Frodo! Now get me out of here!!" she hollered.
With much effort, grunting and swearing on Mary Sue's part, they eventually hauled her out. To be fair, she did pull herself hand-over-hand as much as she was able, but the hobbits did most of the work. Actually, Sam did most of the work.
The problems weren't over once she was on solid ground. Her dislocated hip still had to be popped back in, as well as any other damage assessed and dealt with. Things looked likely to get worse before they got better. IF they ever got better. Abruptly, the whole stupid situation just got to Mary Sue. She looked up at the hobbits and began to cry. "I'm sorry…..I don't…..go on….."she babbled.
Frodo and Sam glanced at each other. Both of them had other concerns on their minds, with no energy to spare for Mary Sue's egocentric ramblings. They didn't know what to say, so they said nothing.
After a few minutes, she calmed down, took a deep breath and looked at Sam. "I need your help," she said simply, gesturing to her popped hip.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
Mary Sue gulped. This was not going to be fun. "Basically, I need you to pop my hip back in so I can walk again. I can't go anywhere like this."
"How?" Sam wanted to know.
She thought about it. Normally, when she blew her bad hip, the nearest brawny male would pull it back into place and she'd be fine in a few minutes. That obviously was not going to work with 3'6" worth of hobbit doing the pulling. A different approach was needed. Then she remembered Mel Gibson in one of the Lethal Weapon movies. He'd banged his shoulder in on a wall. Maybe if 3'6" worth of hobbit jumped on her at the right angle, the ground could serve in lieu of a wall. It was a crappy solution, but the only one she could think of at the moment. Certainly it was better than lying here in pain!
When she explained her plan, Sam looked doubtful. Frodo had no comment, he'd retreated back into his dark fixation with the Ring. Mary Sue was none too thrilled herself. This was going to hurt like hell, assuming it worked. If not……she didn't even want to think about that.
"Just do it, Sam! I can't be any worse off than I am now," she demanded when he protested the plan.
The logic of that swayed him. Sam clambered up a rock. "What IS it with these rocks?" Mary Sue wondered in a brief aside as she pulled herself into place. Sam jumped, landing square on her hip.
"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! Jesus, that hurts!" she screamed. It worked, though. At least, she heard her hip pop back into place. She awkwardly hauled herself up, using the rock as a prop. Her leg collapsed when she put her weight on it. Of course.
The hobbits looked on in sympathy as Mary Sue tried again. And again. And one more time. Each time, she couldn't put her full weight on her leg without collapsing. This was not good. She should at least be able to stand by now, if not exactly run a marathon. Crap.
"Oh, screw it!" she finally exclaimed in disgust. "Let's just crash here for the night and set out in the morning. I'm sure things will be better then."
Nobody actually believed that, of course, but it sounded good. Besides, Frodo was in no shape to go on. Sam was not much better. The darkness was so complete they couldn't see three feet in front of their faces anyway. All in all, the three of them were hurtin' units.
Murphy's Law wasn't quite finished with them, however. There was still one nasty surprise left. Everyone already knew the tequila bottle had broken. The water it held was now soaking Mary Sue's pants, mixed with blood from the cuts it so nicely bestowed while breaking. Now, they discovered the cheap-ass vanity flask that held the back-up water had popped open in the fall. There was no water left whatsoever. Frodo, Sam and Mary Sue were screwed.
Murphy's Law is Alive and Well in Mordor
The hobbits and their unlikely human companion walked well into the night. They paused seldom, and then only for brief sips of water. An urgency was on them, a sense of time running out. The hobbits didn't know where it came from, but Mary Sue did. She'd read the books repeatedly. She knew damn well Frodo was succumbing to the corruption of the Ring. Hell, she could see it happening in his face and posture. The poor thing was drawn and haggard, bent double with the weight of the damn Ring. He had huge dark circles under his eyes. Mary Sue swore the lines on his face grew deeper hourly. It broke her heart.
Nor was she the only one to see it. Sam positively hovered over his master, supporting him when he stumbled, which was often. The worry lines in Sam's face were nearly as deep as the tension lines in Frodo's. Mary Sue was anxious about both of them, but there was jack shit she could do for them. It bothered her. This whole situation bothered her.
She'd briefly considered offering to lug the Ring for Frodo, just for a little while. Thankfully, she came to her senses and kept her mouth shut. She could just picture the scene in her imagination:
"Jesus, Frodo, you look like shit. Want me to carry that thing for you a bit? Give you a break?" she'd offer.
"NO! Thief! You can't have it! It's MINE," Frodo would scream.
Then Mary Sue's frayed temper would snap, she'd slam Frodo up against one of her handy-dandy rocks and hiss at him "Dammit, Baggins! I don't put up with attitude from my kid, nevermind a hairy-footed half-pint like you! I don't care how evil the Ring is or how tortured it makes you, if you EVER talk to me like that again I will pop your head like a zit!!"
Then Sam would hamstring her for manhandling his master, and that would suck. So Mary Sue's seldom-used better judgment prevailed and she kept her idiot offer to herself. Besides, wouldn't that just be the height of hubris to think she could be Ringbearer instead of the main character? She liked to think she wasn't THAT far gone in Mary Sue-dom. Yet.
As she daydreamed about the catastrophe that couldn't happen, she wasn't paying attention to any that could. So when the sinkhole opened under her feet, she obediently fell right in. She tumbled ass-over- teakettle, hitting every rock in creation on the way down. She landed with a thud, a pop, a crack and a scream.
"Are you all right?" Sam called from the top of the sinkhole. He kept Frodo back from the edge, proving Sam was still the brains of this operation. Mary Sue certainly wasn't!
"No, I'm not fucking all right!!" she screamed, not recognizing Sam's brains-of-the-operation status. She was in massive amounts of pain, stuck at the bottom of a sinkhole in Gorgoroth and this idiot was asking if she's all right??? She would have cheerfully throttled Sam if only she could reach him.
"What's wrong?" Frodo asked softly.
Mary Sue was astonished to hear his voice. He hadn't strung two words together since their last real stop. She managed to pull herself together long enough to answer his question.
"Feels like my hip dislocated," she hissed thru gritted teeth. "And I'm soaked through. I think the water bottle broke."
"Can you climb out?" Sam wanted to know.
Mary Sue just managed to bite back a snide comment. "Not without a rope,' she said instead. "Even then, I'm not sure I can manage," she continued, grunting in pain between her words.
Sam cursed himself for a ninnyhammer. He got out their length of elvish rope, one of the few things he'd kept after abandoning his gear shortly before meeting Mary Sue. He tied one end around a convenient rock (Sam was beginning to see what Mary Sue meant when she'd commented that the rocks of Gorgoroth were her new best friends) and lowered the other end down to the fallen human. Frodo, meanwhile, had fallen to his hands and knees, giving in to his extreme weariness.
"What the hell is going on up there?" Mary Sue bellowed as Sam worked. She'd never handled pain well, though she dislocated that bad hip on a semi-regular basis. The deprivation of the last couple of days coupled with the Dali-esque quality of the whole thing made her low tolerance for pain even lower. She was hurt, tired, hungry, bitchy and homesick, and she took it out on poor Sam. Mary Sue could be a real asshole at times.
Just as she was bitching, the rope came flying down and smacked her on the nose. Mary Sue let off an unprintable oath that the hobbits thankfully didn't understand. She grabbed the rope and tried to haul herself up. Problem was, yoga classes aside, her upper body strength was that of a modern American couch potato. She got nowhere fast.
"Dammit, Sam, this isn't working!" she screamed. Panic was setting in.
"I don't think I'm strong enough to pull you up," Sam pointed out.
"Then get Frodo to help! Just get me the hell out of here!" If she kept screaming like this she could add a sore throat to her list of hurts. On the upside, she still had cough drops if it came to that.
Sam glanced back at Frodo, so pathetic on all fours. "Mr. Frodo is in no condition to help now," he said.
"I don't care WHAT kind of condition Frodo's in! Get me the flying fuck out of here NOW!!" Mary Sue really WAS an asshole sometimes.
Sam was ready to leave this troublesome female where she was. Not care about Mr. Frodo, indeed! He knew she was bad news from the moment he'd set eyes on her.
Just as Sam was about to walk away, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. Frodo had pulled himself out of his misery. "I will help," he said quietly.
Though soft, Frodo's voice carried. Mary Sue heard him from the bottom of the sinkhole. "Hell yeah!! You go Frodo! Now get me out of here!!" she hollered.
With much effort, grunting and swearing on Mary Sue's part, they eventually hauled her out. To be fair, she did pull herself hand-over-hand as much as she was able, but the hobbits did most of the work. Actually, Sam did most of the work.
The problems weren't over once she was on solid ground. Her dislocated hip still had to be popped back in, as well as any other damage assessed and dealt with. Things looked likely to get worse before they got better. IF they ever got better. Abruptly, the whole stupid situation just got to Mary Sue. She looked up at the hobbits and began to cry. "I'm sorry…..I don't…..go on….."she babbled.
Frodo and Sam glanced at each other. Both of them had other concerns on their minds, with no energy to spare for Mary Sue's egocentric ramblings. They didn't know what to say, so they said nothing.
After a few minutes, she calmed down, took a deep breath and looked at Sam. "I need your help," she said simply, gesturing to her popped hip.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
Mary Sue gulped. This was not going to be fun. "Basically, I need you to pop my hip back in so I can walk again. I can't go anywhere like this."
"How?" Sam wanted to know.
She thought about it. Normally, when she blew her bad hip, the nearest brawny male would pull it back into place and she'd be fine in a few minutes. That obviously was not going to work with 3'6" worth of hobbit doing the pulling. A different approach was needed. Then she remembered Mel Gibson in one of the Lethal Weapon movies. He'd banged his shoulder in on a wall. Maybe if 3'6" worth of hobbit jumped on her at the right angle, the ground could serve in lieu of a wall. It was a crappy solution, but the only one she could think of at the moment. Certainly it was better than lying here in pain!
When she explained her plan, Sam looked doubtful. Frodo had no comment, he'd retreated back into his dark fixation with the Ring. Mary Sue was none too thrilled herself. This was going to hurt like hell, assuming it worked. If not……she didn't even want to think about that.
"Just do it, Sam! I can't be any worse off than I am now," she demanded when he protested the plan.
The logic of that swayed him. Sam clambered up a rock. "What IS it with these rocks?" Mary Sue wondered in a brief aside as she pulled herself into place. Sam jumped, landing square on her hip.
"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! Jesus, that hurts!" she screamed. It worked, though. At least, she heard her hip pop back into place. She awkwardly hauled herself up, using the rock as a prop. Her leg collapsed when she put her weight on it. Of course.
The hobbits looked on in sympathy as Mary Sue tried again. And again. And one more time. Each time, she couldn't put her full weight on her leg without collapsing. This was not good. She should at least be able to stand by now, if not exactly run a marathon. Crap.
"Oh, screw it!" she finally exclaimed in disgust. "Let's just crash here for the night and set out in the morning. I'm sure things will be better then."
Nobody actually believed that, of course, but it sounded good. Besides, Frodo was in no shape to go on. Sam was not much better. The darkness was so complete they couldn't see three feet in front of their faces anyway. All in all, the three of them were hurtin' units.
Murphy's Law wasn't quite finished with them, however. There was still one nasty surprise left. Everyone already knew the tequila bottle had broken. The water it held was now soaking Mary Sue's pants, mixed with blood from the cuts it so nicely bestowed while breaking. Now, they discovered the cheap-ass vanity flask that held the back-up water had popped open in the fall. There was no water left whatsoever. Frodo, Sam and Mary Sue were screwed.