They were not riding long when Legolas awoke once again, finally sober and quite awake. The first thing out of his fair mouth was,
"Good god!" Silver reared in terror and everyone fell off. Aragorn was first to his feet, and he pulled Legolas up with him, hands twisted in his fair Elven tunic and shaking him roughly.
"What was that for, you drunken Elf? You nearly killed all of us!" he noticed that Legolas was not looking at him, just upward. He turned around to see a tower that mocked the sky's brilliance with it's height, and at the very top there was a fair maiden. A fair Elf maiden. "I see why you screamed, Legolas…" he murmmured, leaving Legolas with the Hobbits as he approached it.
"Actually, there were ants in my pants.." Legolas said a little to himself, not thinking anyone was really paying attention. "They kept biting me and crawling around."
"Yours too?" Merry asked, and the two turned away to try and rid themselves and their pants of the ants.
Meanwhile, Aragorn looked up at the window in the tower. "Hello there! Fair maiden, hear my words if you can. Are you alright up there?"
"Yes, I am – will you help me down?" the reply was like a strum of Legolas' guitar on the crisp winter breeze – her voice made the Lone Ranger's heart flutter into a thousand butterflies; all trapped in his stomach. And when she looked down at him (though the distance was far) he nearly drowned in the blueness of her eyes.
"Dearest Maiden, tell me your name!"
Once again the wind carried her voice to his ear. "Arwen – I set out to find adventure some years ago but was trapped in this tower by the evil Dragon of the North. Will you help me down?"
"I will try my utmost best, my dear! Death itself would have to pull me from this new quest I have received from you!" Aragorn called up, and Legolas was at his side, peering into the tower.
"I say, who is that, Aragorn my friend?"
Aragorn beamed. "An angel, my dear Legolas. I must find a way to get her down, and nothing will stop me!"
"I thought you could only be pulled from the deodorant quest by death or pierogi, friend Aragorn." Legolas reminded him, scratching his head. The Hobbit's were soon at his heels.
Aragorn blushed a little. "Well I'm sure we have time to help a dear lady down from a tower." he turned back to the tower and shaded his eyes from the glaring sun. "It is not so high, then, is it?" The Hobbits fell over trying to look at it, and Legolas just took a swig of his drink and patted Aragorn on the back.
They stood there for about five minutes and gazed up at the tower (the Hobbits had stacked themselves up).
After a minute, Frodo said, "How…umm…how are we going to get her down?"
"A ladder!" exclaimed Pippin from his post at the top of the Hobbit stack. "We can climb a ladder to the fair maiden!"
Merry reached up and smacked him. "And just where do you suppose we're going to find a ladder?! Think before you speak, dolt!"
"I was a middle child!" wailed Legolas from somewhere, and they heard him take a long swig of his drink. "So what if I'm different? Did it really hurt Elrond that I liked crispy glitter?!" Aragorn and the Hobbits stared for a moment, then drew their attention back to the fair damsel and kept thinking.
"I've got it!" Sam said out of the silence, and all heads turned to look at him. He opened his mouth, paused, then closed it again. "I forgot."
A groan went through the five of them. Somewhere in the distance a cricket chriped, and the sound of rushing water boomed in the silence. And the hours passed like days, only glances and shrugs were exchanged between the Hobbits and humans.
A little ways off, Legolas was arguing with an odd-looking Peanut Salesman.
"It's preposterous! You cannot possibly be going to Albertsons!" he leaned in and whispered harshly, "It does not exist yet!"
"I don't care, allow me to pass!" the peanut salesman demanded. It looked like a creature more than a person, except the fact that it was dressed in a clean-cut suit and had it's thin white hair combed off to the side and it's long skinny fingers wrapped around a briefcase. But it had the face of an old woman. "Move, Elf! I must speak with the Lone Ranger!"
Legolas shook his head and stood his ground; not out of bitterness, just because he could feel something strange about this Peanut Salesman. "I am sorry, miss, but I cannot let even a harmless old woman pass – for my friend Aragorn is deep in thought."
The old woman/creature growled a little. "And if I do pass? What will you do about it? Cry me to death, you useless piece of guitar playing Elf?!"
Legolas' bottom lip trembled a little, but he stood his ground still. His voice shook with hurt as he spoke, and he sniffled and blinked back tears. "What do you want to speak with him about?"
"I want to sell him some peanuts, of course!" he shoved Legolas to the side. "Out of my way!"
Suddenly there was a little poke in the peanut salesman's back, and he/she turned to see Legolas with his bow bent, and two arrows aimed at it's kidneys. Just at that moment Aragorn jogged up with the Hobbit's trailing him.
"What is this, Legolas? Why are you threatening this old woman?" he asked, wrapping his fingers around Legolas' arrows and pulling them off to the side. The Elf just looked from Aragorn to the oldwoman…thing and back again. "What do you want, you old crone?"
The peanut salesman pulled out some peanuts and shoved them into Aragorn's palm. "Here. Eat that." Aragorn looked down at the nuts he was given, then peered closer into the face of the salesman. It was not her/his real face, but a paper plate tied to the thing's head!
"You fraud!" he shouted, tearing the paper plate off and casting it aside. "Baegel! You foul creature!" He threw the peanuts down onto the ground, and when they hit they turned into little mini-grenades and exploded. "They were wretched with poison! I should cut you down to size right here, right now, vial aberration!"
Gollum just kind of stood there, and Legolas bent his bow and Aragorn drew his sword and the Hobbits pulled their spoons out. It was definitely a stand-off.
Then, suddenly, Gollum pointed to somewhere behind them, "What's that?! It's horrible!"
All the warriors turned with their weapons aimed at whatever Gollum pointed at (which happened to be the real peanut salesman) but realized there was nothing horrible there. Feeling quite dull-witted, they all turned on Gollum again, but he had fled. They saw his little form running off into the forrest.
"Legolas! Pursue him!" Aragorn commanded, and the Elf half-heartedly sprang up on Silver like any other two ounce Elf and followed Baegol into the forrest. The Hobbits and Aragorn looked after him, until he disappeared behind the corner of the trees.
"Hello?" cried Arwen from the tower. "Are you going to help me down?"
"Yes, we will, my dear lady!" Aragorn shouted up to her. "As soon as we find a way!"
"Well while we're waiting for your friend Legolas," offered the maiden in the tower, "Let us play charades!"
--- --- ---
Legolas was so somewhat passionate about his pursue of Gollum that he accidently ran Silver into the very middle of a deep river. The water swallowed the horse and rider up to the neck of Silver, and the cold water flooded up the Elf's legs and finally met him at waist height. Gollum was nowhere to be seen.
"I told you I was useless, Silver," he said, steering the horse into the direction of the bank. "I can't even concentrate on the road!" The horse snorted and made other frusterated horsey noises. Eventually he bucked Legolas off, but it didn't make much of a difference because the water broke his fall and he never even went under.
They both crawled up the bank, cold, wet and shaking. The horse sat it's rear down first and Legolas followed, resting his chin on his palm. Something creaked in the distance, and it made Legolas move swiftly to his feet. Well, a little less than swiftly in truth, seeing as how his pants were now wet and tighter than before (ladies control yourselves!).
Suddenly, "What is an Elf doing by the Red Rivers?"
"I don't know!"
"Well ask him!"
Legolas spun around with the speed of summer lightening, the ends of his hair sending a little helicopter effect of water all over the place. He fumbled around for his bow and quiver, but it was not on his back. He had left them with Aragorn! He backed away from the two brothers watching him.
"I am the guardian of the Red Rivers, Elf." the bigger one, Boromir said, bowing swiftly. "This is my brother. Faramir. You must know that you're on sacred grounds, my good Elf." Faramir waved, but Boromir stepped up and drew his sword.
Legolas shook his head and shoved his hands in his oh-too-tight-pockets. "I umm…no, I didn't know. You see this horse and I were pursuing the creature Baegel…and we fell in…I think."
Boromir made a face and reeled back into Faramir. "The creature Baegel? Was that what we smelled, brother?"
Faramir nodded. "I believe so, brother. But wherever he may have been he is long gone now." he pointed to Legolas and Silver. "What do we do with that chap?"
"I don't know."
"Well think of something!"
Boromir looked up to the sky to think for a minute when he heard the pounding of hoofs on Earth and turned around to see that the Elf had fled. His horse was swimming across the river, and he was following it. Boromir and Faramir exchanged glances, then whistled for their horses and followed him.
--- --- ---
"Where's Legolas?"
"He'll be back, pay attention Pippin!" Aragorn told the hobbit, and they all focused on Frodo again. He had his arms out to the sides and had little branches in his hands – and he was holding perfectly still. Aragorn narrowed his eyes in concentration. "Are you a peanut salesman, Frodo?"
The hobbit rolled his eyes. "Keep guessing."
"A rat!" Arwen called from the tower.
"No!" Frodo called back.
Sam was cooking and thinking at the same time. The contents in the frying pan gave him an idea, "Are you an egg?"
Frodo exhaled through his nose in frusteration. "No! I am not an egg, I'm not! Do I look like an egg, Sam?!" Sam just stared at him and drooled a little, then went back to his cooking. Merry was tracing ideas in the dirt with a spoon. Pippin was leaning on Merry and staring at Sam's food and Aragorn could not stop thinking of the Lady Arwen.
Arwen wasn't sure what she was doing; all she knew was that whatever the numbskulls (and extremely handsome ranger) were doing down there it was taking a long time. She leaned over the window and called out the Lone Ranger below.
"My good Lone Ranger, you are the bravest man I have met in these lands…but tell me: when are you going to rescue me from this tower?" she tried to see if she could see down a little further, but the tower was just too high up. "My dear ranger, can you hear a word I'm saying?"
Aragorn looked up, "M'lady, if Legolas comes back empty handed then I shall climb the tower myself and bring you back down!"
Arwen's heart jumped. "You would do that for me?"
"Of course, my m'lady!"
Arwen smiled brilliantly and clasped her hands together. "Oh, I feel so happy…I would kiss you right now, if I were not so high up in this dreadful tower!"
Aragorn passed out.