*Thank you so much for all of the great reviews; you guys really know
how to motivate me!
*I did make a couple of mistakes in chapter one, most notably the fact that I said the Fellowship was departing from Rivendell, what I meant to say was of course Lothlorien, so yes Gandalf is out of the picture.
*To comment on the ship questions, I don't know who will end up with whom, or if there even will be ships, feedback on what ships you guys think will work with this story will be greatly appreciated.
~~~
Frodo was sitting on the Summers' couch looking at the small blonde girl with amazement; he hadn't known that a human could yell so loudly for so long. He watched with wide eyes as the human continued to rant about how irresponsible the witch had been.
"Doesn't she need to breath?" Pippin whispered into his ear. Merry had to stifle laughter at the other hobbits comment.
".Didn't you even think of the consequences? What if you had summoned an evil warrior? What if it attacked you or Anya or Dawn? As it is you pulled a group of innocents out of their own dimension and brought them here."
Boromir, Legolas and Gimli all scowled at the use of the word innocent. Aragorn tried to interrupt the shouting slayer, "Excuse me lady." But the blonde never even looked at him.
Eventually the slayer decided that her friend had been properly chastised. Then she turned on Anya. "And how could you just let Willow do a powerful spell when you know just as much as I do that she's still healing."
Anya cringed under Buffy's yelling, the slayer was right of course, it had been incredibly stupid to let Willow do the spell, hell she had even encouraged the witch to do it. But that didn't prevent her from feeling relived when Buffy finally ran out of air. "I'm sorry," she coursed along with Willow.
"Can I come in now?" asked Dawn's voice from the kitchen, where Buffy had sent her while she yelled at the two women.
"Yes." Buffy said in a clipped tone.
Dawn tiptoed out of the kitchen "Um Buffy, I just thought that you might like to know that someone shot the phone with an arrow."
"What?!"
Legolas studied the floor as the blonde questioned Willow and Anya about the injured phone. He hoped that the witch would not tell her that it was he who had mortally wounded the phone. Although he was certain that he could defeat the small woman in combat he had no desire to be yelled at by her.
"Sorry Buffy, but the phone startled them, there are no phones where they come from."
"Which is?"
"We hail from Middle-Earth." Boromir stated proudly.
"What's it in the middle of?" Dawn asked causing the man to stare quizzically at her.
"From what they told me about it, Middle-Earth seems to be a dimension with much more magik than ours, and it's not technologically advanced, in fact it's about as primitive as the Camelot dimension." Anya stated.
"There's a Camelot Dimension?" Willow asked
"Of course."
"That's so cool." Dawn marveled, "Is there a Pulp Fiction dimension?"
"I don't think so."
"What is this Camelot and Pulp Fiction that you speak of?" Aragorn asked, trying very hard to follow the conversation that was going on around him.
"I'm sorry, but who are you people exactly?" Buffy looked from the Hobbits oversized, hairy feet to Legolas' pointy ears in confusion.
Aragorn proceeded to introduce the fellowship and explain their purpose. "The ring is pure evil, it must be destroyed," he finished.
"It really is evil!" Anya added, "You should have seen Willow when she first sensed it, she nearly killed us all, again!"
Willow glared at Anya before turning to look at the slayer, the witch swore that she saw a vein pop out of Buffy's forehead, "What?"
"Anya's just exaggerating," Willow assured Buffy. "It just caught me off guard, I'm fine now, totally in control."
Aragorn could tell that the smaller women was about to start to yell again, "If I may interrupt, seeing as I have shared with you our story, I would like to inquire as to your own."
"Oh, That's reasonable enough, I'm Buffy, the vampire slayer."
"What's a vampire slayer?" Merry asked.
"One who slays vampires." Pippin answered.
"What's a vampire?"
Pippin shrugged and turned to Buffy, "What's a vampire?"
"It's a kind of demon, with sharp teeth, they suck your blood and leave your dried husk of a body to rot." Anya said helpfully. The hobbits shrank back into the couch.
Buffy explained the specifics of vampire slaying to Aragorn, Gimli, Boromir and Legolas, the hobbits, not being very interested in the gory explanations, snuck out of the living room with Dawn.
"So you mean this device plays the music that is somehow trapped inside this disc?" Merry asked, holding up a CD.
"Kind of." said Dawn, "here I'll show you." The girl took the CD and popped it into the player. *NSync started to play quietly. Dawn was shocked at the reactions of the hobbits.
Merry and Pippin were rolling around on the ground, holding their ears. Frodo had grabbed a pillow off the girl's bed and was trying to cover his ears with it. Sam had actually dived under the bed. Dawn quickly hit the stop button. "Geez what's wrong with you guys, they're not that bad."
"What was that horrible sound?" Pippin asked, "I think that the disc is in some sort of mortal peril, why else would it scream so."
At this point the rest of the Fellowship burst into the room. "I heard a terrible sound, is someone injured?" Legolas asked, drawing his bow.
"No! No one is injured, it's just music, don't you guys have music where you come from?" Dawn huffed. "How did you hear it anyway? You guys were downstairs."
"Elves' hearing is far superior to that of humans, or dwarves."
Gimli opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off by Boromir, "What kind of music? Torture music?"
Dawn let out an indignant squeal and ran out of her room, almost running into Buffy. "What's up with her?" Buffy asked Willow as the redhead attempted to heard the group back downstairs.
"Oh, the Fellowship didn't like her music."
"Who does?"
~~~
After that the conversation went rather smoothly. It was decided that Willow would call Giles in the morning and inform him of the situation, meanwhile Anya would research a way to send the Fellowship back home and Buffy would search for the big bad that the men had been summoned to kill. But even with all this decided there were still very many problems to work out.
Sam's stomach gave a loud groan right in the middle of the plot that Aragorn and Buffy were devising to try and locate the demon. "I'm hungry," He told Frodo, trying not to whine.
"Me too Sam." Frodo looked around the room; no one else seemed to be thinking of food. Gimli was practically salivating over a large hammer that he had found in an inspection of a weapons trunk, however every time the strong dwarf tried to pick it up he could not lift it. Boromir was simply standing off to one side, half listening to the conversation between Buffy and Aragorn. Legolas was sitting on the far side off the couch, he had been sitting there pouting ever since the girl, Dawn, had asked him if he was a fairy.
Frodo cleared his throat loudly. "I think it's just about time for dinner."
Buffy looked at the clock, "You're right it is." We've got nothing to eat in the house though, we'll just have to go out."
"I don't think that's such a great idea Buffy, We can't very well take them outside looking like that." Willow said gesturing to their outfits.
"Well, we'll just have to drop by the mall and buy them each an outfit, they're going to need one eventually anyway."
"I don't know Buffy. there are so many ways that could go wrong."
"Don't be such a kill-joy Willow, what's the worst that could happen?" Anya asked.
~~~
Their first bump in what Willow had come to think of as 'operation dinner' had occurred about five seconds after Anya's innocent question. "No, Aragorn I am not jesting, you really do need to leave your sword here."
"But what if we are attacked by Orcs on the journey to this Mall?"
Willow looked toward Buffy desperately, "Hey, don't look at me for help, you're the one that brought them here." Buffy said before going upstairs to change.
"Weapons aren't allowed in the mall or at any restaurant. But don't worry your sword will be very safe here."
"Are you suggesting that I leave my bow behind, and go into your strange land unarmed?" Legolas asked looking at the redhead oddly, as if the thought of being without his bow had never occurred to him.
"Good luck in taking that bow from him, he never lets the thing out of his sight, he even sleeps with it." Gimli added, he had been willing to leave his axe behind, claiming that dwarves were deadliest in hand to hand combat anyway.
Legolas looked about ready to rip the dwarf limb from limb, Willow thought quickly of a way to diffuse the situation, but Aragorn beat her to it. "So Mall and Restaurant are sacred places where no harm may come to the patrons?"
"Uh yeah, you could say that."
"I shall not enter a sacred place armed," Conceded Legolas, "I will leave my bow with the guards."
"Okay, or you could leave it in the car."
"What is The Car?" Boromir asked.
Willow sighed and launched into a lengthy explanation of what a car was. It quickly became apparent that they could not transport the entire Fellowship and themselves in just Buffy's jeep and Anya's new two-seater sports car, Xander arrived ten minutes after they called him.
It was one thing to hear about a car, an entirely different thing to actually see one. "It's so shiny," Gimli said in awe, stroking Anya's red Miada reverently.
"They don't look like horses to me." Legolas said in quiet Elvish to Arargorn.
"No, they don't, but we must place our faith in these people, they are our only way of returning back to our home, and our quest."
"The witch makes me nervous, she has almost as much power as Gandalf did, maybe more, yet she has no control. Every second she spends near the ring is one where she moves closer to it's evil."
"So we keep Frodo away from her."
"She is drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. It will be an almost impossible task to keep her away."
"It is your task."
Legolas looked up at him in confusion, "What?"
"You keep her away from Frodo for the duration of this hopefully short visit, I will worry about Boromir."
"You believe he is worth worrying over?"
"I intend to find out."
Legolas began to protest his appointed task when Xander interrupted. "Hey! You can't talk in some weird language. It's not fair! You could talking about me and I wouldn't know it!"
Buffy whistled loudly to get the attention of the large group. "Okay people here's the plan. We go to the mall, Willow will be treating you all to new outfits since she brought you here. You change there, then it's on to the restaurant, here are the seating arrangements. Gimli, you're with Anya, Hobbits you're with Dawn and I in the jeep, Legolas, Boromir, Aragorn, you ride with Xander and Willow."
"I must object Lady Buffy. I am sworn to protect Frodo, I must ride with him." Aragorn said.
"Okay, in that case, Aragorn you ride with Frodo, Sam, Dawn and I. Merry and Pippin, you two will have to squeeze in with Legolas and Boromir."
"Uh, I have a question Lady Buffy." Pippin said tentatively. The slayer made a face at being called lady, but nodded at the hobbit. "Where do we hold on?"
"What?" Buffy asked before she realized what he meant. "Oh, no, we ride inside of the cars, see." She opened one of the doors to demonstrate. The entire Fellowship breathed a sigh of relief.
~~~
The instant Legolas entered the car he began to freak. He felt boxed in, He was sitting in between Merry and Boromir, Pippin was in front with Willow. He strained to see the sky out of one of the tiny windows but could see past neither the man who was staring awestruck out of the window nor the hobbit that was waving at the passing drivers.
Gimli waved back at the hobbit as Anya shot past the car. Her sharp turns and excessive speed soon caused the dwarf to hold on for dear life.
"Does Anya always drive like that?" Buffy asked as the former demon crossed three lanes and shifted into fifth gear on the 35 MPH road. "Dawn, you are never allowed to get into any car that Anya is driving, understand?"
Not surprisingly Anya and Gimli were the first to arrive at the mall parking lot. The dwarf staggered out of the car, he was carsick but managing to hide it very well. "Where are the others?"
"They'll get here soon. Buffy an Xander both drive like little old ladies." Anya joked. Although Gimli didn't truly understand the analogy he still laughed.
Soon after that Xander arrived, the second the car stopped Legolas practically pushed Merry out of the way and leapt out of the car. "What's up with him?" Anya asked her former fiancé.
"I think he got a little claustrophobic." Finally Buffy pulled up. "Well, now that the gang's all here, let's go shopping!"
~~~
After some cajoling they had convinced the convinced the Fellowship to leave there weapons in the car, Buffy had a suspicion that Aragorn, Boromir and Legolas were carrying concealed daggers, but the could hardly fault them seeing as she herself had two stakes and a small knife hidden on her at that moment.
"Here's how it's gonna go." She told the group as they walked into the mall. "I want to be in and out of here as fast as possible. So I'll dress Legolas and Gimli, Xander you dress Aragorn and Boromir, Anya and Wills, you take the hobbits."
Aragorn gave Legolas a meaningful look, the elf sighed before turning to Buffy, "I beg your forgiveness Lady Buffy but I would prefer to be dressed by Willow."
"What? Why?" Legolas just shrugged innocently but Buffy didn't buy it for a minute, she looked back and forth between Aragorn and the elf suspiciously. They were hiding something, she just knew it. "Alright, Willow and Anya you dress Legolas and Gimli, I'll take the hobbits. We meet back here in a half an hour."
Buffy dressed her charges quickly, despite the fact that their enormous feet made shoes quite difficult, but she had finally been able to stuff them into a 15 wide. The Hobbits could almost be mistaken as children, especially if they wore the hoods on their sweatshirts.
Willow and Anya had taken quite a bit longer. They ended up splitting the job; Willow had taken Legolas while Anya took Gimli. Willow had a hard time dressing the elf, she herself had never been one for fashion, especially not men's fashion, but she had finally gotten him a pair of baggy jeans, a black shirt and a beanie to finish off the look and to cover up his ears, the elf had hated the hat but Willow convinced to wear it just for the time being, promising that he didn't have to wear it in the car or at the house.
Anya had been tempted to dress Gimli in a lime green suit, but decided that was too conspicuous, she settled for Khakis and a polo shirt instead. She then bought a new purse for herself and an outfit to go with it. By the time she and Gimli returned to the doors Willow and Buffy were both done, but Xander was nowhere to be seen.
The girls had passed the time by teaching the hobbits how to play rock, paper, scissors. Merry and Pippin had been endlessly fascinated by it, but they both thought that scissors was the most fun to make so they played scissors, scissors, scissors. Eventually Legolas was pulled into a tournament game with Sam and Frodo, to whom he lost miserably, much to Gimli's amusement.
"Even hobbits are cleverer than elves." He said with a chuckle, witch ended abruptly when Anya elbowed him. However even Anya's scolding couldn't keep the dwarf from laughing when Xander, Aragorn and Boromir finally did show up.
Xander had panicked, he didn't know how to pick out clothes for others, so he had just bought two outfits that he owned himself. The end result made up for what it lacked in style in color.
"You look like jesters!" Gimli exclaimed when he saw the two warriors who were wearing baggy Hawaiian shirts and jeans.
Boromir looked down at his shirt, then back at the dwarf, "I like it, it's very colorful."
~~~
"Where are we going to take them to eat?" Dawn asked her sister as they got back into the car.
"I don't know, probably the buffet place around the corner."
"What's a buffet?" Sam asked.
A buffet is in fact hobbit heaven, as Sam and the others soon found out as soon as Dawn got finished explaining that yes, they really could fill up their plates as many times as they wanted. Luckily for them the restaurant was nearly empty, but the few others that were eating there were very put off by the Fellowship's lack of anything even remotely resembling table manners, particularly from Gimli, who had been very disappointed to learn that the restaurant did not serve ale.
"Why do you not serve ale?" The bearded dwarf demanded of the waiter.
"We don't have a liquor license." The young man had replied as he whisked away another eight plates away from the hobbit's area of the table.
"This is preposterous! I demand ale!"
Anya had managed to calm the angry dwarf while Buffy shrugged at the waiter and simply said, "He's from Scotland." The man had nodded and walked off.
The hobbits had each eaten nine plates of food, and would have gone back for more if Dawn hadn't stopped them. Boromir and Aragron had also enjoyed diner, but Buffy had to stop them from trying to smuggle extra food out of the restaurant.
"But what if we run out of food, it is wise to carry provisions." Boromir had argued while trying to shove an entire muffin into one of his jean pockets.
"I promise, we won't run out. Besides, it's against the rules for us to take food with us."
"Alright." He sighed before stuffing the muffin into his mouth.
Only Legolas had been rather unimpressed with the food and had stuck mostly to the salad bar. The diner conversation had quickly turned to Middle-Earth, with each race insisting that their home was in fact the most beautiful.
"The Shire is the beautiful place in all of Middle-Earth." Sam insisted, "It's so peaceful there, and nothing bad ever happens, people are free to grow their crops and live happily."
"You only say that because you have never seen the white towers of Gondor." Boromir had countered. "There are great halls and libraries that nearly touch the sky."
"You are both wrong," Gimli said, "you never saw the mines of Moria in their full glory. There were chambers whose walls were coated in gold and rubies paved the floor." Anya began to salivate at just the idea of such a place.
"Surely after seeing the great forests of Lothlorien none of you may argue that there is a more beautiful place than that." Legolas had said confidently. The Fellowship began to argue amongst itself, all but Frodo and Aragorn participating.
"What about you?" Willow had asked Aragorn. "What's your homeland like?"
"I have none." He said briskly, watching the others squabble.
"Are they always like this?" Willow asked him, gesturing at the others.
"No, they are tired and still grieving, they are usually a bit more civil."
"Grieving?"
"There was a ninth member of our Fellowship, a great wizard, Gandalf, our leader, he was killed by a demon."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault Lady Willow, I think we should depart before they come to blows."
~~~
*I would like to sincerely apologize to any *Nsync (Is that even how you spell it?) fans that might have been offended by that part in the story.
*I hoped you liked it, but if you didn't keep in mind that this was just a filler piece. Next update will be much more interesting, I promise.
*I did make a couple of mistakes in chapter one, most notably the fact that I said the Fellowship was departing from Rivendell, what I meant to say was of course Lothlorien, so yes Gandalf is out of the picture.
*To comment on the ship questions, I don't know who will end up with whom, or if there even will be ships, feedback on what ships you guys think will work with this story will be greatly appreciated.
~~~
Frodo was sitting on the Summers' couch looking at the small blonde girl with amazement; he hadn't known that a human could yell so loudly for so long. He watched with wide eyes as the human continued to rant about how irresponsible the witch had been.
"Doesn't she need to breath?" Pippin whispered into his ear. Merry had to stifle laughter at the other hobbits comment.
".Didn't you even think of the consequences? What if you had summoned an evil warrior? What if it attacked you or Anya or Dawn? As it is you pulled a group of innocents out of their own dimension and brought them here."
Boromir, Legolas and Gimli all scowled at the use of the word innocent. Aragorn tried to interrupt the shouting slayer, "Excuse me lady." But the blonde never even looked at him.
Eventually the slayer decided that her friend had been properly chastised. Then she turned on Anya. "And how could you just let Willow do a powerful spell when you know just as much as I do that she's still healing."
Anya cringed under Buffy's yelling, the slayer was right of course, it had been incredibly stupid to let Willow do the spell, hell she had even encouraged the witch to do it. But that didn't prevent her from feeling relived when Buffy finally ran out of air. "I'm sorry," she coursed along with Willow.
"Can I come in now?" asked Dawn's voice from the kitchen, where Buffy had sent her while she yelled at the two women.
"Yes." Buffy said in a clipped tone.
Dawn tiptoed out of the kitchen "Um Buffy, I just thought that you might like to know that someone shot the phone with an arrow."
"What?!"
Legolas studied the floor as the blonde questioned Willow and Anya about the injured phone. He hoped that the witch would not tell her that it was he who had mortally wounded the phone. Although he was certain that he could defeat the small woman in combat he had no desire to be yelled at by her.
"Sorry Buffy, but the phone startled them, there are no phones where they come from."
"Which is?"
"We hail from Middle-Earth." Boromir stated proudly.
"What's it in the middle of?" Dawn asked causing the man to stare quizzically at her.
"From what they told me about it, Middle-Earth seems to be a dimension with much more magik than ours, and it's not technologically advanced, in fact it's about as primitive as the Camelot dimension." Anya stated.
"There's a Camelot Dimension?" Willow asked
"Of course."
"That's so cool." Dawn marveled, "Is there a Pulp Fiction dimension?"
"I don't think so."
"What is this Camelot and Pulp Fiction that you speak of?" Aragorn asked, trying very hard to follow the conversation that was going on around him.
"I'm sorry, but who are you people exactly?" Buffy looked from the Hobbits oversized, hairy feet to Legolas' pointy ears in confusion.
Aragorn proceeded to introduce the fellowship and explain their purpose. "The ring is pure evil, it must be destroyed," he finished.
"It really is evil!" Anya added, "You should have seen Willow when she first sensed it, she nearly killed us all, again!"
Willow glared at Anya before turning to look at the slayer, the witch swore that she saw a vein pop out of Buffy's forehead, "What?"
"Anya's just exaggerating," Willow assured Buffy. "It just caught me off guard, I'm fine now, totally in control."
Aragorn could tell that the smaller women was about to start to yell again, "If I may interrupt, seeing as I have shared with you our story, I would like to inquire as to your own."
"Oh, That's reasonable enough, I'm Buffy, the vampire slayer."
"What's a vampire slayer?" Merry asked.
"One who slays vampires." Pippin answered.
"What's a vampire?"
Pippin shrugged and turned to Buffy, "What's a vampire?"
"It's a kind of demon, with sharp teeth, they suck your blood and leave your dried husk of a body to rot." Anya said helpfully. The hobbits shrank back into the couch.
Buffy explained the specifics of vampire slaying to Aragorn, Gimli, Boromir and Legolas, the hobbits, not being very interested in the gory explanations, snuck out of the living room with Dawn.
"So you mean this device plays the music that is somehow trapped inside this disc?" Merry asked, holding up a CD.
"Kind of." said Dawn, "here I'll show you." The girl took the CD and popped it into the player. *NSync started to play quietly. Dawn was shocked at the reactions of the hobbits.
Merry and Pippin were rolling around on the ground, holding their ears. Frodo had grabbed a pillow off the girl's bed and was trying to cover his ears with it. Sam had actually dived under the bed. Dawn quickly hit the stop button. "Geez what's wrong with you guys, they're not that bad."
"What was that horrible sound?" Pippin asked, "I think that the disc is in some sort of mortal peril, why else would it scream so."
At this point the rest of the Fellowship burst into the room. "I heard a terrible sound, is someone injured?" Legolas asked, drawing his bow.
"No! No one is injured, it's just music, don't you guys have music where you come from?" Dawn huffed. "How did you hear it anyway? You guys were downstairs."
"Elves' hearing is far superior to that of humans, or dwarves."
Gimli opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off by Boromir, "What kind of music? Torture music?"
Dawn let out an indignant squeal and ran out of her room, almost running into Buffy. "What's up with her?" Buffy asked Willow as the redhead attempted to heard the group back downstairs.
"Oh, the Fellowship didn't like her music."
"Who does?"
~~~
After that the conversation went rather smoothly. It was decided that Willow would call Giles in the morning and inform him of the situation, meanwhile Anya would research a way to send the Fellowship back home and Buffy would search for the big bad that the men had been summoned to kill. But even with all this decided there were still very many problems to work out.
Sam's stomach gave a loud groan right in the middle of the plot that Aragorn and Buffy were devising to try and locate the demon. "I'm hungry," He told Frodo, trying not to whine.
"Me too Sam." Frodo looked around the room; no one else seemed to be thinking of food. Gimli was practically salivating over a large hammer that he had found in an inspection of a weapons trunk, however every time the strong dwarf tried to pick it up he could not lift it. Boromir was simply standing off to one side, half listening to the conversation between Buffy and Aragorn. Legolas was sitting on the far side off the couch, he had been sitting there pouting ever since the girl, Dawn, had asked him if he was a fairy.
Frodo cleared his throat loudly. "I think it's just about time for dinner."
Buffy looked at the clock, "You're right it is." We've got nothing to eat in the house though, we'll just have to go out."
"I don't think that's such a great idea Buffy, We can't very well take them outside looking like that." Willow said gesturing to their outfits.
"Well, we'll just have to drop by the mall and buy them each an outfit, they're going to need one eventually anyway."
"I don't know Buffy. there are so many ways that could go wrong."
"Don't be such a kill-joy Willow, what's the worst that could happen?" Anya asked.
~~~
Their first bump in what Willow had come to think of as 'operation dinner' had occurred about five seconds after Anya's innocent question. "No, Aragorn I am not jesting, you really do need to leave your sword here."
"But what if we are attacked by Orcs on the journey to this Mall?"
Willow looked toward Buffy desperately, "Hey, don't look at me for help, you're the one that brought them here." Buffy said before going upstairs to change.
"Weapons aren't allowed in the mall or at any restaurant. But don't worry your sword will be very safe here."
"Are you suggesting that I leave my bow behind, and go into your strange land unarmed?" Legolas asked looking at the redhead oddly, as if the thought of being without his bow had never occurred to him.
"Good luck in taking that bow from him, he never lets the thing out of his sight, he even sleeps with it." Gimli added, he had been willing to leave his axe behind, claiming that dwarves were deadliest in hand to hand combat anyway.
Legolas looked about ready to rip the dwarf limb from limb, Willow thought quickly of a way to diffuse the situation, but Aragorn beat her to it. "So Mall and Restaurant are sacred places where no harm may come to the patrons?"
"Uh yeah, you could say that."
"I shall not enter a sacred place armed," Conceded Legolas, "I will leave my bow with the guards."
"Okay, or you could leave it in the car."
"What is The Car?" Boromir asked.
Willow sighed and launched into a lengthy explanation of what a car was. It quickly became apparent that they could not transport the entire Fellowship and themselves in just Buffy's jeep and Anya's new two-seater sports car, Xander arrived ten minutes after they called him.
It was one thing to hear about a car, an entirely different thing to actually see one. "It's so shiny," Gimli said in awe, stroking Anya's red Miada reverently.
"They don't look like horses to me." Legolas said in quiet Elvish to Arargorn.
"No, they don't, but we must place our faith in these people, they are our only way of returning back to our home, and our quest."
"The witch makes me nervous, she has almost as much power as Gandalf did, maybe more, yet she has no control. Every second she spends near the ring is one where she moves closer to it's evil."
"So we keep Frodo away from her."
"She is drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. It will be an almost impossible task to keep her away."
"It is your task."
Legolas looked up at him in confusion, "What?"
"You keep her away from Frodo for the duration of this hopefully short visit, I will worry about Boromir."
"You believe he is worth worrying over?"
"I intend to find out."
Legolas began to protest his appointed task when Xander interrupted. "Hey! You can't talk in some weird language. It's not fair! You could talking about me and I wouldn't know it!"
Buffy whistled loudly to get the attention of the large group. "Okay people here's the plan. We go to the mall, Willow will be treating you all to new outfits since she brought you here. You change there, then it's on to the restaurant, here are the seating arrangements. Gimli, you're with Anya, Hobbits you're with Dawn and I in the jeep, Legolas, Boromir, Aragorn, you ride with Xander and Willow."
"I must object Lady Buffy. I am sworn to protect Frodo, I must ride with him." Aragorn said.
"Okay, in that case, Aragorn you ride with Frodo, Sam, Dawn and I. Merry and Pippin, you two will have to squeeze in with Legolas and Boromir."
"Uh, I have a question Lady Buffy." Pippin said tentatively. The slayer made a face at being called lady, but nodded at the hobbit. "Where do we hold on?"
"What?" Buffy asked before she realized what he meant. "Oh, no, we ride inside of the cars, see." She opened one of the doors to demonstrate. The entire Fellowship breathed a sigh of relief.
~~~
The instant Legolas entered the car he began to freak. He felt boxed in, He was sitting in between Merry and Boromir, Pippin was in front with Willow. He strained to see the sky out of one of the tiny windows but could see past neither the man who was staring awestruck out of the window nor the hobbit that was waving at the passing drivers.
Gimli waved back at the hobbit as Anya shot past the car. Her sharp turns and excessive speed soon caused the dwarf to hold on for dear life.
"Does Anya always drive like that?" Buffy asked as the former demon crossed three lanes and shifted into fifth gear on the 35 MPH road. "Dawn, you are never allowed to get into any car that Anya is driving, understand?"
Not surprisingly Anya and Gimli were the first to arrive at the mall parking lot. The dwarf staggered out of the car, he was carsick but managing to hide it very well. "Where are the others?"
"They'll get here soon. Buffy an Xander both drive like little old ladies." Anya joked. Although Gimli didn't truly understand the analogy he still laughed.
Soon after that Xander arrived, the second the car stopped Legolas practically pushed Merry out of the way and leapt out of the car. "What's up with him?" Anya asked her former fiancé.
"I think he got a little claustrophobic." Finally Buffy pulled up. "Well, now that the gang's all here, let's go shopping!"
~~~
After some cajoling they had convinced the convinced the Fellowship to leave there weapons in the car, Buffy had a suspicion that Aragorn, Boromir and Legolas were carrying concealed daggers, but the could hardly fault them seeing as she herself had two stakes and a small knife hidden on her at that moment.
"Here's how it's gonna go." She told the group as they walked into the mall. "I want to be in and out of here as fast as possible. So I'll dress Legolas and Gimli, Xander you dress Aragorn and Boromir, Anya and Wills, you take the hobbits."
Aragorn gave Legolas a meaningful look, the elf sighed before turning to Buffy, "I beg your forgiveness Lady Buffy but I would prefer to be dressed by Willow."
"What? Why?" Legolas just shrugged innocently but Buffy didn't buy it for a minute, she looked back and forth between Aragorn and the elf suspiciously. They were hiding something, she just knew it. "Alright, Willow and Anya you dress Legolas and Gimli, I'll take the hobbits. We meet back here in a half an hour."
Buffy dressed her charges quickly, despite the fact that their enormous feet made shoes quite difficult, but she had finally been able to stuff them into a 15 wide. The Hobbits could almost be mistaken as children, especially if they wore the hoods on their sweatshirts.
Willow and Anya had taken quite a bit longer. They ended up splitting the job; Willow had taken Legolas while Anya took Gimli. Willow had a hard time dressing the elf, she herself had never been one for fashion, especially not men's fashion, but she had finally gotten him a pair of baggy jeans, a black shirt and a beanie to finish off the look and to cover up his ears, the elf had hated the hat but Willow convinced to wear it just for the time being, promising that he didn't have to wear it in the car or at the house.
Anya had been tempted to dress Gimli in a lime green suit, but decided that was too conspicuous, she settled for Khakis and a polo shirt instead. She then bought a new purse for herself and an outfit to go with it. By the time she and Gimli returned to the doors Willow and Buffy were both done, but Xander was nowhere to be seen.
The girls had passed the time by teaching the hobbits how to play rock, paper, scissors. Merry and Pippin had been endlessly fascinated by it, but they both thought that scissors was the most fun to make so they played scissors, scissors, scissors. Eventually Legolas was pulled into a tournament game with Sam and Frodo, to whom he lost miserably, much to Gimli's amusement.
"Even hobbits are cleverer than elves." He said with a chuckle, witch ended abruptly when Anya elbowed him. However even Anya's scolding couldn't keep the dwarf from laughing when Xander, Aragorn and Boromir finally did show up.
Xander had panicked, he didn't know how to pick out clothes for others, so he had just bought two outfits that he owned himself. The end result made up for what it lacked in style in color.
"You look like jesters!" Gimli exclaimed when he saw the two warriors who were wearing baggy Hawaiian shirts and jeans.
Boromir looked down at his shirt, then back at the dwarf, "I like it, it's very colorful."
~~~
"Where are we going to take them to eat?" Dawn asked her sister as they got back into the car.
"I don't know, probably the buffet place around the corner."
"What's a buffet?" Sam asked.
A buffet is in fact hobbit heaven, as Sam and the others soon found out as soon as Dawn got finished explaining that yes, they really could fill up their plates as many times as they wanted. Luckily for them the restaurant was nearly empty, but the few others that were eating there were very put off by the Fellowship's lack of anything even remotely resembling table manners, particularly from Gimli, who had been very disappointed to learn that the restaurant did not serve ale.
"Why do you not serve ale?" The bearded dwarf demanded of the waiter.
"We don't have a liquor license." The young man had replied as he whisked away another eight plates away from the hobbit's area of the table.
"This is preposterous! I demand ale!"
Anya had managed to calm the angry dwarf while Buffy shrugged at the waiter and simply said, "He's from Scotland." The man had nodded and walked off.
The hobbits had each eaten nine plates of food, and would have gone back for more if Dawn hadn't stopped them. Boromir and Aragron had also enjoyed diner, but Buffy had to stop them from trying to smuggle extra food out of the restaurant.
"But what if we run out of food, it is wise to carry provisions." Boromir had argued while trying to shove an entire muffin into one of his jean pockets.
"I promise, we won't run out. Besides, it's against the rules for us to take food with us."
"Alright." He sighed before stuffing the muffin into his mouth.
Only Legolas had been rather unimpressed with the food and had stuck mostly to the salad bar. The diner conversation had quickly turned to Middle-Earth, with each race insisting that their home was in fact the most beautiful.
"The Shire is the beautiful place in all of Middle-Earth." Sam insisted, "It's so peaceful there, and nothing bad ever happens, people are free to grow their crops and live happily."
"You only say that because you have never seen the white towers of Gondor." Boromir had countered. "There are great halls and libraries that nearly touch the sky."
"You are both wrong," Gimli said, "you never saw the mines of Moria in their full glory. There were chambers whose walls were coated in gold and rubies paved the floor." Anya began to salivate at just the idea of such a place.
"Surely after seeing the great forests of Lothlorien none of you may argue that there is a more beautiful place than that." Legolas had said confidently. The Fellowship began to argue amongst itself, all but Frodo and Aragorn participating.
"What about you?" Willow had asked Aragorn. "What's your homeland like?"
"I have none." He said briskly, watching the others squabble.
"Are they always like this?" Willow asked him, gesturing at the others.
"No, they are tired and still grieving, they are usually a bit more civil."
"Grieving?"
"There was a ninth member of our Fellowship, a great wizard, Gandalf, our leader, he was killed by a demon."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault Lady Willow, I think we should depart before they come to blows."
~~~
*I would like to sincerely apologize to any *Nsync (Is that even how you spell it?) fans that might have been offended by that part in the story.
*I hoped you liked it, but if you didn't keep in mind that this was just a filler piece. Next update will be much more interesting, I promise.