Disclaimer: If I owned anything remotely interesting related to Tolkien or his world, would I really be here writing fan fiction? No, I'd be raking in the dough. So you can assume that I own nothing other than my dog-eared copies of the Silmarillion, the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Unfinished Tales.

The Tolkien Conspiracy

or

The Spider House Rules

author's little yellow sticky post-it note: The Spider House Rules are rules set down by my husband for "our" (and when I say our, I mean all the Loyal Legolas Lovers of the world) Legolas.

Chapter 3

Rule #3: If she asks you about slash fan fiction, change the subject…believe me, you don't want to know. I've seen what they write on the web and you DON'T want to know. .

Have you ever watched a movie with a person who knew a lot about the subject of that particular film? You know, like watching a film with horseback riding in it whilst sitting beside someone who considers themselves a first rate equestrian. All they do is gab your ear off about how a particular rider is sitting wrong, and so and so doesn't know how to post correctly or he's obviously never tacked a horse in his entire life. It tends to be a bit annoying at times. You want to just tell them to shut up and enjoy the film. Well, at least shut up and let YOU enjoy the film.

Legolas sighed deeply beside me.

"What's wrong?" I asked thinking maybe twelve year old humor wasn't cutting it for an Elf who'd been alive for god knows how long and has seen god knows what in that time. I suppose if I had been like normal twenty-two year olds, I'd have lost interest by now as well but because of the events of the morning (i.e. Legolas-in-my-front-room-watching-Harry-Potter hallucinations) I had already long cancelled any thoughts of my being normal.

"God, my therapy is going to cost loads. I wonder if it's covered by the NHS?"I thought to myself.

"Those are not REAL spells. And those…those children are not wizards. " He said and rather haughtily I might add too. "And that is not how wizards come to be. They were sent from the West to aid Elves..." He continued on. But I had lost my concentration again. It was just like watching Antitrust with my software engineer husband and listening to him explain how code isn't really written like that. I know better than to argue. Best to just nod and smile.

"I do not think Gandalf would approve of such young children dabbling in wizardry. It is a dangerous thing, of course. One needs to use caution. Oh, and look at that! It takes much more skill to kill a troll than that. This is terrible. What if a child comes across a REAL troll and he thinks by hitting him over the head and shoving a stick up his nose, he will be safe. The poor lad would not last long enough to even draw an arrow." Legolas's criticism continued, his hands gesturing wildly at the screen.

He was right, of course. They weren't REAL wizards. They were only playing wizards in a movie. I wanted to agree with him. But here I was, faced with something…someone that was not real. Or at least wasn't real until I looked out the kitchen window today. Who am I to say what's real and not real now?

"Flying on a BROOM? Now that is just absurd!" He exclaimed throwing his graceful hands up in exasperation.

"No, sitting here, watching Harry Potter with Legolas Greenleaf was absurd." I thought to myself.

"Legolas, I think maybe you're taking this a little too seriously. Perhaps we should watch this some other time." I said reaching for the remote control. "Maybe we can just talk and find out why I've finally cracked."

"Cracked?" He repeated raising an eyebrow, Thranduil-style.

I shook my head, deciding to change the subject. No use dwelling on my mental state. So what does one ask the Prince of Mirkwood when one gets a chance to ask him anything? What would the fans at fanfiction.net want to know? I can only think of one thing.

"What's REALLY going on between Frodo and Sam?"