Chapter Eight: The Kidnapped American
Three days we traveled up the river. We stopped five times in those three days. I was often very testy and short-tempered. The fact that the Man-Freak (Boromir, FYI) had been bugging me the other four times didn't help my mood much either.
I was watching Emily argue with Frodo whether Jack or Kirby was better. Frodo, who was now good friends with Kirby, naturally defended him, but Emily insisted Jack was better behaved. I listened to them for half an hour until I finally got sick of their bickering. Would they EVER SHUT UP? Grumbling, I went digging inside my back for my ever so handy walkman. Placing my Sarah Evans CD in, I let the words fill my ears. Tapping my foot a little, I sung the words to myself in my head.
"'We're only human, baby We walk on broken ground. We loose our way, We come unwound. We're turnin' circles, baby We're never satisfied, We fall from grace Forget we can fly
But through all the tears that we cry We'll survive
Cause when we're torn apart, Shattered and scared, Love as the grace to save us. We're just two tarnished hearts, When in each other's arms We become saints and angels""
I listened to the whole song before I realized that Emily and Frodo were staring at me.
"What?" I asked with a glare.
"What in God's name are you listening to? Whatever it is, it must be odd, because-" Emily began but I cut her off.
"Hey, no one disses my country music! Sarah Evans is cool," I said loudly, scowling. "It's better than that crud you listen to. Half the time you can't even tell what they're saying." She didn't reply; just resumed arguing with the hobbit. Finally, I threw my headphones off. My favorite song had finished and I was bored again. I scooted over to Legolas, who was leaning against a tree, talking to Aragorn. They only noticed I was there after they'd finish gibbering in Elvish.
"What now?" Aragorn asked tensely.
"I'm bored, small ones," I stated. "How long are we staying here?"
"Not much longer," Legolas replied, glancing at Aragorn before continuing. "Orcs are closely behind us. I fear they may be upon us soon if we don't hurry." I was silent for a moment, knowing that indeed they would catch up. Hey, at least the Man-Freak will be dead. Maybe I can tip his boat one more time before he kicks the bucket...I'm not normally a mean person (IT'S TRUE, I SWEAR!) but that guy is so flippin' annoying. The bad kind of annoying too.
"It's too bad we don't have Princess Puff with us..." I commenting with a sigh, referring to Ariavasiel, whose name I'd already forgotten. "We could trade her...safe passage for us in exchange for a brand spankin' new slave." Aragorn gave an exasperated sigh.
"I'm going to regret ever going to that council," he muttered and Legolas nodded in agreement. I continued to pester them for ten more minutes before Aragorn stalked away, yelling, "We're leaving! Everyone back into the boats!" With a satisfied grin I skipped (not actually skipped, but you know what I mean, don't you?) to our boat.
****************
"Can I kill you?" I asked boredly.
"No, why would you want to do that?" Legolas replied, an irritated expression on his face.
"Because when you're this bored you go mad. And insane people are also murderers. So by not killing someone when you're bored, you're breaking a very special rule. So can I? PLEASE?"
"That makes no sense. And no, you still can't kill me."
"Can I at least preserve you're eyeballs in a glass jar and put it on my desk so I can laugh at them everyday?"
"You'd have to kill me to get my eyes, in case you didn't notice."
"So? It's preserving eyeballs, not killing. I've already got a jar ready. It's made by the most important glass makers in the world," I said matter-of-factly.
"Do I have to answer that?"
"You just answered it by asking, 'Do I have to answer that' so you really have no choice right now."
"Why me, why me?" he moaned.
"Because you're special? Be happy it's me, and not some pervy fangirl off the net whose life long ambition is to see you without your shirt," I said with a grin. He glanced up, a scared look on his face.
"That's..." he started, but trailed off.
"Wrong. Scary. Not right," I offered and he nodded. "Hey, how did this conversation get started again?"
"You were asking to kill me..."
"Oh. That's nice. Can I drive for a while?" I asked pleadingly, then lowered my voice. "If you do, I'll tip the Man-Freak's boat over for you..."
"You better not. I'll be blamed since it's obviously my job now to make sure you don't get in any trouble...Eru help me..." Legolas replied quickly, but gave me the oar.
"Don't fall asleep this time, Elf Boy, or else you might just be rudely awakened," I said with a mischievous smirk. He gave Gimli a pained look, who had been watching us. He leaned back staring skyward. Gimli promptly fell asleep. Great, I'm all alone in the world, I thought to myself with a happy note.
I paid no heed to Legolas's words and began to make my way toward Boromir's boat. Merry and Pippin watched me out of the corner of their eyes. I gave them an apologetic look. I didn't want to dump the hobbits, but that's what you get when you make friends with the enemy. I was maybe three feet from victory then. With a triumphant look, I scrapped the side of our boat against Boromir's. Legolas looked up calmly, grinning at me evilly. I decided I didn't like that look.
"Took you long enough," he said quietly so only I would hear. I narrowed my eyes for a moment at him, then turned to face the Man-Freak's wrath. He was distracted however, because he and the hobbits were heading toward a little rock jutting out of the water. An EXTREMELY little rock, but a rock nonetheless. They went tumbling gently into it, but hard enough to cause the boat to tip over. I had to bite my tongue to keep from bursting out laughing. Legolas reached over to the struggling hobbits (I mean, come on, they may be able to swim but think of the current...) and pulled them into ours' momentarily. The Man-Freak's boat wasn't harmed, and it bobbed gently along. The Man-Freak was climbing back into it, soaking wet.
He was glaring at me, as I was to him. Legolas swatted me on the head (but he was grinning from the very tips of his pointed ears, I noticed) and grabbed the oar, swiftly paddling over to the other boat. Merry and Pippin carefully climbed into their own boat and sat down, drawing their cloaks around them for warmth. You had to feel sorry for them.
"Sorry you guys got dumped. I didn't make the Man-Frea-Boromir" I stopped myself and remembered they were friends with the little devil. "Run into the rock, but I'm sorry about running into you guys.
"No you're not," Pippin said with a shivering smirk. "But we forgive you anyway." I did reply to this, because Legolas was already pulling away after signaling to Aragorn that everyone was all right. Aragorn stopped his boat until we caught up, placing his vessel carefully between our boat and the Man-Freak's. I could tell Legolas was about to tell me off (probably because Aragorn had told him to do that whenever I misbehaved) so I started talking before he did.
"I did it when you were awake, so you can't get mad at me," I reminded him of his earlier comment. He opened his mouth then closed it again, then spoke.
"Fine. You're safe from my wrath for now," he said with that evil look I despised. "But if you happen to try it again, then you might just go for a little swim." I looked down at the water, then back at him and saw he wasn't joking. I solemnly nodded and started reading my book.
We were getting closer and closer to our destination. We stationed our boats tighter together. It doesn't help if Orcs pick off your people with arrows because you're too far away to help. I was close enough to talk to Emily. She had Mo back now, and the guinea pig was trying to look over the edge of the boat. She pulled him back and looked up at me.
"Emily..."
"Yeah?"
"You have a giant spider on your head," I said with a sigh. She raised an eyebrow at me and began to stick Mo in a little pocket of her bag.
"Katie, I really worry." I groaned and tried to pop her one up side the head but she jerked away with a triumphant smirk. So I went to bug Legolas. Again. I think that was the hundredth time I've done that.
"Are we there yet?" I asked him.
"No," Gimli replied after Legolas gave no answer for a whole two minutes.
"How bout now?" I asked again after five second.
"No."
"Now?"
"No."
"Now?"
"NO!!!" he shrieked in my ear and his hand went to his ax. I think Legolas was in la-la land or something, because he shook his head, like coming out of a trance (even though he was still rowing, he had been staring straight ahead, looking at the horizon line but not really seeing anything). He quickly saw what was going on and glared at both of us.
"Can I forget about you for ten minutes without you causing some sort of mishap?" he cried, looking at me. I shook my head. He glanced at something in front of him, then back at me, smirking. And yes, he was STILL rowing. I was wondering how the guy could do that. It must be an Elf thing.
"Gimli, could you please hold our course for a moment?" the Elf asked Gimli, who stared at the paddle like it was a disease before doggedly rowing. Legolas reached down to pull out...a long coil of silver Elven rope. I eyed him suspiciously as he cut a good length of it with one of his knives and turned to me. He had on the evil smile, which made me worry greatly.
"All right, Pointy Ears, what are you up to?" I asked. He did answer, but flung the rope around me and quickly bound me with it before I could react.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" I cried, struggling against the strong rope. "You'll never get away with this! I'll call the police on you! The Russian KGB! The America CIA! JAMES BOND WILL BLOW YOUR GUTS AWAY!! The USA government will not be happy that you kidnapped one of their citizens! This is war, Elf! WAR!!" He stuffed a roll of cloth in my mouth and turned around, laughing.
"Maybe now I can get some peace," he said mostly to himself, taking the oar back from Gimli.
************************
I know, I know, I know. Short chapter. I'm such a bad girl, aren't I? I'll update soon though. I wrote the last bit and thought I HAD TO PUT IT UP NOW. *evil grin* Oh well. The song that was in there was called "Born to Fly" by Sarah Evans (my all time favorite singer). It's one of my favorite songs. I know, I'm weird but country music rocks. Anyways...
Dy: *grin* I like Mo too...Emily still denies that his real name is Mo-as though (that's pronounced Mo iss). She's confused.
TASAKAPEOTKAUU: Well, I'm glad the master sees fit with my update. -_- lol. Man-Freak is not poor...he's stupid and evil and a demon because he tries to take the ring from Fro Fro! *bashes Boromir's head* But waking up Legolas is a different story...Cruel yes, but he was a casualty of war. A very cute casualty I might add...*innocent grin*
devil's lil imp: lol, well, I put up a chapter. (
Well, young grasshoppers and bunny slippers, I have one more thing to say. Bob is slowly dying. I must say, it's nice that there's no flames. Or maybe you're just nice people and at not flaming me...oh well, all flames will still be sent to revive Bob. *pats her pet balrog on the head*
Three days we traveled up the river. We stopped five times in those three days. I was often very testy and short-tempered. The fact that the Man-Freak (Boromir, FYI) had been bugging me the other four times didn't help my mood much either.
I was watching Emily argue with Frodo whether Jack or Kirby was better. Frodo, who was now good friends with Kirby, naturally defended him, but Emily insisted Jack was better behaved. I listened to them for half an hour until I finally got sick of their bickering. Would they EVER SHUT UP? Grumbling, I went digging inside my back for my ever so handy walkman. Placing my Sarah Evans CD in, I let the words fill my ears. Tapping my foot a little, I sung the words to myself in my head.
"'We're only human, baby We walk on broken ground. We loose our way, We come unwound. We're turnin' circles, baby We're never satisfied, We fall from grace Forget we can fly
But through all the tears that we cry We'll survive
Cause when we're torn apart, Shattered and scared, Love as the grace to save us. We're just two tarnished hearts, When in each other's arms We become saints and angels""
I listened to the whole song before I realized that Emily and Frodo were staring at me.
"What?" I asked with a glare.
"What in God's name are you listening to? Whatever it is, it must be odd, because-" Emily began but I cut her off.
"Hey, no one disses my country music! Sarah Evans is cool," I said loudly, scowling. "It's better than that crud you listen to. Half the time you can't even tell what they're saying." She didn't reply; just resumed arguing with the hobbit. Finally, I threw my headphones off. My favorite song had finished and I was bored again. I scooted over to Legolas, who was leaning against a tree, talking to Aragorn. They only noticed I was there after they'd finish gibbering in Elvish.
"What now?" Aragorn asked tensely.
"I'm bored, small ones," I stated. "How long are we staying here?"
"Not much longer," Legolas replied, glancing at Aragorn before continuing. "Orcs are closely behind us. I fear they may be upon us soon if we don't hurry." I was silent for a moment, knowing that indeed they would catch up. Hey, at least the Man-Freak will be dead. Maybe I can tip his boat one more time before he kicks the bucket...I'm not normally a mean person (IT'S TRUE, I SWEAR!) but that guy is so flippin' annoying. The bad kind of annoying too.
"It's too bad we don't have Princess Puff with us..." I commenting with a sigh, referring to Ariavasiel, whose name I'd already forgotten. "We could trade her...safe passage for us in exchange for a brand spankin' new slave." Aragorn gave an exasperated sigh.
"I'm going to regret ever going to that council," he muttered and Legolas nodded in agreement. I continued to pester them for ten more minutes before Aragorn stalked away, yelling, "We're leaving! Everyone back into the boats!" With a satisfied grin I skipped (not actually skipped, but you know what I mean, don't you?) to our boat.
****************
"Can I kill you?" I asked boredly.
"No, why would you want to do that?" Legolas replied, an irritated expression on his face.
"Because when you're this bored you go mad. And insane people are also murderers. So by not killing someone when you're bored, you're breaking a very special rule. So can I? PLEASE?"
"That makes no sense. And no, you still can't kill me."
"Can I at least preserve you're eyeballs in a glass jar and put it on my desk so I can laugh at them everyday?"
"You'd have to kill me to get my eyes, in case you didn't notice."
"So? It's preserving eyeballs, not killing. I've already got a jar ready. It's made by the most important glass makers in the world," I said matter-of-factly.
"Do I have to answer that?"
"You just answered it by asking, 'Do I have to answer that' so you really have no choice right now."
"Why me, why me?" he moaned.
"Because you're special? Be happy it's me, and not some pervy fangirl off the net whose life long ambition is to see you without your shirt," I said with a grin. He glanced up, a scared look on his face.
"That's..." he started, but trailed off.
"Wrong. Scary. Not right," I offered and he nodded. "Hey, how did this conversation get started again?"
"You were asking to kill me..."
"Oh. That's nice. Can I drive for a while?" I asked pleadingly, then lowered my voice. "If you do, I'll tip the Man-Freak's boat over for you..."
"You better not. I'll be blamed since it's obviously my job now to make sure you don't get in any trouble...Eru help me..." Legolas replied quickly, but gave me the oar.
"Don't fall asleep this time, Elf Boy, or else you might just be rudely awakened," I said with a mischievous smirk. He gave Gimli a pained look, who had been watching us. He leaned back staring skyward. Gimli promptly fell asleep. Great, I'm all alone in the world, I thought to myself with a happy note.
I paid no heed to Legolas's words and began to make my way toward Boromir's boat. Merry and Pippin watched me out of the corner of their eyes. I gave them an apologetic look. I didn't want to dump the hobbits, but that's what you get when you make friends with the enemy. I was maybe three feet from victory then. With a triumphant look, I scrapped the side of our boat against Boromir's. Legolas looked up calmly, grinning at me evilly. I decided I didn't like that look.
"Took you long enough," he said quietly so only I would hear. I narrowed my eyes for a moment at him, then turned to face the Man-Freak's wrath. He was distracted however, because he and the hobbits were heading toward a little rock jutting out of the water. An EXTREMELY little rock, but a rock nonetheless. They went tumbling gently into it, but hard enough to cause the boat to tip over. I had to bite my tongue to keep from bursting out laughing. Legolas reached over to the struggling hobbits (I mean, come on, they may be able to swim but think of the current...) and pulled them into ours' momentarily. The Man-Freak's boat wasn't harmed, and it bobbed gently along. The Man-Freak was climbing back into it, soaking wet.
He was glaring at me, as I was to him. Legolas swatted me on the head (but he was grinning from the very tips of his pointed ears, I noticed) and grabbed the oar, swiftly paddling over to the other boat. Merry and Pippin carefully climbed into their own boat and sat down, drawing their cloaks around them for warmth. You had to feel sorry for them.
"Sorry you guys got dumped. I didn't make the Man-Frea-Boromir" I stopped myself and remembered they were friends with the little devil. "Run into the rock, but I'm sorry about running into you guys.
"No you're not," Pippin said with a shivering smirk. "But we forgive you anyway." I did reply to this, because Legolas was already pulling away after signaling to Aragorn that everyone was all right. Aragorn stopped his boat until we caught up, placing his vessel carefully between our boat and the Man-Freak's. I could tell Legolas was about to tell me off (probably because Aragorn had told him to do that whenever I misbehaved) so I started talking before he did.
"I did it when you were awake, so you can't get mad at me," I reminded him of his earlier comment. He opened his mouth then closed it again, then spoke.
"Fine. You're safe from my wrath for now," he said with that evil look I despised. "But if you happen to try it again, then you might just go for a little swim." I looked down at the water, then back at him and saw he wasn't joking. I solemnly nodded and started reading my book.
We were getting closer and closer to our destination. We stationed our boats tighter together. It doesn't help if Orcs pick off your people with arrows because you're too far away to help. I was close enough to talk to Emily. She had Mo back now, and the guinea pig was trying to look over the edge of the boat. She pulled him back and looked up at me.
"Emily..."
"Yeah?"
"You have a giant spider on your head," I said with a sigh. She raised an eyebrow at me and began to stick Mo in a little pocket of her bag.
"Katie, I really worry." I groaned and tried to pop her one up side the head but she jerked away with a triumphant smirk. So I went to bug Legolas. Again. I think that was the hundredth time I've done that.
"Are we there yet?" I asked him.
"No," Gimli replied after Legolas gave no answer for a whole two minutes.
"How bout now?" I asked again after five second.
"No."
"Now?"
"No."
"Now?"
"NO!!!" he shrieked in my ear and his hand went to his ax. I think Legolas was in la-la land or something, because he shook his head, like coming out of a trance (even though he was still rowing, he had been staring straight ahead, looking at the horizon line but not really seeing anything). He quickly saw what was going on and glared at both of us.
"Can I forget about you for ten minutes without you causing some sort of mishap?" he cried, looking at me. I shook my head. He glanced at something in front of him, then back at me, smirking. And yes, he was STILL rowing. I was wondering how the guy could do that. It must be an Elf thing.
"Gimli, could you please hold our course for a moment?" the Elf asked Gimli, who stared at the paddle like it was a disease before doggedly rowing. Legolas reached down to pull out...a long coil of silver Elven rope. I eyed him suspiciously as he cut a good length of it with one of his knives and turned to me. He had on the evil smile, which made me worry greatly.
"All right, Pointy Ears, what are you up to?" I asked. He did answer, but flung the rope around me and quickly bound me with it before I could react.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" I cried, struggling against the strong rope. "You'll never get away with this! I'll call the police on you! The Russian KGB! The America CIA! JAMES BOND WILL BLOW YOUR GUTS AWAY!! The USA government will not be happy that you kidnapped one of their citizens! This is war, Elf! WAR!!" He stuffed a roll of cloth in my mouth and turned around, laughing.
"Maybe now I can get some peace," he said mostly to himself, taking the oar back from Gimli.
************************
I know, I know, I know. Short chapter. I'm such a bad girl, aren't I? I'll update soon though. I wrote the last bit and thought I HAD TO PUT IT UP NOW. *evil grin* Oh well. The song that was in there was called "Born to Fly" by Sarah Evans (my all time favorite singer). It's one of my favorite songs. I know, I'm weird but country music rocks. Anyways...
Dy: *grin* I like Mo too...Emily still denies that his real name is Mo-as though (that's pronounced Mo iss). She's confused.
TASAKAPEOTKAUU: Well, I'm glad the master sees fit with my update. -_- lol. Man-Freak is not poor...he's stupid and evil and a demon because he tries to take the ring from Fro Fro! *bashes Boromir's head* But waking up Legolas is a different story...Cruel yes, but he was a casualty of war. A very cute casualty I might add...*innocent grin*
devil's lil imp: lol, well, I put up a chapter. (
Well, young grasshoppers and bunny slippers, I have one more thing to say. Bob is slowly dying. I must say, it's nice that there's no flames. Or maybe you're just nice people and at not flaming me...oh well, all flames will still be sent to revive Bob. *pats her pet balrog on the head*