As has been said before, it's not mine...
My dearest Loyal Reviewers; Captain-Emily, thanks again for your comments. Legolas will, by the end of this (wow, there's going to BE an end? Oh my gosh!! Not for a long while yet, though, by the way this is going...!) have regained some of his masculinity, dignity, and everything else. If anyone was wondering, I'm a dedicated Legoluster (hence the name Greenleaf-Cuarwen) myself, so why he gets mutilated character-wise is something of a mystery to me--
*gets prodded, hard, with a certain someone's knitting-arrow* Yes, Haldir, I love you too. *Elvish clamour in background* And you, Elrond. YES, Glorfindel!! Now the lot of you, shut up and let me get back to writing commentaries on all the lovely reviews I've got, before Leafy realises what I've just said and kills me for infidelity. (Me, unfaithful? Never!).
--where was I? Oh, yes, why Legolas gets character assassinated. I haven't got a clue...but rest assured, revenge will be his. He's not much cop at holidays, but home is HIS domain. (Or so he likes to think, at least).
To answer your other queries: Aragorn ran away because they'd just been discussing homosexuality, and then Lego starts apparently taking his shirt off. Aragorn, who's an excellent Ranger and all-round great guy but not so good at Math, put two and two together and got six. And ran.
As for the 'America-bashing', sincere apologies to anyone that may have offended; I have nothing against America (well, not much, but I won't go into that. America people are, as a rule, really nice; and I can say that from experience). I needed somewhere to be the 'West' and since they're now in England, I sort of thought of the nearest landmass to the west. And then Lego and Gimli needed an excuse to come home, so they decided they didn't like America much. I did try to convince them otherwise, but they were having none of it.
Flyaway, I'm so glad you like it! ^_^ It's sort of supposed to be funny, but my sense of humour has a tendency to be kinda twisted so I'm pleased other people find it humorous too... Yes, poor old Lego does have a lot to put up with - a lot of people have noticed that... ^_^ Please find below 'what they get up to next'...heheh.
Sakura Kuonji...here's some more. Hope you like! ^_^
Theelfismine: I don't think this is what you had in mind...but our poor dear Elf does indeed meet SEVERAL females in this chapter. I'm sadistic, so sue me ^_^ Don't worry, he will get revenge!! (And yes, he is straight, unless I decided to put in some non-plot-affecting random slashy interludes, á la Bagenders, to which I am eternally indebted etc).
Language and hobbity porn-obsession in the latter part of the chapter; ex- partner-beating in the former. Enjoy.
By the way...Glorfindel lives (because he deserves to), Haldir lives (because I believe in The Books. And he, too, deserves to, bless him ^_^ I love Haldy!! ...and Glorfie too, for that matter =^_^=), and Boromir has relations. Honest. But halt, I give away the plot...and now I digress...oh, here, just read...here is 'chapter the fourth'...
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4. Friday: Old Friends...and New Ones
"BOROMIR!!!"
The scream permeated aeons of time and space, getting within seconds to southern Bermuda where Boromir was not holidaying (he'd got enough of THAT particular pastime in the last day alone) but in fact checking up on his two-hundred-and-seventy-five-times-great-nephew Paul, who was, via a VERY convoluted and twisted route with a lot of blood diluting and downright weirdness (including one-hundred-and-thirty-two-times-great-niece Annie dating a supposed sorcerer, and great-nephews ninety-eight through 114, all named Louis, being the Kings of France for a short - by immortal standards - while), a direct descendant of little brother Faramir.
*Now what've I done?* Boromir thought crossly, quitting his attempt to show himself to Paul (he'd always rather wanted to show himself to a relative. He'd only ever succeeded once - with Annie's paramour, and he'd given him some very good advice too. Of course, when he went and took it, THAT was when the locals started accusing him of sorcery. Boromir still cringed a little when he thought of that one) and snapping, with a sigh, back to Room 26, where Aragorn was standing, looking vaguely murderous. "You called, bwana?"
"Shut up, deadboy. Yes, I did."
"This is getting to be an uncomfortably regular occurrence. This is two mornings in a row you've summoned me from my ether to do your dirty work."
"Oh, snap out of it," Aragorn said irritably. Boromir got the distinct feeling that something had gone wrong already this morning (and it was only...he frowned, working out the local time...eight-thirty A.M.?). "Just...stop it, okay?"
"Umm...stop what?"
"Stop being so damn obstreperous!"
"Been eating dictionaries again, Estel?"
"I've told you, don't call me that! And no, I haven't been consuming dictionaries or thesauri or anything else besides!"
"'Consuming'...'thesauri'...the evidence mounts," Boromir said with a cheeky grin.
Aragorn took a deep breath and worked hard repeating to himself *he's a ghost; hitting him will do no good whatsoever, he won't feel it, he's a ghost, hitting him will do no good whatsoever...* For all this was true, it didn't help much.
"Hang on a moment," Boromir said after a moment's tetchy silence; "where's Lego?"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!!!" came a shout, in Quenya, from the en-suite.
"He said, 'don't call me that'," Aragorn translated, since Boromir was not precisely fluent in Quenya, Sindarin or any other Elvish tongue. "I think us calling him Lego finally got to him."
"Just a bit," came the murderous Quenya mutterings from behind the bathroom door.
"Holidays are supposed to be a de-stressing exercise, Leg--uh, Leafy old pal," Aragorn said genially (Boromir was getting increasingly worried about these frighteningly short psychotic episodes the resident Ranger seemed to be having of late). "You're not meant to fret over them. How can you be so calm at home and trembling like a ...well, a leaf here?"
"Him? Calm? At home?" Boromir said with a sharp laugh. "He's the one who panics every thirty seconds!"
"We-ell..." Aragorn considered this. "Maybe not quite that often...maybe once a minute or so..."
"Same difference!"
*Aura of outer Elvishness and unflappable serenity!!* Legolas thought, eyes closed tight in concentration, in the bathroom. He didn't like where this conversation seemed to be leading.
"Why'd you want me, anyway?" Boromir asked, floating up to the ceiling and stretching out full-length on thin air.
Aragorn would have pouted, if that hadn't been a very immature and undignified thing to do. Instead he had to settle for sighing exaggeratedly and flopping down on his bed, craning upwards to look his dead friend (umm...co-Fellowshipper) in the eye. "Thought we - or at least you - could go meet some friends today."
"Friends?" Boromir sounded distinctly nervous. "How d'you mean, friends? Other sharp-earses?" The slightly derogatory name for Legolas had somehow degenerated into meaning random Elves, and sharp-ears or point-ears was now the term used in public, so as to hopefully avoid anyone thinking the whole Company were loons. Between them (well, between Legolas, Aragorn, Gandalf, Gimli and Frodo) they spoke over four hundred languages, but the other three hobbits had resisted all attempts to teach them any second tongue and so they were stuck with the most-used language in the world, which almost any passer-by could understand. Legolas and to a lesser extent Aragorn were all for teaching everyone Elvish, which it was almost certain nobody could understand, but it was a highly complex language and one which did not entirely suit a rather brusque, vaguely Scottish accent (Pippin) or the mouth of a terminal giggler (Merry) or a Dwarf (Gimli. Legolas's liking for Dwarves did not extend so far as allowing them to be any 'good' at Elvish, though Aragorn thought Gimli's pronunciation was excellent, most of the time). Because of the collective inability to speak any common, foreign-to- most-sane-modern-people language, they had reverted to coming up with code- names, of sorts, such as 'sharp-ears' for Elves, 'flat-footed midgets' for Hobbits, and so on. Terms which could easily be misinterpreted by nebby passers-by. Does 'sharp-ears', for instance, mean someone who has pointed, sharp ears, or someone who hears everything? In the Fellowship's case, both - but most people would assume the latter only.
"No, not other Elves," Aragorn said. *At least I hope not, I have enough on my plate with one at the moment, thank you VERY much.* "We're going to the Tower of London. You might meet up with some other deadbeats. Whoops-a- daisy, I mean deadboys."
"Hmph." Boromir sounded somewhat affronted, and with pretty good reason, all things considered. "Well, if that's all you wanted, I WAS busy."
"You have a life?" came a voice from the bathroom.
Boromir two-fingered the en-suit door transparently. "No, but I do have a death, and it's a lot better than your life!"
"Get lost, deadboy!"
"Sharp-ears!"
"Heartless!"
"Herbal-hair!"
"Soul des--oh, for the love of Ilúvatar, I'm not getting into this!"
"Chicken!"
"Get LOST, you DEADBEAT!!"
"Ooh, I'm scared," Boromir said dryly, and vanished with a small pop.
"Well bloody done, Lego," Aragorn said, and closed his eyes and tried to pretend everything was okay...everything was fine...Just for a moment, he remembered little Eldarion tugging on his tunic, and smiling down at his young son; and Arwen coming in with the teenage Estela by her side, glowing slightly in the darkness of the evening...tucking the children in to bed and having the rest of the night to themselves...*Oh, wake UP, Elfstone,* he chided himself wearily. *Arwen LEFT. You know, that might SUGGEST something about the relationship, or lack thereof?! And besides, you ended up hating her too, right? RIGHT??*
"Still," he muttered aloud; "it doesn't even matter, on account of how I'm never going to see her again..."
**
The Fellowship, sans Legolas, were been braving the hotel restaurant again (Merry and Pippin, knowing when they were onto a good thing, had insisted on hotel cooked breakfasts once more...maybe twice, thrice, infinity more) when the Elf, safely curled up on his bed in Room 26, re-reading for the ten thousandth time an ancient and dog-eared tome entitled 'Men are from Melkor, Elves are from Venus' (Imladris Publishing, fifty groats, now out of print for over six million years; Legolas had the only known remaining copy, but since everyone else who'd been alive back then aside from the Fellowship was - or so he thought until he remembered something rather worrying mere seconds later - dead, this was hardly surprising) recalled something someone had said to him a long (by human standards) time ago.
It had been back in the Sixties, when he'd been working for a law firm in Manchester, having lost the rest of the Fellowship for a decade or two (not deliberately, of course...). He'd been on a business trip to London and had met up with...yes...And they'd talked a while, and before he'd had to leave he'd been told, "If you're in the area in the next fifty years or so, look me up, won't you?" And he'd said yes, of course, as you do.
It's a hard job to look someone up when all you have is a rather grainy forty-year-old snapshot and a long-changed 'mobile' phone number (as he recalled, it had been not so much a mobile as a brick), but Elves are a determined species and they tend to keep their promises.
Ten minutes later, a determined-looking gentleman with over-long hair looped up and tucked under a black baseball cap darted through Reception and into the restaurant. Jayne, who was on Reception duty again, watched with interest as he held a short conversation with (apparently) thin air, then went to rouse the other seven members of the...Grey, wasn't it?...party.
"Come on, people, let's go!"
"Why're you so bloody bright and bouncy?" Gimli asked crossly. Morning was not his best time; and he'd never quite got used to the idea of 'cities' either - he still preferred underground, mountains, stone halls and so on, and was a dedicated mountaineer...or had been in the 1400s, when he'd escaped the others for a while.
"We've got somewhere to go!" Legolas told them brightly. "Come on, move out already..."
"Where?" Aragorn asked suspiciously.
"Why, Aragorn, don't you trust me? We're sticking to your planned itinerary..." *mostly,* he thought; "and going to the Tower of London."
"I don't trust the way you're smiling, Lego..."
"I just don't trust you, period," Gimli said with a grunt.
"Oh ye of little faith," Legolas said happily. "Come on, are we going already?"
"I wan' some more mus'rooms!!"
"An' me!"
"Umm...if you're offering...?"
"I'm not!" Aragorn put in quickly. He didn't really want to get going (not if Legolas was in one of his über-organised and far-too-happy moods, anyhow. Happy was okay and über-organised was usually great; it was only when the two phenomenon were seen together they generally spelled disaster) but they'd be there all day if he let the hobbits get any more breakfast...
"Yes, come on, we're going in a minute," Legolas ordered. "One minute FLAT, okay?"
Pippin, unfortunately, was already at the top-ups counter.
"Hmm...okay...so possibly not..."
**
Merry and Pippin had found their ideal jobs. At least, so they thought.
The beefeaters were not so enamoured with their pint-sized new 'friends'. Although when they'd taken the front-of-house type shifts they'd known that they might get stuck with annoying children, but they hadn't bargained on hobbits (or, as Fred put it in the morning coffee break, 'those damn kiddies with the size twenty-eight feet and appetites like horses'. Joe of the Royal Horse-Mounted National Guard was none too pleased with this comment, pointing out that horses are really very sensible eaters, thank you very much).
"Ah always thought Ah suited red!"
"An' with a name like 'beefeater', Pip...!!"
"Well said, tha' 'obbit. A'right..." Pippin turned to the beefeater, taking on a very businesslike tone. "Where d'we sign up?"
The poor beefeater took a deep breath and started to wish he'd joined that lot with the tall bearskin hats. They weren't ALLOWED to talk to visitors, lucky buggers.
"I think you're a bit young yet, chaps," he said, trying hard for a smile.
"Nah, we can manage. We're jus' small for our age," said Merry. How small (or tall, by Hobbit standards) and what age were things the beefeater didn't need to know, of course...
The beefeater was in the middle of answering an incessant stream of hobbity questions, and thinking some very anti-hobbity thoughts (although he thought they were anti-kiddie thoughts, since he didn't know Merry and Pippin were hobbits), when he was saved by... well, saved, anyhow.
"Come ON, would you, please?" Frodo said, grabbing Merry and Pippin by a sleeve each and dragging them away. "I'm so sorry if they've been a bother," he added to the beefeater.
"Umm," was the guard's comment, as he tried hard to work out the logistics behind a very small person dragging two not-quite-as-small-people away with all the force and authority of any adult. It didn't work...did it? *Er...no...* he thought, shaking his head, and bent down, smiling, to shake the hand of a nice safe six-year-old girl with pigtails and a pink backpack. Tired and confused, he didn't even bother with the no-bags-in-the- tower rule...
"Mush," Frodo ordered, poking his cousins in the back, hard. "Lego's getting tetchy. Anyone'd think we had an appointment to make."
Little did he know...
**
Nobody paid any attention to the little group conversing on the Tower green. They seemed to be having a picnic, and apart from unusual dress in some quarters, accents you could break a brick on in others, and a general feeling of out-of-time weirdness, it was a perfectly normal scene.
"Where are they already?" It was a woman speaking.
"I don't know," a man replied; "I told him to meet us here--are you looking at me again?"
"Dream on!!"
"Nightmare on, you mean--"
"Children, please!" A different man, whose voice radiated annoyed paternity. "We are civilised beings whose combined age totals more than that of this Earth, I think we can manage not to be too mean, can we not?"
"Huh," the woman, sounding like a teenager who'd been remonstrated with, said.
"Sir," was the other man's contribution, sounding superior but accepting of the rebuke.
"Better. Do you mean to honestly tell me that they're still co-inhabiting as a Fellowship?"
"So Legolas said, sir. I find it a little hard to believe, myself."
"You're not the only one." There was a pause, and the speaker 'hmm'd. "Still...we shall find out soon, no doubt."
"No doubt, sir," said another male voice, calm and organised. "Cucumber sandwich?"
"Hmm, don't mind if I do. Diola lle."
"Shh! Not here!"
"Damn, I hate the mortal world."
"No, you hate Men."
"Also true. Still...ah, look!"
"Ai!" said the woman, dark-haired and willowy, shielding her eyes with a hand as she studied the approaching party. "Ohmivalarit'sthem!!"
"Ye-es..." the man who had been first to speak, blonde with autonomous eyebrows and the aforementioned brick-shattering accent, said slowly. "It's hardly going to be anyone else, now is it?"
"Shut the hell up, Haldir, it's them, it's honestly them, oh my Valar, I don't believe it, I haven't seen them in--oh, gawd, HE's with them..."
"Arwen, shut up before one or the other of us takes the initiative and injures you," Elladan suggested good-naturedly, speaking up for the first time. This earned him a dirty look from the owner of the voice which radiated annoyed paternity, a.k.a. his father, a.k.a. Elrond Half-Elven, Lord of Imladris. Well, until Imladris became part of Asia, that was. (The Japanese had liked the idea of fine gardens and delicate pagodas a.k.a outdoor council chambers; and built on the idea of gorgeous landscaping to produce their beautiful Oriental ornamental gardens).
Over the green, a similar scenario was happening in the Fellowship, only with more swearing and, in parts, a lot louder. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?!" Aragorn wanted to know. Loudly.
"Shush, no need to shout, I'm an Elf after all," Legolas told him good- naturedly, starting to wonder what he HAD been thinking. "Er...I thought it might be nice to meet up again..."
"NICE? NICE?? YOU SMEG-FOR-BRAINS--" (after the Girl In Train Station Incident, Merry and Pippin had taken to watching Red Dwarf on the hotel TVs, which of course had Sky, as a sort of tribute to their latest unnamed object of desire, and their use of the Worst Word In The RD Canon had rubbed off on Aragorn, who already knew more Worst Words than most truckies and builders combined, in fifty-six languages including Klingon) "--DO YOU HAVE DEATH WISH OR SOMETHING?"
"Being immortal, I don't see how I could--oh...umm...no?"
"Pity, that, because I'm DAMN WELL GOING TO SEE THAT IT GETS GRANTED!!"
"Calm down, Estel," Gandalf, ever the voice of reason, said soothingly, laying a companionable hand on Aragorn's shoulder. "It won't be so bad..."
"I am NOT going over there. I don't care WHO's there, I'm NOT."
"Why not?"
"SHE's with them!!"
"Ah. Umm."
*Oops,* Legolas thought quietly. *Maybe I shouldn't've said 'bring all the old gang'. Maybe 'part of the old gang' would have sufficed. Or 'all the guys'. Or 'everyone but Arwen'. Or 'come alone...'*
Gandalf's lecture (something along the lines of "I Will Do Painful And Magical Things To You If You Dare a) Run Away b) Insult Arwen c) Argue Back With Me") was cut short by two or three of the company on the grass waving. "Going to stand there all day?" the cut-glass tones of a certain someone asked genially.
"Ohshitohshitohshitohshit," Aragorn muttered. "Please tell me that isn't Haldir."
Gimli, after confirmation from Legolas as to this fact, joined in the ohshit chorus. Gandalf whacked them both in the backside with the picnic cooler, which he had elected to carry for today. "Move, you both," he ordered. "Now."
When Gandalf said 'now' in That Tone Of Voice, you didn't argue unless you were either Boromir, or had a death wish of your own. Reluctantly, Aragorn and Gimli shuffled forward, following the rest of the Fellowship who'd long since departed towards the little party on the grass (Merry and Pippin thought their food looked better than the offerings in the Fellowship's picnic cooler). Boromir floated somewhere on the sidelines, looking bored.
*Bloody marvellous, an Elf reunion. They needn't think I'm sticking around for THIS.*
He vanished with a pop, as per usual.
**
"So, you came at last, eh?"
"No need to get shirty, Elrohir. I did have eight others to try and herd in the right direction," Legolas said defensively, in Quenya.
The twins, Elrohir and his brother Elladan, both laughed (identically, as they did everything else). "Haldir was going practically off it," Elrohir imparted confidentially.
"Really?" Legolas tried hard to imagine Haldir going off anything, but failed. "Somehow I can't quite see that..."
"No, it does have to be seen to be believed," Elladan admitted. "You should have heard Arwen and he; any more and they would have been at daggers drawn!"
"Seriously?"
"No need to sound like the neighbourhood busybody," Elrohir laughed. "Living with mortals must do something to one's integrity!"
"I'm sure you don't know anything about it," Arwen put in pointedly. The twins shot sidelong glances at one another, and at Legolas.
"She's still really sore about losing Aragorn," Elladan said.
"Says it was all his fault--"
"Well?" his sister said imperiously. "It WAS all his fault!"
"Was not!" Aragorn said in annoyance, having understood this whole Elvish conversation (only he and Gandalf did, of the Fellowship. Frodo knew a bit of Sindarin, but since this was in Quenya he was lost off) and decided to chip in. "It was her, she moved on!"
"No, you did," Arwen said hotly.
"Only after you kicked me out!"
"The White Tower was no place for floozies!"
"Meaning what?"
"You think I didn't notice how you looked at Lirimaelin?!"
"Uh, who? And can I just point out that is the most Mary-Sueish name I've ever heard outside of online fan-fiction domains. Please don't tell me we honestly had a serving-girl called that."
"We did. You did, at least. You ba--"
"My lady, please!" Haldir cut in smoothly. "This is neither the time nor the place for such conversation, and if you want to know, my lord, Lirimaelin was the younger daughter of one of your human generals and an Elven maiden. She was called 'lovely one' by her father, who spoke little Elvish, and when her mother translated that into Elvish he thought it was so nice he stuck a 'lin' on the end and named her. When she was sixteen by human count, she--"
"I don't need her bloody life story," Aragorn spat; "and how d'you know it, anyway?"
"Word gets around...and then I did some checking up."
"Word was wrong, okay? You get me? WRONG. I never had anything with ANY of the serving girls, okay, Arwen? As for you, I'm not even going to GO there!"
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
"Only that YOU were the one who--"
Legolas tuned out, not wanting to hear the insults that followed. Obviously, there was no way those two were ever going to patch up their differences. Leaving Haldir to referee the (thankfully quite quiet) shouting match, he glanced around for the Hobbits...
"Get out of that picnic basket!" he ordered, spotting them raiding it for lembas.
"Wha'--?"
"I said," he repeated, picking each of them up by the collars and depositing them some distance away, "keep OUT of the picnic basket!"
Even though it was a sunny day, the air around him got a little brighter suddenly. Most people cast shadows when they approach, but not Galadriel. She, being as she was the Lady OF Light, unsurprisingly CAST light. "They are more than welcome, should they wish, to eat their fill," she offered kindly. "Have you ever tried counselling, Legolas?" she added in an undertone.
He bridled. "I do not need--!!"
"There are those who would beg to differ," Haldir, the world's best at multi-tasking, interjected from where he was keeping Arwen and Aragorn calm and quiet and simultaneously holding intelligent conversation with Gandalf while also repointing a split arrow.
"Since when were you involved in this conversation?" Legolas asked pointedly, feeling the beginnings of a stress headache coming on. "Oww..."
"I'm not going to say quit whining," Elrond put in from his cross-legged lotus position not far away, "because I'm not going to let you start. Here." He snapped his fingers and Legolas felt the tension behind his temples release.
"Whoa...er, thanks, sir. I knew you were a healer but where'd you learn that?!"
"The Sci-Fi channel," Arwen said, not quitting her staring contest with Aragorn. "Far too much Star Trek: The Next Generation."
"Huh? Frodo!! What's he on about?"
Frodo, the only one in the group who would actually admit to liking Star Trek, thought for a minute. "Err...I'm thinking episode one, Encounter At Farpoint, in which there was this...thing...Q...who could do, er, stuff by snapping his fingers...umm..."
"That's the one," Arwen said, adding to Aragorn: "HAH! YOU BLINKED!!"
"Ri-ight," Legolas said slowly. *I'm starting to think this was NOT a good idea...*
"I do not watch too much Star Trek," Elrond said sorely, trying hard not to do a one-eyebrow-raised-Spock-thing. "Caring for a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of land is enough to keep anyone occupied without watching too much Star Trek!"
This information was too much for Legolas. "A hundred and...nngh!!"
"I'm sorry?"
"You're seriously telling me you have a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of land? Where?"
"In the Yorkshire Dales. It's a beautiful area. And since I put the lake in the north-east corner of the property the heron population of the Dales has increased by almost twenty-nine percent. And--"
"You have a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of land in the Yorkshire Dales? Private residence?"
"Of course."
"Uh, you can injure me if you want, my lord, but - I'm starting to hate you!"
"Why?"
"Because you've got a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter bloody acres of private residence land all to yourself, and I get to share a four- bedroom council semi in Birmingham with THIS lot!"
"Oh. Well, do feel free to come and visit, if you're ever in the area."
Legolas closed his eyes for a moment and pictured the scene. One hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of beautiful, peaceful land...fields, gardens, admittedly a lake or two but they were probably avoidable...no annoying Fellowship, no cramped semi, no smoky atmosphere of London or Birmingham...only acres and acres of grass and sky and maybe, if he was really lucky, a beautiful big old-country house, maybe vaguely reminiscent of the Last Homely House...birds, flowers, trees...probably a forest or two, there was bound to be a forest somewhere in that much land...He could see it now. Perfect. "That would be--"
"Bloody awful!"
"Excuse me?! That wallpaper was absolutely gorgeous!"
*Oh, Valar,* Legolas swore to himself. Aragorn and Arwen had moved on from discussing who had been doing what with whom and were now arguing over how nice - or bloody awful, perhaps - the dining room wallpaper had been in their twenty-second house.
"--wonderful," he finished to Elrond, and went over to help Haldir separate the unhappy couple.
**
"It must be thousands and thousands of years now," Boromir said thoughtfully, "and I still actually miss the sensation of--"
"I know, I know," the (ex)-Honourable Lady Madeline Samson, accused witch, burned at the stake in 1622, said, waving her hands transparently, but expressively. "So do I; it's so annoying that we can't any more, don't you think?"
"Couldn't agree more," Thomas Postlethwaite, killed for treason in 1294 (acquitted, posthumously but correctly, in 1329), added, nodding slowly.
"Absolutely. So, how long've you been here?"
"Umm...maybe two or three hundred years? I forget the exact date I arrived...I know I was burned on the fourteenth of September 1622, though. Bastards," she added snippily, shaking her singed skirt. "Everything I change into always ends up singed. Talk about an eternal curse."
"Can't you just sort of...un-singe it?" Boromir asked, blinking.
"Nope. Maybe if I HAD been a witch, I could. But since I'm not, I can't. Huh."
"That's a bit unfair," Boromir noted accurately, being as he was something of an expert on unfairness (although had Faramir been there, he would've said he was MORE of an expert, having had to live with his father's eternal disapproval just for being the youngest. Since he wasn't, in fact, around, Boromir quickly derailed this train of thought and so should we).
"Indeed," Madeline said, sniffing affectedly. "At least I never get colds any more."
"I hate to point this out, m'lady," Thomas told her, "but we're ghosts. We don't get colds anyhow."
"There is that," Madeline noted, sounding pretty crushed. Boromir patted her semi-transparent arm comfortingly. Madeline smiled at him. "So, um, Boromir... What brings you to my neck of the woods?"
"Ow," Thomas commented. He'd been beheaded, so the word 'neck' was obviously something of a touchy subject for him.
"Sorry," Madeline said with an apologetic shrug. "Boromir...?"
"A number 24 bus," Boromir said, which raised (appropriately) the ghost of a smile from the other two. "The cause of my journey, however, is the troop of travelling hooligans I seem to be bound to for all eternity, unfortunately."
"Ooh, a curse, how interesting!" Madeline said enthusiastically. "Was there a real witch involved?"
"Only if you count Galadriel of the Golden Woods," Boromir said, meaning it sincerely. Thomas and Madeline blinked at him. "Elf woman," he said by way of explanation. "Went green when she got mad. Quite pretty until then. Liked reading people's minds, too, which was kind of annoying."
"You believe in Elves? How...sweet," Madeline said, sounding unconvinced.
"What do you mean, believe? I was in a Fellowship with one! And a king and four random hobbits, to boot. Oh, and a small hairy ferret that might have been a Dwarf."
Thomas and Madeline stopped blinking at him and blinked at each other. "I would've been burned a lot sooner if I'd started talking about elfs and things," Madeline noted.
Thomas nodded sincerely. "I was brought up t'believe the Little People should never be mentioned aloud."
"They're not little," Boromir clarified. "Most of 'em are taller than you and I. Well, except Hobbits. It's just an Elf thing. And did you say 'elfs', Madeline? Just it's actually Elves..."
"Ye-es..." Madeline said slowly. "Excuse me a moment. I have, um, an appointment to make."
"Me too," Thomas said, following Madeline through the walls while making noises about "was almost late for my own funeral, got to improve my timekeeping," and "hope I'm not going to be senile when I've been dead a few hundred thousand years."
Boromir shrugged. "Oh well. And to think we started out talking about the sensation of eating things!"
**
"Do you mean to seriously tell me you live with the whole Fellowship?"
"I brought them, didn't I? Arwen, stop clawing at me. I am not Aragorn, nor am I going to let you get near him, no matter how much you wriggle."
"Haldir, please, I do not have to be put in a stranglehold. I am mature and responsible and quite capable of not beating my ex-wife up if you let me go. Besides, you're hurting."
"Sorry," Haldir said, not quite sounding entirely sincere, and released Aragorn, who rubbed his neck affectedly and frowned at the march-warden. "Legolas...the whole group? My Valar...I feel sorry for you. Even the Dwarf?" There were about twenty extra 'a's in Dwaaaaarf and it didn't sound too genial and accepting, either.
"Yes, Haldir, even the Dwarf. Arwen, please!"
"Lemme go then!"
"No. I am going to keep you held firmly until you promise not to kill Aragorn when I let you go."
"I promise already! Now get OFF!"
"Promise...?"
"On my honour. Off!"
"Mmhmm...?"
*Oh Eru,* Aragorn thought; *he's gone into parental mode...maternal mode, to boot. Are we ever in trouble now...*
"On my immortal life and soul I promise not to kill my bas--my ex-husband if you'll only let me GO!"
"What's the magic word?"
Arwen blinked. "I always knew you were screwy, but that takes the biscuit. Ow, all right, all right! 'Please'?!"
"With pleasure." Legolas stopped sitting on Arwen's back and she got up, looking more than a bit ruffled clothes-wise and none to pleased expression- wise. A couple of old ladies walked past and tut-tutted, causing Elladan and Elrohir to snicker.
"You don't know the half of it!" they said softly, in perfect unison. The poor old women glanced round and tutted some more, then stalked off as fast as people leaning heavily on walking-sticks generally can.
"Haldir, have you any idea how dead you are when we get a moment alone?" Aragorn asked pleasantly.
"Yes, thank you," the march-warden replied, equally pleasantly, "not at all, thanks all the same."
"Don't count on it."
*Oh, great,* Frodo thought worriedly, from his vantage point on top of the picnic hamper (he was sitting there, along with Sam, in the hope their combined weight would stop Merry and Pippin getting in at the last of the pork pies). *He's gone homicidal again. Eru help us all.*
/You don't need Eru/, said a voice that wasn't his - unless his had suddenly gone feminine, flowery and slightly echoey without his knowledge, which seemed doubtful even in his fragile mental state - inside his head. /You just need me/.
*I could be wrong,* Frodo thought nervously, because he didn't want to speak aloud and be thought even madder by the others, *but are you Galadriel?*
/Yep/, said the voice, sounding altogether too pleased with itself. /Don't worry, Frodo, I'll keep them under control/.
*Thank you. Um, my lady. I think. Don't hurt them, will you? Aragorn's the only one who knows the bus routes except Legolas and I think Lego'll be too stressed out to want to worry about buses at the end of this...*
/Don't worry/, Galadriel told him, and Frodo looked at her in time to see her smile at him briefly. /I've got it all under control/.
"Biscuit, Arwen?" Aragorn offered pleasantly, blinked a bit, tried to fight what Galadriel was making him think he was thinking, failed miserably and gave up.
"Why, thank you," Arwen said sweetly, accepting a proffered biccie after briefly clasping her hands for a moment, wondering why she was being so bloody nice, realising it was Galadriel, remembering that you NEVER argue with Galadriel, and giving up too.
Nobody except Elrond noticed Celeborn's smirk. But then, Elrond was privy to what he was smirking about, and thought it rather humorous himself. Except for Arwen being involved, of course, but one had to forgive one's in- laws some things. Especially when they were Celeborn of Lórien and Galadriel, Lady of Light (and of Terrible Migraines).
**
"Umm, this may have escaped people's notice, but they're within half an hour of closing time here..."
Glorfindel, sane as ever, was the one who made the dread comment. Elrond and Celeborn were locked in a staring match, though mentally shouting at each other (mostly along the lines of "what the HELL does your wife think she's doing to my DAUGHTER?!" and "if you'd brought her up less bitchy, we wouldn't be IN this situation!", as Glorfindel had found out quite by accident when he'd tried to ask a perfectly innocent question without the others knowing) and both looking quite fierce. Galadriel was still innocently keeping tabs on Aragorn and Arwen, who were being too nice to be true (Aragorn being nice for more than a minute or so was starting to scare Merry and Pippin a bit) although thankfully had retained enough of themselves to not actually be falling in love again or anything wet like that. Haldir and Legolas were involved in an animated debate on how warfare had gone downhill so since the fourteenth-century, or possibly had only gotten better since the invention of gunpowder ("I was THERE for the invention of gunpowder! Beat that, princey!" "Fine - I was there for the invention of the sub-machine gun. Not that I actually was bothered, or anything, but I was there." "Really?" "Yes, march-warden, really. Unfortunately." "In the room?" "Yep." "Seriously?" "No kidding." "No? Really? Oh m--I mean, how...interesting for you. You'll have to tell me about it sometime. When I have a window in my calendar, of course." *Think bored, bored, bored, been there, done that, don't care...* "Of course") much to the amusement of the Hobbits, who couldn't follow the words - the discussion being held in Quenya, which not even Frodo knew a lot of - but thought the content must be hugely exciting judging by the various gesticulations (both parties, but mostly Legolas) and obviously fake expressions of disinterest (both parties, but mostly Haldir) going on. Merry and Pippin were having the time of their lives thinking of possible things they were saying, mostly along the lines of "Kiss me, Legolas!" and "Yes, I really DO love you, Haldir!", until Sam prodded them both hard in the ribs and they shut up. They knew an angry gardener when they saw one.
The next sensible comment came from the most unlikely quarter possible. Frodo. "Has anyone seen Boromir?"
The entire group turned to blink at him. "Um, would you care?" Sam asked gently. "I mean, sir, you and he--?"
"No, not really, but it's getting dark and I thought he might want to know we're leaving."
"You are?" Elladan and Elrohir chorused, behind in current events as usual.
"Mister Glorfindel just told us we've basically got to be out in half an hour or so, so we'd better be moving, hadn't we?"
"How many times, Frodo? I saved your life--"
"NO, I DID!"
"Shut up, Arwen. Frodo, I saved your life, or rather Asfaloth did, so I think it's probably all right for you to drop the 'mister', yes?"
"Yes, sir, mi--um, Glorfindel, sir."
"Since when did you save Frodo's life?" Legolas wanted to know innocently.
"I did in the movie."
"What movie?"
"You haven't seen it? Oh my VALAR! I'll have to lend you the tape!"
"Yeah, good idea," Pippin, who'd been meaning to bring this up for some time now, piped up. "Ca' we see i', Lego, please?"
Hearing Pippin say 'please' knocked Legolas so off-balance that he said 'yes, of course' without even thinking.
"Would you like the animated one, too?" Glorfindel asked sarcastically. "You saved his bleeding life in the animated one, Legolas. No offence - but you?! Does nobody care that it was ME who rode out and lent my horse to the cause of saving his life? Not you, not Arwen, not anybody, ME! And the real hero of the hour was Asfaloth!! Who Arwen horse-rustled in the movie!"
"Don't blame me!" Arwen said crossly. "I always liked that soppy old nag of yours anyhow, heaven only knows why--"
"ASFALOTH WAS NOT A SOPPY OLD NAG!!"
"Shut up," Elrond said genially, "please, before people start to notice us. We are trying for inconspicuous here."
This, coming from a millennia-old Elf lord with ebony hair half-way down his back, apparently wearing a sort of silk dressing gown over - were they jeans, Legolas wondered? - and a smart-casual shirt, was so pointless and hypocritical that the entire rest of the group, with the sole exception of Glorfindel, burst out laughing. Glorfindel glanced at his own overlong tresses worriedly and considered a haircut. Of course, so far as he knew none of the old gang had had their hair cut shorter than a foot or so beneath their shoulder-blades, but maybe he and Elrond could start a new fashion among the 'inconspicuous' Elven population of the world...
"Oh good, you haven't killed each other yet."
"Boromir!" Aragorn said in an unusual show of gratitude for his fellow (if dead) man. "Thank Eru you're here."
"Uh, are you feeling okay?"
"Fine, fine. Galadriel, please, enough is enough. I won't kill her, I promise."
Boromir blinked at Legolas, who was usually pretty sane (all things considered), hoping for an explanation. None was forthcoming, as the debate about warfare had now degenerated into a discussion about which was better: living forever in the same mansion as Galadriel, where at least there were hundreds of rooms to escape to but your mind was in constant danger of being invaded; or living forever in the same nasty little four-bedroom semi as the Fellowship of the Ring, where there was nowhere to go for privacy but at least your mind was your own.
A welcome distraction floated past in a singed red dress. "Boromir! I thought you'd--! I was just going for a little jaunt - I mean haunt..."
"Madeline? Um, Lady Madeline?"
"It's been half an hour, you great clod, not innumerable centuries. Of course it's me. SWEET MOTHER OF GOD, IS THAT AN ELF?!"
"Yes," said Legolas, Haldir, Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond, Glorfindel, Elladan, and Elrohir, all in the same testy voice.
"Actually, it's eight of us," Haldir added. "And you are...?"
"The Honourable Lady Madeline Samson," Boromir filled in almost proudly. "She and I, ah, met earlier..."
"When you went off an' left us," Pippin said.
"Frodo missed you," Merry sing-songed.
"Yes, well, that's as maybe," Boromir said, going a transparent shade of pink. "Um, Lady Madeline--"
"Madeline, please, I was ex-honourable'd hundreds of years ago and even before I was, I couldn't stand all the stuffiness and formality of being a Right Honourable Lady etc."
"All right. Madeline and I--"
"Fancy the non-existent pants off each other," Merry interjected cheekily. Boromir frowned at him.
"Met in the Tower, actually, Brandybuck. Where I'd bet my soul you uncultured louts haven't set foot yet, am I right?"
Legolas and Haldir, who liked to consider themselves the cultured members of their respective groups, frowned peevishly. "Well, actually...um, no."
"You haven't missed much, just some pretty jewels and a load of sweaty tourists," Madeline reassured them. "Are you REALLY elfs?"
"No, we're Elves--" Elladan told her.
"--capitalised--" Elrohir added.
"--with a 'v' in the middle," they chorused.
Madeline blinked. "You two are definitely twins."
"Is it obvious?" Elrohir asked, deadpan. Elrond tapped him upside the head, smartly. "Ow! Dad!"
"No need for sarcasm," Elrond told him austerely.
"I do apologise for this lot of living imbeciles," Boromir said to Madeline.
"Don't worry," she smiled back; "my flesh-family are a lot of complete, what's the word, twats. And you're not even related to this lot, so you're doing better than me."
"Well, maybe. My own family are a pretty decent lot, though completely unresponsive to any kind of spectral advances by moi..."
"Uh, people - um, ghosts," Aragorn said, back to tense and tetchy as always ('thank Eru' was the first thought in Merry and Pippin's minds); "I hate to break up the discussion, but we're leaving now, so if you want to follow, fine; if not, see you later." Experiencing a sudden throwback to gallantry, he picked up Galadriel's none-too-light picnic hamper and strode off out of the courtyard, in pursuit of most of the Elves and Gandalf (who had had pretty much the time of his life keeping out of all of the arguments going on and having a private laugh at the idiocy of some people), and quickly followed by the Hobbits, Gimli, and Galadriel.
Madeline turned to look at Boromir. "Are you, um, curse-bound to follow them or anything?"
"Not that I know of," Boromir told her with no small feeling of gratitude about the fact.
"Just, um, if you need someone to show you around London, I'm free for the next few hours, and if you're not cursed to follow them..."
"We could float around a bit, see the sights, rejoin our respective groups some time tomorrow...or..."
"...or whenever. We've both got forever, now."
"And so have my lot. Worst luck on the rest of the world."
"You could tell me some more about elf--Elves. And Gondor. And all those other fairy-tale places I didn't believe in when you told me the first time."
"I'd be glad to. Are you non-corporeal?"
"I think so. Are you?"
"Yep."
If two corporeal beings can touch one another, and a corporeal and a non- corporeal cannot, it follows that two non-corporeals must be able to. It was by following this unshakable logic that Boromir ended up with one arm around Madeline's shoulders as they wandered, a foot above the ground, through the west wall of the Tower yard and out into London.
**
Night fell on London, insofar as it can on a city which sleeps about as much as New York with a migraine. Sleep, however, did not visit room 26 in the King's Cross Hotel. Or rather, Aragorn evaded it, tossing and turning and moaning, "Why, Lego, why?"
"Why what, Estel?" Legolas asked irritably. He'd been trying to read, using his Elven Glow (which Aragorn always thought should have a copyright symbol after it) as a light to see by, but wasn't getting very far with it on account of being moaned at every few seconds.
The term 'Estel', Aragorn's much-despised Elf name, was quite simply revenge. Legolas had worked out that if there was a name he disliked, the same must be true for others. Estel, he knew from eavesdropping conversations between Aragorn and Boromir, was a likely candidate for the Ranger's least-liked moniker.
"Why did you inflict that on me? My head is killing me. And my heart isn't in great shape either. And don't call me Estel!"
"Don't call me Lego, then. Is it a crime to want to see some old friends again?"
"Well done for bringing all of Immortals Anonymous along," Aragorn said sarcastically into the darkness. "And thanks a bloody million for inviting Arwen. Bitch."
"I thought you still liked her, a bit?"
Aragorn started. "No way! I mean, sure, she's pretty enough, in a bitchy kind of non-attractive way, but she's a total--"
"All right, all right, I'll believe you. I just thought I heard you muttering things about putting Eldarion to bed and having the night to yourselves earlier today, is all."
"Did I say all that aloud? SHIT!!"
"Yes, you did. Would you please go to sleep now, I want to get some peace to read."
"Shut up. Where's Boromir?"
"Anxious about him, are we?"
"Sod anxious. I just like knowing where he is, that's all. He stayed at the Tower with that Madeline, which is highly suspicious if you ask me."
"Suspicious? How?"
"It's true what they say. Elves don't have any sex drive. Except Elladan and Elrohir, and possibly Glorfindel. Work it out already, Legs!"
"That," Legolas said affectedly, "is worse than Lego. And what do you mean, Elladan and Elrohir and Glorfindel have a sex drive? They never told me that!"
"You wouldn't've wanted to know, unless you're a lot less innocent than you look," Aragorn muttered through a yawn. "Oh, and Lego...if you DARE wake me up before ten a.m. tomorrow you are one DEAD Elf, immortality or no. All right?"
"Whatever you say, Estel. Um, was that last-but-one comment implying I AM innocent or I'm NOT...please?"
The only answer was a soft snore, so Legolas got back to his book, albeit with wrinkled brow and somewhat puzzled expression.
**
"It must be thousands and thousands of years now," Boromir said thoughtfully, not for the first time, "and I still actually miss the sensation of--"
"I know," the (ex)-Honourable Lady Madeline Samson, accused witch, burned at the stake in 1622, said, cutting him off with a finger to his lips. "But there are two of us in the same boat now, two lost souls who miss various sensations terribly, not least of which being the ability to actually eat as such..."
"And both more than a bit peckish."
"We're not talking about food any more, though, are we?"
"No, Lady Madeline Samson, we're not."
"I'm so glad."
Fingers of sunlight were making their way meekly over the skyscraper- peppered horizon, battling for supremacy with the bright lights of London. It would have been nice to say that two silhouettes merged into one as they kissed, but since ghosts don't have shadows or silhouettes, it would have also been inaccurate. And besides, they never quite got to kiss.
"BOROMIIIIIIIIR!"
"Why does Estel always wake up and want something at the most inopportune time possible?" Boromir wondered irritably.
In fact, 'Estel' had just been woken up by a rampaging Hobbit ("Elf prom'sed us anotha hotel breakfas' if we woke you u' prop'ly! Umm...shit...Ah was'nae supposed tae say tha' par'...") and was quite frankly shrieking random names in the hope he might hit upon the one he wanted (i.e. "LEGOLAAAAAAAAAS!") some time soon. Boromir, of course, didn't know this. He just knew he'd been rudely interrupted by a Ranger he was going to have to torture later.
"Most unpleasant," Madeline agreed. "Umm...you did say you're NOT curse- bound to them..."
"There is that. He's probably ignorable. Arrogant sod, he can damn well wait for me for a while. My captain my king my arse. Where were we?"
Madeline was quick to remind him.
And now we fade to black, before the rating has to go up a little.
**
"I did NOT promise you a hotel breakfast for waking Aragorn up! I didn't promise you ANYTHING on account of how I didn't ASK you to wake Aragorn up!"
"We still wan' oor hotel breakfas' though!"
"Yeah," Merry filled in. "Job well done, that was, even if we hadn't been asked to do it. Least not by you..."
"Oh, all right. Just don't eat them out of mushrooms again. Please. Whaddyamean, not by me?"
"Nuffin'," the hobbit pair chorused innocently, trying hard not to think about Arwen's little...comment, which had been along the lines of 'you torture Aragorn's immortal soul for me, and I'll see to a very nice pension, paid in mushrooms and possibly occasional porn, for you two.' (The immediate reaction had been "Ooh, mushrooms ...ooh, porn...ooh--YOU?!" to which Arwen had quickly replied, no, a lifetime subscription to Playhobbit, which was actually still being published in some pygmie areas and which she could easily get a hold of if they should like...? This had sounded like a great deal to Merry and Pippin, who spent a lot of their time torturing Aragorn's immortal soul anyhow. Doing it for payment made the whole business just a tad bit sweeter...)
"Hmm."
This, thought Legolas as the pair raced off down the corridor, required some investigating.
Right after Aragorn finished beating the crap out of him for letting Merry and Pippin into room 26 before ten a.m. Letting Merry and Pippin in before 10a.m. definitely came under the heading of 'waking me up'. Unfortunately for him...
"LEGOLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!"
Yep, very unfortunately.
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Addendum: Chapter 5 is in the works...sorry for the long delay, I really hope you think it was worth it ^_^ ...Reviews, comments, constructive criticisms all welcome! And thanks a million to my loyal reviewers =^_^=
By the way - if anyone happens to know London well enough, or even not well at all, I would welcome suggestions for things they can do. I've only been there for holidays myself, though I think I know it fairly well... Still, if there's anything you want to see, please tell me and I'll see what I can do...
~~Zophi xx
My dearest Loyal Reviewers; Captain-Emily, thanks again for your comments. Legolas will, by the end of this (wow, there's going to BE an end? Oh my gosh!! Not for a long while yet, though, by the way this is going...!) have regained some of his masculinity, dignity, and everything else. If anyone was wondering, I'm a dedicated Legoluster (hence the name Greenleaf-Cuarwen) myself, so why he gets mutilated character-wise is something of a mystery to me--
*gets prodded, hard, with a certain someone's knitting-arrow* Yes, Haldir, I love you too. *Elvish clamour in background* And you, Elrond. YES, Glorfindel!! Now the lot of you, shut up and let me get back to writing commentaries on all the lovely reviews I've got, before Leafy realises what I've just said and kills me for infidelity. (Me, unfaithful? Never!).
--where was I? Oh, yes, why Legolas gets character assassinated. I haven't got a clue...but rest assured, revenge will be his. He's not much cop at holidays, but home is HIS domain. (Or so he likes to think, at least).
To answer your other queries: Aragorn ran away because they'd just been discussing homosexuality, and then Lego starts apparently taking his shirt off. Aragorn, who's an excellent Ranger and all-round great guy but not so good at Math, put two and two together and got six. And ran.
As for the 'America-bashing', sincere apologies to anyone that may have offended; I have nothing against America (well, not much, but I won't go into that. America people are, as a rule, really nice; and I can say that from experience). I needed somewhere to be the 'West' and since they're now in England, I sort of thought of the nearest landmass to the west. And then Lego and Gimli needed an excuse to come home, so they decided they didn't like America much. I did try to convince them otherwise, but they were having none of it.
Flyaway, I'm so glad you like it! ^_^ It's sort of supposed to be funny, but my sense of humour has a tendency to be kinda twisted so I'm pleased other people find it humorous too... Yes, poor old Lego does have a lot to put up with - a lot of people have noticed that... ^_^ Please find below 'what they get up to next'...heheh.
Sakura Kuonji...here's some more. Hope you like! ^_^
Theelfismine: I don't think this is what you had in mind...but our poor dear Elf does indeed meet SEVERAL females in this chapter. I'm sadistic, so sue me ^_^ Don't worry, he will get revenge!! (And yes, he is straight, unless I decided to put in some non-plot-affecting random slashy interludes, á la Bagenders, to which I am eternally indebted etc).
Language and hobbity porn-obsession in the latter part of the chapter; ex- partner-beating in the former. Enjoy.
By the way...Glorfindel lives (because he deserves to), Haldir lives (because I believe in The Books. And he, too, deserves to, bless him ^_^ I love Haldy!! ...and Glorfie too, for that matter =^_^=), and Boromir has relations. Honest. But halt, I give away the plot...and now I digress...oh, here, just read...here is 'chapter the fourth'...
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4. Friday: Old Friends...and New Ones
"BOROMIR!!!"
The scream permeated aeons of time and space, getting within seconds to southern Bermuda where Boromir was not holidaying (he'd got enough of THAT particular pastime in the last day alone) but in fact checking up on his two-hundred-and-seventy-five-times-great-nephew Paul, who was, via a VERY convoluted and twisted route with a lot of blood diluting and downright weirdness (including one-hundred-and-thirty-two-times-great-niece Annie dating a supposed sorcerer, and great-nephews ninety-eight through 114, all named Louis, being the Kings of France for a short - by immortal standards - while), a direct descendant of little brother Faramir.
*Now what've I done?* Boromir thought crossly, quitting his attempt to show himself to Paul (he'd always rather wanted to show himself to a relative. He'd only ever succeeded once - with Annie's paramour, and he'd given him some very good advice too. Of course, when he went and took it, THAT was when the locals started accusing him of sorcery. Boromir still cringed a little when he thought of that one) and snapping, with a sigh, back to Room 26, where Aragorn was standing, looking vaguely murderous. "You called, bwana?"
"Shut up, deadboy. Yes, I did."
"This is getting to be an uncomfortably regular occurrence. This is two mornings in a row you've summoned me from my ether to do your dirty work."
"Oh, snap out of it," Aragorn said irritably. Boromir got the distinct feeling that something had gone wrong already this morning (and it was only...he frowned, working out the local time...eight-thirty A.M.?). "Just...stop it, okay?"
"Umm...stop what?"
"Stop being so damn obstreperous!"
"Been eating dictionaries again, Estel?"
"I've told you, don't call me that! And no, I haven't been consuming dictionaries or thesauri or anything else besides!"
"'Consuming'...'thesauri'...the evidence mounts," Boromir said with a cheeky grin.
Aragorn took a deep breath and worked hard repeating to himself *he's a ghost; hitting him will do no good whatsoever, he won't feel it, he's a ghost, hitting him will do no good whatsoever...* For all this was true, it didn't help much.
"Hang on a moment," Boromir said after a moment's tetchy silence; "where's Lego?"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!!!" came a shout, in Quenya, from the en-suite.
"He said, 'don't call me that'," Aragorn translated, since Boromir was not precisely fluent in Quenya, Sindarin or any other Elvish tongue. "I think us calling him Lego finally got to him."
"Just a bit," came the murderous Quenya mutterings from behind the bathroom door.
"Holidays are supposed to be a de-stressing exercise, Leg--uh, Leafy old pal," Aragorn said genially (Boromir was getting increasingly worried about these frighteningly short psychotic episodes the resident Ranger seemed to be having of late). "You're not meant to fret over them. How can you be so calm at home and trembling like a ...well, a leaf here?"
"Him? Calm? At home?" Boromir said with a sharp laugh. "He's the one who panics every thirty seconds!"
"We-ell..." Aragorn considered this. "Maybe not quite that often...maybe once a minute or so..."
"Same difference!"
*Aura of outer Elvishness and unflappable serenity!!* Legolas thought, eyes closed tight in concentration, in the bathroom. He didn't like where this conversation seemed to be leading.
"Why'd you want me, anyway?" Boromir asked, floating up to the ceiling and stretching out full-length on thin air.
Aragorn would have pouted, if that hadn't been a very immature and undignified thing to do. Instead he had to settle for sighing exaggeratedly and flopping down on his bed, craning upwards to look his dead friend (umm...co-Fellowshipper) in the eye. "Thought we - or at least you - could go meet some friends today."
"Friends?" Boromir sounded distinctly nervous. "How d'you mean, friends? Other sharp-earses?" The slightly derogatory name for Legolas had somehow degenerated into meaning random Elves, and sharp-ears or point-ears was now the term used in public, so as to hopefully avoid anyone thinking the whole Company were loons. Between them (well, between Legolas, Aragorn, Gandalf, Gimli and Frodo) they spoke over four hundred languages, but the other three hobbits had resisted all attempts to teach them any second tongue and so they were stuck with the most-used language in the world, which almost any passer-by could understand. Legolas and to a lesser extent Aragorn were all for teaching everyone Elvish, which it was almost certain nobody could understand, but it was a highly complex language and one which did not entirely suit a rather brusque, vaguely Scottish accent (Pippin) or the mouth of a terminal giggler (Merry) or a Dwarf (Gimli. Legolas's liking for Dwarves did not extend so far as allowing them to be any 'good' at Elvish, though Aragorn thought Gimli's pronunciation was excellent, most of the time). Because of the collective inability to speak any common, foreign-to- most-sane-modern-people language, they had reverted to coming up with code- names, of sorts, such as 'sharp-ears' for Elves, 'flat-footed midgets' for Hobbits, and so on. Terms which could easily be misinterpreted by nebby passers-by. Does 'sharp-ears', for instance, mean someone who has pointed, sharp ears, or someone who hears everything? In the Fellowship's case, both - but most people would assume the latter only.
"No, not other Elves," Aragorn said. *At least I hope not, I have enough on my plate with one at the moment, thank you VERY much.* "We're going to the Tower of London. You might meet up with some other deadbeats. Whoops-a- daisy, I mean deadboys."
"Hmph." Boromir sounded somewhat affronted, and with pretty good reason, all things considered. "Well, if that's all you wanted, I WAS busy."
"You have a life?" came a voice from the bathroom.
Boromir two-fingered the en-suit door transparently. "No, but I do have a death, and it's a lot better than your life!"
"Get lost, deadboy!"
"Sharp-ears!"
"Heartless!"
"Herbal-hair!"
"Soul des--oh, for the love of Ilúvatar, I'm not getting into this!"
"Chicken!"
"Get LOST, you DEADBEAT!!"
"Ooh, I'm scared," Boromir said dryly, and vanished with a small pop.
"Well bloody done, Lego," Aragorn said, and closed his eyes and tried to pretend everything was okay...everything was fine...Just for a moment, he remembered little Eldarion tugging on his tunic, and smiling down at his young son; and Arwen coming in with the teenage Estela by her side, glowing slightly in the darkness of the evening...tucking the children in to bed and having the rest of the night to themselves...*Oh, wake UP, Elfstone,* he chided himself wearily. *Arwen LEFT. You know, that might SUGGEST something about the relationship, or lack thereof?! And besides, you ended up hating her too, right? RIGHT??*
"Still," he muttered aloud; "it doesn't even matter, on account of how I'm never going to see her again..."
**
The Fellowship, sans Legolas, were been braving the hotel restaurant again (Merry and Pippin, knowing when they were onto a good thing, had insisted on hotel cooked breakfasts once more...maybe twice, thrice, infinity more) when the Elf, safely curled up on his bed in Room 26, re-reading for the ten thousandth time an ancient and dog-eared tome entitled 'Men are from Melkor, Elves are from Venus' (Imladris Publishing, fifty groats, now out of print for over six million years; Legolas had the only known remaining copy, but since everyone else who'd been alive back then aside from the Fellowship was - or so he thought until he remembered something rather worrying mere seconds later - dead, this was hardly surprising) recalled something someone had said to him a long (by human standards) time ago.
It had been back in the Sixties, when he'd been working for a law firm in Manchester, having lost the rest of the Fellowship for a decade or two (not deliberately, of course...). He'd been on a business trip to London and had met up with...yes...And they'd talked a while, and before he'd had to leave he'd been told, "If you're in the area in the next fifty years or so, look me up, won't you?" And he'd said yes, of course, as you do.
It's a hard job to look someone up when all you have is a rather grainy forty-year-old snapshot and a long-changed 'mobile' phone number (as he recalled, it had been not so much a mobile as a brick), but Elves are a determined species and they tend to keep their promises.
Ten minutes later, a determined-looking gentleman with over-long hair looped up and tucked under a black baseball cap darted through Reception and into the restaurant. Jayne, who was on Reception duty again, watched with interest as he held a short conversation with (apparently) thin air, then went to rouse the other seven members of the...Grey, wasn't it?...party.
"Come on, people, let's go!"
"Why're you so bloody bright and bouncy?" Gimli asked crossly. Morning was not his best time; and he'd never quite got used to the idea of 'cities' either - he still preferred underground, mountains, stone halls and so on, and was a dedicated mountaineer...or had been in the 1400s, when he'd escaped the others for a while.
"We've got somewhere to go!" Legolas told them brightly. "Come on, move out already..."
"Where?" Aragorn asked suspiciously.
"Why, Aragorn, don't you trust me? We're sticking to your planned itinerary..." *mostly,* he thought; "and going to the Tower of London."
"I don't trust the way you're smiling, Lego..."
"I just don't trust you, period," Gimli said with a grunt.
"Oh ye of little faith," Legolas said happily. "Come on, are we going already?"
"I wan' some more mus'rooms!!"
"An' me!"
"Umm...if you're offering...?"
"I'm not!" Aragorn put in quickly. He didn't really want to get going (not if Legolas was in one of his über-organised and far-too-happy moods, anyhow. Happy was okay and über-organised was usually great; it was only when the two phenomenon were seen together they generally spelled disaster) but they'd be there all day if he let the hobbits get any more breakfast...
"Yes, come on, we're going in a minute," Legolas ordered. "One minute FLAT, okay?"
Pippin, unfortunately, was already at the top-ups counter.
"Hmm...okay...so possibly not..."
**
Merry and Pippin had found their ideal jobs. At least, so they thought.
The beefeaters were not so enamoured with their pint-sized new 'friends'. Although when they'd taken the front-of-house type shifts they'd known that they might get stuck with annoying children, but they hadn't bargained on hobbits (or, as Fred put it in the morning coffee break, 'those damn kiddies with the size twenty-eight feet and appetites like horses'. Joe of the Royal Horse-Mounted National Guard was none too pleased with this comment, pointing out that horses are really very sensible eaters, thank you very much).
"Ah always thought Ah suited red!"
"An' with a name like 'beefeater', Pip...!!"
"Well said, tha' 'obbit. A'right..." Pippin turned to the beefeater, taking on a very businesslike tone. "Where d'we sign up?"
The poor beefeater took a deep breath and started to wish he'd joined that lot with the tall bearskin hats. They weren't ALLOWED to talk to visitors, lucky buggers.
"I think you're a bit young yet, chaps," he said, trying hard for a smile.
"Nah, we can manage. We're jus' small for our age," said Merry. How small (or tall, by Hobbit standards) and what age were things the beefeater didn't need to know, of course...
The beefeater was in the middle of answering an incessant stream of hobbity questions, and thinking some very anti-hobbity thoughts (although he thought they were anti-kiddie thoughts, since he didn't know Merry and Pippin were hobbits), when he was saved by... well, saved, anyhow.
"Come ON, would you, please?" Frodo said, grabbing Merry and Pippin by a sleeve each and dragging them away. "I'm so sorry if they've been a bother," he added to the beefeater.
"Umm," was the guard's comment, as he tried hard to work out the logistics behind a very small person dragging two not-quite-as-small-people away with all the force and authority of any adult. It didn't work...did it? *Er...no...* he thought, shaking his head, and bent down, smiling, to shake the hand of a nice safe six-year-old girl with pigtails and a pink backpack. Tired and confused, he didn't even bother with the no-bags-in-the- tower rule...
"Mush," Frodo ordered, poking his cousins in the back, hard. "Lego's getting tetchy. Anyone'd think we had an appointment to make."
Little did he know...
**
Nobody paid any attention to the little group conversing on the Tower green. They seemed to be having a picnic, and apart from unusual dress in some quarters, accents you could break a brick on in others, and a general feeling of out-of-time weirdness, it was a perfectly normal scene.
"Where are they already?" It was a woman speaking.
"I don't know," a man replied; "I told him to meet us here--are you looking at me again?"
"Dream on!!"
"Nightmare on, you mean--"
"Children, please!" A different man, whose voice radiated annoyed paternity. "We are civilised beings whose combined age totals more than that of this Earth, I think we can manage not to be too mean, can we not?"
"Huh," the woman, sounding like a teenager who'd been remonstrated with, said.
"Sir," was the other man's contribution, sounding superior but accepting of the rebuke.
"Better. Do you mean to honestly tell me that they're still co-inhabiting as a Fellowship?"
"So Legolas said, sir. I find it a little hard to believe, myself."
"You're not the only one." There was a pause, and the speaker 'hmm'd. "Still...we shall find out soon, no doubt."
"No doubt, sir," said another male voice, calm and organised. "Cucumber sandwich?"
"Hmm, don't mind if I do. Diola lle."
"Shh! Not here!"
"Damn, I hate the mortal world."
"No, you hate Men."
"Also true. Still...ah, look!"
"Ai!" said the woman, dark-haired and willowy, shielding her eyes with a hand as she studied the approaching party. "Ohmivalarit'sthem!!"
"Ye-es..." the man who had been first to speak, blonde with autonomous eyebrows and the aforementioned brick-shattering accent, said slowly. "It's hardly going to be anyone else, now is it?"
"Shut the hell up, Haldir, it's them, it's honestly them, oh my Valar, I don't believe it, I haven't seen them in--oh, gawd, HE's with them..."
"Arwen, shut up before one or the other of us takes the initiative and injures you," Elladan suggested good-naturedly, speaking up for the first time. This earned him a dirty look from the owner of the voice which radiated annoyed paternity, a.k.a. his father, a.k.a. Elrond Half-Elven, Lord of Imladris. Well, until Imladris became part of Asia, that was. (The Japanese had liked the idea of fine gardens and delicate pagodas a.k.a outdoor council chambers; and built on the idea of gorgeous landscaping to produce their beautiful Oriental ornamental gardens).
Over the green, a similar scenario was happening in the Fellowship, only with more swearing and, in parts, a lot louder. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?!" Aragorn wanted to know. Loudly.
"Shush, no need to shout, I'm an Elf after all," Legolas told him good- naturedly, starting to wonder what he HAD been thinking. "Er...I thought it might be nice to meet up again..."
"NICE? NICE?? YOU SMEG-FOR-BRAINS--" (after the Girl In Train Station Incident, Merry and Pippin had taken to watching Red Dwarf on the hotel TVs, which of course had Sky, as a sort of tribute to their latest unnamed object of desire, and their use of the Worst Word In The RD Canon had rubbed off on Aragorn, who already knew more Worst Words than most truckies and builders combined, in fifty-six languages including Klingon) "--DO YOU HAVE DEATH WISH OR SOMETHING?"
"Being immortal, I don't see how I could--oh...umm...no?"
"Pity, that, because I'm DAMN WELL GOING TO SEE THAT IT GETS GRANTED!!"
"Calm down, Estel," Gandalf, ever the voice of reason, said soothingly, laying a companionable hand on Aragorn's shoulder. "It won't be so bad..."
"I am NOT going over there. I don't care WHO's there, I'm NOT."
"Why not?"
"SHE's with them!!"
"Ah. Umm."
*Oops,* Legolas thought quietly. *Maybe I shouldn't've said 'bring all the old gang'. Maybe 'part of the old gang' would have sufficed. Or 'all the guys'. Or 'everyone but Arwen'. Or 'come alone...'*
Gandalf's lecture (something along the lines of "I Will Do Painful And Magical Things To You If You Dare a) Run Away b) Insult Arwen c) Argue Back With Me") was cut short by two or three of the company on the grass waving. "Going to stand there all day?" the cut-glass tones of a certain someone asked genially.
"Ohshitohshitohshitohshit," Aragorn muttered. "Please tell me that isn't Haldir."
Gimli, after confirmation from Legolas as to this fact, joined in the ohshit chorus. Gandalf whacked them both in the backside with the picnic cooler, which he had elected to carry for today. "Move, you both," he ordered. "Now."
When Gandalf said 'now' in That Tone Of Voice, you didn't argue unless you were either Boromir, or had a death wish of your own. Reluctantly, Aragorn and Gimli shuffled forward, following the rest of the Fellowship who'd long since departed towards the little party on the grass (Merry and Pippin thought their food looked better than the offerings in the Fellowship's picnic cooler). Boromir floated somewhere on the sidelines, looking bored.
*Bloody marvellous, an Elf reunion. They needn't think I'm sticking around for THIS.*
He vanished with a pop, as per usual.
**
"So, you came at last, eh?"
"No need to get shirty, Elrohir. I did have eight others to try and herd in the right direction," Legolas said defensively, in Quenya.
The twins, Elrohir and his brother Elladan, both laughed (identically, as they did everything else). "Haldir was going practically off it," Elrohir imparted confidentially.
"Really?" Legolas tried hard to imagine Haldir going off anything, but failed. "Somehow I can't quite see that..."
"No, it does have to be seen to be believed," Elladan admitted. "You should have heard Arwen and he; any more and they would have been at daggers drawn!"
"Seriously?"
"No need to sound like the neighbourhood busybody," Elrohir laughed. "Living with mortals must do something to one's integrity!"
"I'm sure you don't know anything about it," Arwen put in pointedly. The twins shot sidelong glances at one another, and at Legolas.
"She's still really sore about losing Aragorn," Elladan said.
"Says it was all his fault--"
"Well?" his sister said imperiously. "It WAS all his fault!"
"Was not!" Aragorn said in annoyance, having understood this whole Elvish conversation (only he and Gandalf did, of the Fellowship. Frodo knew a bit of Sindarin, but since this was in Quenya he was lost off) and decided to chip in. "It was her, she moved on!"
"No, you did," Arwen said hotly.
"Only after you kicked me out!"
"The White Tower was no place for floozies!"
"Meaning what?"
"You think I didn't notice how you looked at Lirimaelin?!"
"Uh, who? And can I just point out that is the most Mary-Sueish name I've ever heard outside of online fan-fiction domains. Please don't tell me we honestly had a serving-girl called that."
"We did. You did, at least. You ba--"
"My lady, please!" Haldir cut in smoothly. "This is neither the time nor the place for such conversation, and if you want to know, my lord, Lirimaelin was the younger daughter of one of your human generals and an Elven maiden. She was called 'lovely one' by her father, who spoke little Elvish, and when her mother translated that into Elvish he thought it was so nice he stuck a 'lin' on the end and named her. When she was sixteen by human count, she--"
"I don't need her bloody life story," Aragorn spat; "and how d'you know it, anyway?"
"Word gets around...and then I did some checking up."
"Word was wrong, okay? You get me? WRONG. I never had anything with ANY of the serving girls, okay, Arwen? As for you, I'm not even going to GO there!"
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
"Only that YOU were the one who--"
Legolas tuned out, not wanting to hear the insults that followed. Obviously, there was no way those two were ever going to patch up their differences. Leaving Haldir to referee the (thankfully quite quiet) shouting match, he glanced around for the Hobbits...
"Get out of that picnic basket!" he ordered, spotting them raiding it for lembas.
"Wha'--?"
"I said," he repeated, picking each of them up by the collars and depositing them some distance away, "keep OUT of the picnic basket!"
Even though it was a sunny day, the air around him got a little brighter suddenly. Most people cast shadows when they approach, but not Galadriel. She, being as she was the Lady OF Light, unsurprisingly CAST light. "They are more than welcome, should they wish, to eat their fill," she offered kindly. "Have you ever tried counselling, Legolas?" she added in an undertone.
He bridled. "I do not need--!!"
"There are those who would beg to differ," Haldir, the world's best at multi-tasking, interjected from where he was keeping Arwen and Aragorn calm and quiet and simultaneously holding intelligent conversation with Gandalf while also repointing a split arrow.
"Since when were you involved in this conversation?" Legolas asked pointedly, feeling the beginnings of a stress headache coming on. "Oww..."
"I'm not going to say quit whining," Elrond put in from his cross-legged lotus position not far away, "because I'm not going to let you start. Here." He snapped his fingers and Legolas felt the tension behind his temples release.
"Whoa...er, thanks, sir. I knew you were a healer but where'd you learn that?!"
"The Sci-Fi channel," Arwen said, not quitting her staring contest with Aragorn. "Far too much Star Trek: The Next Generation."
"Huh? Frodo!! What's he on about?"
Frodo, the only one in the group who would actually admit to liking Star Trek, thought for a minute. "Err...I'm thinking episode one, Encounter At Farpoint, in which there was this...thing...Q...who could do, er, stuff by snapping his fingers...umm..."
"That's the one," Arwen said, adding to Aragorn: "HAH! YOU BLINKED!!"
"Ri-ight," Legolas said slowly. *I'm starting to think this was NOT a good idea...*
"I do not watch too much Star Trek," Elrond said sorely, trying hard not to do a one-eyebrow-raised-Spock-thing. "Caring for a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of land is enough to keep anyone occupied without watching too much Star Trek!"
This information was too much for Legolas. "A hundred and...nngh!!"
"I'm sorry?"
"You're seriously telling me you have a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of land? Where?"
"In the Yorkshire Dales. It's a beautiful area. And since I put the lake in the north-east corner of the property the heron population of the Dales has increased by almost twenty-nine percent. And--"
"You have a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of land in the Yorkshire Dales? Private residence?"
"Of course."
"Uh, you can injure me if you want, my lord, but - I'm starting to hate you!"
"Why?"
"Because you've got a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter bloody acres of private residence land all to yourself, and I get to share a four- bedroom council semi in Birmingham with THIS lot!"
"Oh. Well, do feel free to come and visit, if you're ever in the area."
Legolas closed his eyes for a moment and pictured the scene. One hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of beautiful, peaceful land...fields, gardens, admittedly a lake or two but they were probably avoidable...no annoying Fellowship, no cramped semi, no smoky atmosphere of London or Birmingham...only acres and acres of grass and sky and maybe, if he was really lucky, a beautiful big old-country house, maybe vaguely reminiscent of the Last Homely House...birds, flowers, trees...probably a forest or two, there was bound to be a forest somewhere in that much land...He could see it now. Perfect. "That would be--"
"Bloody awful!"
"Excuse me?! That wallpaper was absolutely gorgeous!"
*Oh, Valar,* Legolas swore to himself. Aragorn and Arwen had moved on from discussing who had been doing what with whom and were now arguing over how nice - or bloody awful, perhaps - the dining room wallpaper had been in their twenty-second house.
"--wonderful," he finished to Elrond, and went over to help Haldir separate the unhappy couple.
**
"It must be thousands and thousands of years now," Boromir said thoughtfully, "and I still actually miss the sensation of--"
"I know, I know," the (ex)-Honourable Lady Madeline Samson, accused witch, burned at the stake in 1622, said, waving her hands transparently, but expressively. "So do I; it's so annoying that we can't any more, don't you think?"
"Couldn't agree more," Thomas Postlethwaite, killed for treason in 1294 (acquitted, posthumously but correctly, in 1329), added, nodding slowly.
"Absolutely. So, how long've you been here?"
"Umm...maybe two or three hundred years? I forget the exact date I arrived...I know I was burned on the fourteenth of September 1622, though. Bastards," she added snippily, shaking her singed skirt. "Everything I change into always ends up singed. Talk about an eternal curse."
"Can't you just sort of...un-singe it?" Boromir asked, blinking.
"Nope. Maybe if I HAD been a witch, I could. But since I'm not, I can't. Huh."
"That's a bit unfair," Boromir noted accurately, being as he was something of an expert on unfairness (although had Faramir been there, he would've said he was MORE of an expert, having had to live with his father's eternal disapproval just for being the youngest. Since he wasn't, in fact, around, Boromir quickly derailed this train of thought and so should we).
"Indeed," Madeline said, sniffing affectedly. "At least I never get colds any more."
"I hate to point this out, m'lady," Thomas told her, "but we're ghosts. We don't get colds anyhow."
"There is that," Madeline noted, sounding pretty crushed. Boromir patted her semi-transparent arm comfortingly. Madeline smiled at him. "So, um, Boromir... What brings you to my neck of the woods?"
"Ow," Thomas commented. He'd been beheaded, so the word 'neck' was obviously something of a touchy subject for him.
"Sorry," Madeline said with an apologetic shrug. "Boromir...?"
"A number 24 bus," Boromir said, which raised (appropriately) the ghost of a smile from the other two. "The cause of my journey, however, is the troop of travelling hooligans I seem to be bound to for all eternity, unfortunately."
"Ooh, a curse, how interesting!" Madeline said enthusiastically. "Was there a real witch involved?"
"Only if you count Galadriel of the Golden Woods," Boromir said, meaning it sincerely. Thomas and Madeline blinked at him. "Elf woman," he said by way of explanation. "Went green when she got mad. Quite pretty until then. Liked reading people's minds, too, which was kind of annoying."
"You believe in Elves? How...sweet," Madeline said, sounding unconvinced.
"What do you mean, believe? I was in a Fellowship with one! And a king and four random hobbits, to boot. Oh, and a small hairy ferret that might have been a Dwarf."
Thomas and Madeline stopped blinking at him and blinked at each other. "I would've been burned a lot sooner if I'd started talking about elfs and things," Madeline noted.
Thomas nodded sincerely. "I was brought up t'believe the Little People should never be mentioned aloud."
"They're not little," Boromir clarified. "Most of 'em are taller than you and I. Well, except Hobbits. It's just an Elf thing. And did you say 'elfs', Madeline? Just it's actually Elves..."
"Ye-es..." Madeline said slowly. "Excuse me a moment. I have, um, an appointment to make."
"Me too," Thomas said, following Madeline through the walls while making noises about "was almost late for my own funeral, got to improve my timekeeping," and "hope I'm not going to be senile when I've been dead a few hundred thousand years."
Boromir shrugged. "Oh well. And to think we started out talking about the sensation of eating things!"
**
"Do you mean to seriously tell me you live with the whole Fellowship?"
"I brought them, didn't I? Arwen, stop clawing at me. I am not Aragorn, nor am I going to let you get near him, no matter how much you wriggle."
"Haldir, please, I do not have to be put in a stranglehold. I am mature and responsible and quite capable of not beating my ex-wife up if you let me go. Besides, you're hurting."
"Sorry," Haldir said, not quite sounding entirely sincere, and released Aragorn, who rubbed his neck affectedly and frowned at the march-warden. "Legolas...the whole group? My Valar...I feel sorry for you. Even the Dwarf?" There were about twenty extra 'a's in Dwaaaaarf and it didn't sound too genial and accepting, either.
"Yes, Haldir, even the Dwarf. Arwen, please!"
"Lemme go then!"
"No. I am going to keep you held firmly until you promise not to kill Aragorn when I let you go."
"I promise already! Now get OFF!"
"Promise...?"
"On my honour. Off!"
"Mmhmm...?"
*Oh Eru,* Aragorn thought; *he's gone into parental mode...maternal mode, to boot. Are we ever in trouble now...*
"On my immortal life and soul I promise not to kill my bas--my ex-husband if you'll only let me GO!"
"What's the magic word?"
Arwen blinked. "I always knew you were screwy, but that takes the biscuit. Ow, all right, all right! 'Please'?!"
"With pleasure." Legolas stopped sitting on Arwen's back and she got up, looking more than a bit ruffled clothes-wise and none to pleased expression- wise. A couple of old ladies walked past and tut-tutted, causing Elladan and Elrohir to snicker.
"You don't know the half of it!" they said softly, in perfect unison. The poor old women glanced round and tutted some more, then stalked off as fast as people leaning heavily on walking-sticks generally can.
"Haldir, have you any idea how dead you are when we get a moment alone?" Aragorn asked pleasantly.
"Yes, thank you," the march-warden replied, equally pleasantly, "not at all, thanks all the same."
"Don't count on it."
*Oh, great,* Frodo thought worriedly, from his vantage point on top of the picnic hamper (he was sitting there, along with Sam, in the hope their combined weight would stop Merry and Pippin getting in at the last of the pork pies). *He's gone homicidal again. Eru help us all.*
/You don't need Eru/, said a voice that wasn't his - unless his had suddenly gone feminine, flowery and slightly echoey without his knowledge, which seemed doubtful even in his fragile mental state - inside his head. /You just need me/.
*I could be wrong,* Frodo thought nervously, because he didn't want to speak aloud and be thought even madder by the others, *but are you Galadriel?*
/Yep/, said the voice, sounding altogether too pleased with itself. /Don't worry, Frodo, I'll keep them under control/.
*Thank you. Um, my lady. I think. Don't hurt them, will you? Aragorn's the only one who knows the bus routes except Legolas and I think Lego'll be too stressed out to want to worry about buses at the end of this...*
/Don't worry/, Galadriel told him, and Frodo looked at her in time to see her smile at him briefly. /I've got it all under control/.
"Biscuit, Arwen?" Aragorn offered pleasantly, blinked a bit, tried to fight what Galadriel was making him think he was thinking, failed miserably and gave up.
"Why, thank you," Arwen said sweetly, accepting a proffered biccie after briefly clasping her hands for a moment, wondering why she was being so bloody nice, realising it was Galadriel, remembering that you NEVER argue with Galadriel, and giving up too.
Nobody except Elrond noticed Celeborn's smirk. But then, Elrond was privy to what he was smirking about, and thought it rather humorous himself. Except for Arwen being involved, of course, but one had to forgive one's in- laws some things. Especially when they were Celeborn of Lórien and Galadriel, Lady of Light (and of Terrible Migraines).
**
"Umm, this may have escaped people's notice, but they're within half an hour of closing time here..."
Glorfindel, sane as ever, was the one who made the dread comment. Elrond and Celeborn were locked in a staring match, though mentally shouting at each other (mostly along the lines of "what the HELL does your wife think she's doing to my DAUGHTER?!" and "if you'd brought her up less bitchy, we wouldn't be IN this situation!", as Glorfindel had found out quite by accident when he'd tried to ask a perfectly innocent question without the others knowing) and both looking quite fierce. Galadriel was still innocently keeping tabs on Aragorn and Arwen, who were being too nice to be true (Aragorn being nice for more than a minute or so was starting to scare Merry and Pippin a bit) although thankfully had retained enough of themselves to not actually be falling in love again or anything wet like that. Haldir and Legolas were involved in an animated debate on how warfare had gone downhill so since the fourteenth-century, or possibly had only gotten better since the invention of gunpowder ("I was THERE for the invention of gunpowder! Beat that, princey!" "Fine - I was there for the invention of the sub-machine gun. Not that I actually was bothered, or anything, but I was there." "Really?" "Yes, march-warden, really. Unfortunately." "In the room?" "Yep." "Seriously?" "No kidding." "No? Really? Oh m--I mean, how...interesting for you. You'll have to tell me about it sometime. When I have a window in my calendar, of course." *Think bored, bored, bored, been there, done that, don't care...* "Of course") much to the amusement of the Hobbits, who couldn't follow the words - the discussion being held in Quenya, which not even Frodo knew a lot of - but thought the content must be hugely exciting judging by the various gesticulations (both parties, but mostly Legolas) and obviously fake expressions of disinterest (both parties, but mostly Haldir) going on. Merry and Pippin were having the time of their lives thinking of possible things they were saying, mostly along the lines of "Kiss me, Legolas!" and "Yes, I really DO love you, Haldir!", until Sam prodded them both hard in the ribs and they shut up. They knew an angry gardener when they saw one.
The next sensible comment came from the most unlikely quarter possible. Frodo. "Has anyone seen Boromir?"
The entire group turned to blink at him. "Um, would you care?" Sam asked gently. "I mean, sir, you and he--?"
"No, not really, but it's getting dark and I thought he might want to know we're leaving."
"You are?" Elladan and Elrohir chorused, behind in current events as usual.
"Mister Glorfindel just told us we've basically got to be out in half an hour or so, so we'd better be moving, hadn't we?"
"How many times, Frodo? I saved your life--"
"NO, I DID!"
"Shut up, Arwen. Frodo, I saved your life, or rather Asfaloth did, so I think it's probably all right for you to drop the 'mister', yes?"
"Yes, sir, mi--um, Glorfindel, sir."
"Since when did you save Frodo's life?" Legolas wanted to know innocently.
"I did in the movie."
"What movie?"
"You haven't seen it? Oh my VALAR! I'll have to lend you the tape!"
"Yeah, good idea," Pippin, who'd been meaning to bring this up for some time now, piped up. "Ca' we see i', Lego, please?"
Hearing Pippin say 'please' knocked Legolas so off-balance that he said 'yes, of course' without even thinking.
"Would you like the animated one, too?" Glorfindel asked sarcastically. "You saved his bleeding life in the animated one, Legolas. No offence - but you?! Does nobody care that it was ME who rode out and lent my horse to the cause of saving his life? Not you, not Arwen, not anybody, ME! And the real hero of the hour was Asfaloth!! Who Arwen horse-rustled in the movie!"
"Don't blame me!" Arwen said crossly. "I always liked that soppy old nag of yours anyhow, heaven only knows why--"
"ASFALOTH WAS NOT A SOPPY OLD NAG!!"
"Shut up," Elrond said genially, "please, before people start to notice us. We are trying for inconspicuous here."
This, coming from a millennia-old Elf lord with ebony hair half-way down his back, apparently wearing a sort of silk dressing gown over - were they jeans, Legolas wondered? - and a smart-casual shirt, was so pointless and hypocritical that the entire rest of the group, with the sole exception of Glorfindel, burst out laughing. Glorfindel glanced at his own overlong tresses worriedly and considered a haircut. Of course, so far as he knew none of the old gang had had their hair cut shorter than a foot or so beneath their shoulder-blades, but maybe he and Elrond could start a new fashion among the 'inconspicuous' Elven population of the world...
"Oh good, you haven't killed each other yet."
"Boromir!" Aragorn said in an unusual show of gratitude for his fellow (if dead) man. "Thank Eru you're here."
"Uh, are you feeling okay?"
"Fine, fine. Galadriel, please, enough is enough. I won't kill her, I promise."
Boromir blinked at Legolas, who was usually pretty sane (all things considered), hoping for an explanation. None was forthcoming, as the debate about warfare had now degenerated into a discussion about which was better: living forever in the same mansion as Galadriel, where at least there were hundreds of rooms to escape to but your mind was in constant danger of being invaded; or living forever in the same nasty little four-bedroom semi as the Fellowship of the Ring, where there was nowhere to go for privacy but at least your mind was your own.
A welcome distraction floated past in a singed red dress. "Boromir! I thought you'd--! I was just going for a little jaunt - I mean haunt..."
"Madeline? Um, Lady Madeline?"
"It's been half an hour, you great clod, not innumerable centuries. Of course it's me. SWEET MOTHER OF GOD, IS THAT AN ELF?!"
"Yes," said Legolas, Haldir, Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond, Glorfindel, Elladan, and Elrohir, all in the same testy voice.
"Actually, it's eight of us," Haldir added. "And you are...?"
"The Honourable Lady Madeline Samson," Boromir filled in almost proudly. "She and I, ah, met earlier..."
"When you went off an' left us," Pippin said.
"Frodo missed you," Merry sing-songed.
"Yes, well, that's as maybe," Boromir said, going a transparent shade of pink. "Um, Lady Madeline--"
"Madeline, please, I was ex-honourable'd hundreds of years ago and even before I was, I couldn't stand all the stuffiness and formality of being a Right Honourable Lady etc."
"All right. Madeline and I--"
"Fancy the non-existent pants off each other," Merry interjected cheekily. Boromir frowned at him.
"Met in the Tower, actually, Brandybuck. Where I'd bet my soul you uncultured louts haven't set foot yet, am I right?"
Legolas and Haldir, who liked to consider themselves the cultured members of their respective groups, frowned peevishly. "Well, actually...um, no."
"You haven't missed much, just some pretty jewels and a load of sweaty tourists," Madeline reassured them. "Are you REALLY elfs?"
"No, we're Elves--" Elladan told her.
"--capitalised--" Elrohir added.
"--with a 'v' in the middle," they chorused.
Madeline blinked. "You two are definitely twins."
"Is it obvious?" Elrohir asked, deadpan. Elrond tapped him upside the head, smartly. "Ow! Dad!"
"No need for sarcasm," Elrond told him austerely.
"I do apologise for this lot of living imbeciles," Boromir said to Madeline.
"Don't worry," she smiled back; "my flesh-family are a lot of complete, what's the word, twats. And you're not even related to this lot, so you're doing better than me."
"Well, maybe. My own family are a pretty decent lot, though completely unresponsive to any kind of spectral advances by moi..."
"Uh, people - um, ghosts," Aragorn said, back to tense and tetchy as always ('thank Eru' was the first thought in Merry and Pippin's minds); "I hate to break up the discussion, but we're leaving now, so if you want to follow, fine; if not, see you later." Experiencing a sudden throwback to gallantry, he picked up Galadriel's none-too-light picnic hamper and strode off out of the courtyard, in pursuit of most of the Elves and Gandalf (who had had pretty much the time of his life keeping out of all of the arguments going on and having a private laugh at the idiocy of some people), and quickly followed by the Hobbits, Gimli, and Galadriel.
Madeline turned to look at Boromir. "Are you, um, curse-bound to follow them or anything?"
"Not that I know of," Boromir told her with no small feeling of gratitude about the fact.
"Just, um, if you need someone to show you around London, I'm free for the next few hours, and if you're not cursed to follow them..."
"We could float around a bit, see the sights, rejoin our respective groups some time tomorrow...or..."
"...or whenever. We've both got forever, now."
"And so have my lot. Worst luck on the rest of the world."
"You could tell me some more about elf--Elves. And Gondor. And all those other fairy-tale places I didn't believe in when you told me the first time."
"I'd be glad to. Are you non-corporeal?"
"I think so. Are you?"
"Yep."
If two corporeal beings can touch one another, and a corporeal and a non- corporeal cannot, it follows that two non-corporeals must be able to. It was by following this unshakable logic that Boromir ended up with one arm around Madeline's shoulders as they wandered, a foot above the ground, through the west wall of the Tower yard and out into London.
**
Night fell on London, insofar as it can on a city which sleeps about as much as New York with a migraine. Sleep, however, did not visit room 26 in the King's Cross Hotel. Or rather, Aragorn evaded it, tossing and turning and moaning, "Why, Lego, why?"
"Why what, Estel?" Legolas asked irritably. He'd been trying to read, using his Elven Glow (which Aragorn always thought should have a copyright symbol after it) as a light to see by, but wasn't getting very far with it on account of being moaned at every few seconds.
The term 'Estel', Aragorn's much-despised Elf name, was quite simply revenge. Legolas had worked out that if there was a name he disliked, the same must be true for others. Estel, he knew from eavesdropping conversations between Aragorn and Boromir, was a likely candidate for the Ranger's least-liked moniker.
"Why did you inflict that on me? My head is killing me. And my heart isn't in great shape either. And don't call me Estel!"
"Don't call me Lego, then. Is it a crime to want to see some old friends again?"
"Well done for bringing all of Immortals Anonymous along," Aragorn said sarcastically into the darkness. "And thanks a bloody million for inviting Arwen. Bitch."
"I thought you still liked her, a bit?"
Aragorn started. "No way! I mean, sure, she's pretty enough, in a bitchy kind of non-attractive way, but she's a total--"
"All right, all right, I'll believe you. I just thought I heard you muttering things about putting Eldarion to bed and having the night to yourselves earlier today, is all."
"Did I say all that aloud? SHIT!!"
"Yes, you did. Would you please go to sleep now, I want to get some peace to read."
"Shut up. Where's Boromir?"
"Anxious about him, are we?"
"Sod anxious. I just like knowing where he is, that's all. He stayed at the Tower with that Madeline, which is highly suspicious if you ask me."
"Suspicious? How?"
"It's true what they say. Elves don't have any sex drive. Except Elladan and Elrohir, and possibly Glorfindel. Work it out already, Legs!"
"That," Legolas said affectedly, "is worse than Lego. And what do you mean, Elladan and Elrohir and Glorfindel have a sex drive? They never told me that!"
"You wouldn't've wanted to know, unless you're a lot less innocent than you look," Aragorn muttered through a yawn. "Oh, and Lego...if you DARE wake me up before ten a.m. tomorrow you are one DEAD Elf, immortality or no. All right?"
"Whatever you say, Estel. Um, was that last-but-one comment implying I AM innocent or I'm NOT...please?"
The only answer was a soft snore, so Legolas got back to his book, albeit with wrinkled brow and somewhat puzzled expression.
**
"It must be thousands and thousands of years now," Boromir said thoughtfully, not for the first time, "and I still actually miss the sensation of--"
"I know," the (ex)-Honourable Lady Madeline Samson, accused witch, burned at the stake in 1622, said, cutting him off with a finger to his lips. "But there are two of us in the same boat now, two lost souls who miss various sensations terribly, not least of which being the ability to actually eat as such..."
"And both more than a bit peckish."
"We're not talking about food any more, though, are we?"
"No, Lady Madeline Samson, we're not."
"I'm so glad."
Fingers of sunlight were making their way meekly over the skyscraper- peppered horizon, battling for supremacy with the bright lights of London. It would have been nice to say that two silhouettes merged into one as they kissed, but since ghosts don't have shadows or silhouettes, it would have also been inaccurate. And besides, they never quite got to kiss.
"BOROMIIIIIIIIR!"
"Why does Estel always wake up and want something at the most inopportune time possible?" Boromir wondered irritably.
In fact, 'Estel' had just been woken up by a rampaging Hobbit ("Elf prom'sed us anotha hotel breakfas' if we woke you u' prop'ly! Umm...shit...Ah was'nae supposed tae say tha' par'...") and was quite frankly shrieking random names in the hope he might hit upon the one he wanted (i.e. "LEGOLAAAAAAAAAS!") some time soon. Boromir, of course, didn't know this. He just knew he'd been rudely interrupted by a Ranger he was going to have to torture later.
"Most unpleasant," Madeline agreed. "Umm...you did say you're NOT curse- bound to them..."
"There is that. He's probably ignorable. Arrogant sod, he can damn well wait for me for a while. My captain my king my arse. Where were we?"
Madeline was quick to remind him.
And now we fade to black, before the rating has to go up a little.
**
"I did NOT promise you a hotel breakfast for waking Aragorn up! I didn't promise you ANYTHING on account of how I didn't ASK you to wake Aragorn up!"
"We still wan' oor hotel breakfas' though!"
"Yeah," Merry filled in. "Job well done, that was, even if we hadn't been asked to do it. Least not by you..."
"Oh, all right. Just don't eat them out of mushrooms again. Please. Whaddyamean, not by me?"
"Nuffin'," the hobbit pair chorused innocently, trying hard not to think about Arwen's little...comment, which had been along the lines of 'you torture Aragorn's immortal soul for me, and I'll see to a very nice pension, paid in mushrooms and possibly occasional porn, for you two.' (The immediate reaction had been "Ooh, mushrooms ...ooh, porn...ooh--YOU?!" to which Arwen had quickly replied, no, a lifetime subscription to Playhobbit, which was actually still being published in some pygmie areas and which she could easily get a hold of if they should like...? This had sounded like a great deal to Merry and Pippin, who spent a lot of their time torturing Aragorn's immortal soul anyhow. Doing it for payment made the whole business just a tad bit sweeter...)
"Hmm."
This, thought Legolas as the pair raced off down the corridor, required some investigating.
Right after Aragorn finished beating the crap out of him for letting Merry and Pippin into room 26 before ten a.m. Letting Merry and Pippin in before 10a.m. definitely came under the heading of 'waking me up'. Unfortunately for him...
"LEGOLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!"
Yep, very unfortunately.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Addendum: Chapter 5 is in the works...sorry for the long delay, I really hope you think it was worth it ^_^ ...Reviews, comments, constructive criticisms all welcome! And thanks a million to my loyal reviewers =^_^=
By the way - if anyone happens to know London well enough, or even not well at all, I would welcome suggestions for things they can do. I've only been there for holidays myself, though I think I know it fairly well... Still, if there's anything you want to see, please tell me and I'll see what I can do...
~~Zophi xx