Welcome back to "Dial Tone of the Heart." Once again, we'd like to state
that this is fanfiction, which is why we are allowed to post it here. And
now, to begin.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Aragorn was distinctly distraught as he scrubbed furiously to shine his armor. He was moving the polishing rag so fast that he was beginning to make a hole -- much like the hole that had already formed in the marshmallowy depths of his heart.
"Why," he roared to himself, "does the elf man not return my love?"
Several people were already poking their heads around the windowsill in his chamber, but at this a tall and grey one rose high above the rest.
"Aragorn," called the owner of the head. His voice was thick, and though Aragorn's back was to the window, he imagined the man's mouth was full of poorly-masticated hobbit feet.
"Mrrrr," Aragorn mumbled in reply. He did not stop polishing.
He heard a pair of feet thunk into the room and a plastic picture frame slid off his dresser.
"Gandalf!" Aragorn screamed, wheeling around to face his gnarled companion. "Look what you've done!"
"Very sorry," Gandalf said cheerfully, gazing curiously about the room as Aragorn jumped to rescue his picture frame. It said "Best Friends Forever" around the edges; a polaroid of Aragorn and a tall, stringy-haired man with their arms around each other had been stuck inside.
"The frame -- you've ruined it, Gandalf! And I'll never be able to get another one...it just won't be the same now he's dead." With a sob, Aragorn flung himself onto the bed and burried his face in a ruffled pillow.
Gandalf gave a chuckle and sat down beside the grieving king, hastily swallowing the last chunks of hobbit meat.
"You know," he said heartily over Aragorn's plaintive cries, "you really should get rid of this anyhow. Jolly bad thing to have around the house when you've got someone else in the sack."
At this, Aragorn gave a loud snuffle and sat up, wiping his nose on a fringy fold of Gandalf's large grey garment. "Gandalf, I must tell you something."
"Oh, really? Wonderful that you're calming down, my lad. Have some snuff, won't you?"
The wizard extracted a delicate silver snuff box from deep inside his garment and brandished it jovially at Aragorn, who was now pale with rage. Even the beauty of the snuff box couldn't make up for Gandalf's impudence!
"I'm trying to tell you something important!"
"By Jove, Aragorn, you've been so damn fretful as of late! A good pinch of snuff is just what you need -- it'll put a little man back into you."
When the king did not respond, Gandalf shrugged and began helping himself to a heaping pinch of snuff.
"Won't you just listen?" Aragorn pleaded, shielding his face as Gandalf gave a magnificent sneeze.
"You ought to learn to command people, Aragorn. How do you expect to rule a kingdom when you're so damn ineffectual?"
"Would you shut up?" the king snapped, jumping from the bed and scattering snuff everywhere. "I've been trying to tell you that I haven't any idea where Legolas has gone!"
"Is that all?" Gandalf picked up the picture frame and examined it. "Oh look now, there's nothing but a wee bit of a tiny crack."
"Don't touch that," Aragorn snarled, snatching the picture back. "I should've known you couldn't help me. All you can do properly is spit."
"I resent that," Gandalf said happily, busy with another bit of snuff.
Aragorn tugged at his hair and tore out of the chamber with a groan.
Gandalf stared into space thoughtfully long after Aragorn was gone.
"Conceited ass," he finally said decidedly, extracting from the folds of his cloak a tin full of hobbit toes. "Charlie!" he barked at a young man who had crawled in the window after him. "Get your silly head out of that lingerie basket!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
Miles away, two Gondorian soldiers in the company of a sulky elf pressed onward. The elf had long since given up screaming "Help! Deviants!" and the soldiers' spirits were lightened considerably.
"'Ere, have a bit of bread," said GS#2, who was trying unsuccessfully to make the elf eat. "S'no use, Fergus," he finally said, "he won't eat."
"Blow it out ye' arse, ye bloody idjit," was Fergus' reply.
GS#2 sighed, and Legolas almost took pity on him. Almost.
No one's looked at me in hours, he whined inwardly. I'm sure my hair is in a dreadful tangle.
"Excuse me," he said. He was brought to a sharp stop and almost fell to the ground.
"What dos 'e want, the oaf?" It was Fergus, sounding incensed.
"Pardon me," Legolas said stiffly. "I was hoping to wash my hair."
Fergus began to laugh, a low, snorting chuckle. "Wash ye' 'air! The elf wants to wash 'is 'air, Cornelius!"
"Quite a decent demand, Fergus."
"Decent? I 'aven't washed me 'air in nigh on three months, an' there's nothin' wrong wi' me, eh?"
Legolas thought he might be sick. Even Aragorn had washed his hair more than that -- at least he hoped so.
"Fergus, the sun's low in the sky. If we hurry, we'll be there afore sunset!"
"Well, 'ef this bloody elf weren't such a pansy, we'd be 'ere already."
"If you hadn't put a bag on my head, I should be much more inclined to walk faster," Legolas retorted.
"'E's got sass now, Cornelius. Ye hear what 'e said to me, eh? All this about a bag on 'is head -- don't 'e know 'e's a prisoner?"
"We ought to press on, Fergus." Cornelius' voice was urgent.
I do wish I could see what's happening, Legolas thought with a grumble. The inside of the bag was a very ugly shade of taupe, with some nasty smears that smelled quite alarmingly of old blood.
"Come along now," whispered Cornelius, taking Legolas by the arm. "Don't you want some bread?"
~*~*~*~*~*~
Aragorn gave a forlorn sigh and hugged his knees closer to his chest. He had been hiding in the White Tower ever since his confrontation with Gandalf, and now the sky outside was dark. Perhaps Gandalf had taken his snuff and his half-wit boy and gone off to impose on someone else by now.
The sound of drunken laughter and whooping from the streets below convinced Aragorn that this was not the case. The Gondorians were usually a civil, stately people; it was only when Gandalf came to town that things got out of hand. Once, Aragorn would not have minded this sort of behavior. After all, hadn't he adored inns and drunken revelry as much as the next dark wandering traveler? Yes. Yes indeed.
Perhaps Gandalf was right. Perhaps all this kingliness had softened him. Perhaps he shouldn't have let Legolas coax him into thinking that rose really was his scent. Perhaps things would be different if Boromir was still here with him.
The cracked picture frame lay beside him, and Aragorn picked it up now to examine it for the hundredth time that evening. Boromir certainly wasn't into things like hair washing, now that Aragorn thought about it. But Boromir was gone now, gone into the crashing waterfalls, and there was nothing Aragorn could do about it.
It was time he thought about looking for Legolas.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Why hasn't Gorny come for me yet? Legolas thought impatiently as he stumbled along through what felt like a waist-high bed of thistles.
He was certain that he had never felt so miserable in his life. His legs had gone numb and one of assailants (he didn't know which one) had taken to shouting "Looks like he's passed out again, Ferg!" and hoisting Legolas over his shoulder for a while; it was the only rest he ever really had. Legolas made a mental note to tell Aragorn, when he came to save him, to kill the pitying assailant quickly.
No kindliness, no matter how comforting, could make up for the fact that his flaxen hair, knotless (except for an unfortunate incident at one of Gandalf's early Toe-Tasting conventions), now lay under his burlap sack in an embarrassing, fused piece.
"They must be punished," he hissed vehemently in his most sinister voice.
"Eh?" said the closest assailant. "What's that, little buddy?"
"Nothing," Legolas spat sulkily. The kind assailant's constant attention was becoming a nuisance, more noticably so since, after hours on the road, Legolas had begun a swift descent into madness.
His assailant had apparently been satisfied by his reply, because he was becoming distracted by something else.
"You, there!" he was hollering, alarmed.
Legolas would have wondered what all the yelling was about, but he was too busy trying to bring the circulation back into his wrist -- the kindly assailant had been hanging onto it rather tightly.
"Would ye duck down, ye great elf?" someone growled, and the next second, Legolas found himself lying in some very uncomfortable briars. Through the disgusting cloth of the sack that still covered his head, he could vaguely hear the siren call of arrows twanging.
Finally, someone gave a blood-curdling yell, and then Legolas felt himself being pulled violently to his feet.
"Ye best git up an' keep walkin'. D'ye think ye can kip while we're fightin' to protect ye?"
"Now Fergus, you pushed 'im..."
"None o' yer bloody business 'oo I pushed," Fergus replied indignantly, giving Legolas a shove. "Start yer walkin' -- we've near three miles afore we rest tonight."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Have another!" Gandalf roared, sloshing beer down his front. "You'll feel good as new in no time."
"I'm feeling pretty damn marvelous already, Gandalf old boy!" Aragorn bellowed back over a massive tankard of ale. "Wouldn't say no to another drinking game, in fact -- wish we had a few hobbits around!"
"Hobbits? Why, those little fellows can hardly hold their ale next to big'uns like us! Only thing they're any good for is eating, and that's a fact."
Aragorn slid closer to Gandalf and leaned in towards the drunken wizard with a confidential air. "Really now, Gandalf. I'll swear on the shards of Narsil that you've got more of an interest in them than that. I remember those cuddles you were always demanding -- do you think anyone really believed that 'keep an old man warm' line?"
Gandalf gave an explosive laugh, drenching Aragorn in spittle.
"Jolly good times, those were. Have some snuff?"
But Aragorn's face was now white with rage. He glared out at Gandalf from beneath his sopping hair. "How dare you spit upon me?"
Gandalf's smile flickered. "Take it easy, man," he said. "No harm done!"
Aragorn rose quickly and upset his tankard, beer trickling down his lap and into his boots. "No harm? No harm?" he shrieked. "Why, you don't even deserve my anger, you spittle-spewing freak! Why don't you just get the hell out of Gondor and leave me alone with my aching heart?"
~*~*~*~*~*~
The sack was torn from Legolas' head violently, and he stumbled and blinked in the bright moonlight. Giving a yelp of joy, he clicked his heels in the air and was instantly struck to the ground by one of his Gondorian guards.
"No noise out o' ye," the guard growled menacingly. "The master says we're ta bring ye right away, ye hear?"
"Wouldn't it be possible for me to wash my hair first?" Legolas asked, fingering his lumpy locks with disgust.
Another guard, standing off to the side, gave a half-hearted shrug and looked at the burly fellow standing over Legolas.
"Cornelius," the burly guard snarled. "Ye're not ta give the pris'ner a thing, ye hear? He's ta go to the master."
"Aye, Fergus." The guard stooped and took Legolas's arm gently. "We'd best be taking you in, sir."
Fergus shot Cornelius a dirty look and stumped over to a large door. Throwing it open roughly, he took a torch from a bracket beside the door and swiftly vanished into the darkness. Cornelius, Legolas on his arm, followed.
The corridor was dark, wet, and smelled terrible. Cornelius' breathing was loud in Legolas' ear, but that didn't bother him nearly as much as the thought of what Aragorn would do if he happened to so much as hear about Legolas on another's arm. Preoccupied with thoughts of rejection and suffering, he didn't notice he had entered a bright hall until he heard someone say his name.
Legolas turned towards the sound, and his eyes suddenly filled with tears.
"Gimli?"
~*~*~*~*~*~
A great deal of thanks to our two delightful reviewers, MoroTheWolfGod and Lomelinde. Please continue to review and celebrate the hatred of spittle.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Aragorn was distinctly distraught as he scrubbed furiously to shine his armor. He was moving the polishing rag so fast that he was beginning to make a hole -- much like the hole that had already formed in the marshmallowy depths of his heart.
"Why," he roared to himself, "does the elf man not return my love?"
Several people were already poking their heads around the windowsill in his chamber, but at this a tall and grey one rose high above the rest.
"Aragorn," called the owner of the head. His voice was thick, and though Aragorn's back was to the window, he imagined the man's mouth was full of poorly-masticated hobbit feet.
"Mrrrr," Aragorn mumbled in reply. He did not stop polishing.
He heard a pair of feet thunk into the room and a plastic picture frame slid off his dresser.
"Gandalf!" Aragorn screamed, wheeling around to face his gnarled companion. "Look what you've done!"
"Very sorry," Gandalf said cheerfully, gazing curiously about the room as Aragorn jumped to rescue his picture frame. It said "Best Friends Forever" around the edges; a polaroid of Aragorn and a tall, stringy-haired man with their arms around each other had been stuck inside.
"The frame -- you've ruined it, Gandalf! And I'll never be able to get another one...it just won't be the same now he's dead." With a sob, Aragorn flung himself onto the bed and burried his face in a ruffled pillow.
Gandalf gave a chuckle and sat down beside the grieving king, hastily swallowing the last chunks of hobbit meat.
"You know," he said heartily over Aragorn's plaintive cries, "you really should get rid of this anyhow. Jolly bad thing to have around the house when you've got someone else in the sack."
At this, Aragorn gave a loud snuffle and sat up, wiping his nose on a fringy fold of Gandalf's large grey garment. "Gandalf, I must tell you something."
"Oh, really? Wonderful that you're calming down, my lad. Have some snuff, won't you?"
The wizard extracted a delicate silver snuff box from deep inside his garment and brandished it jovially at Aragorn, who was now pale with rage. Even the beauty of the snuff box couldn't make up for Gandalf's impudence!
"I'm trying to tell you something important!"
"By Jove, Aragorn, you've been so damn fretful as of late! A good pinch of snuff is just what you need -- it'll put a little man back into you."
When the king did not respond, Gandalf shrugged and began helping himself to a heaping pinch of snuff.
"Won't you just listen?" Aragorn pleaded, shielding his face as Gandalf gave a magnificent sneeze.
"You ought to learn to command people, Aragorn. How do you expect to rule a kingdom when you're so damn ineffectual?"
"Would you shut up?" the king snapped, jumping from the bed and scattering snuff everywhere. "I've been trying to tell you that I haven't any idea where Legolas has gone!"
"Is that all?" Gandalf picked up the picture frame and examined it. "Oh look now, there's nothing but a wee bit of a tiny crack."
"Don't touch that," Aragorn snarled, snatching the picture back. "I should've known you couldn't help me. All you can do properly is spit."
"I resent that," Gandalf said happily, busy with another bit of snuff.
Aragorn tugged at his hair and tore out of the chamber with a groan.
Gandalf stared into space thoughtfully long after Aragorn was gone.
"Conceited ass," he finally said decidedly, extracting from the folds of his cloak a tin full of hobbit toes. "Charlie!" he barked at a young man who had crawled in the window after him. "Get your silly head out of that lingerie basket!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
Miles away, two Gondorian soldiers in the company of a sulky elf pressed onward. The elf had long since given up screaming "Help! Deviants!" and the soldiers' spirits were lightened considerably.
"'Ere, have a bit of bread," said GS#2, who was trying unsuccessfully to make the elf eat. "S'no use, Fergus," he finally said, "he won't eat."
"Blow it out ye' arse, ye bloody idjit," was Fergus' reply.
GS#2 sighed, and Legolas almost took pity on him. Almost.
No one's looked at me in hours, he whined inwardly. I'm sure my hair is in a dreadful tangle.
"Excuse me," he said. He was brought to a sharp stop and almost fell to the ground.
"What dos 'e want, the oaf?" It was Fergus, sounding incensed.
"Pardon me," Legolas said stiffly. "I was hoping to wash my hair."
Fergus began to laugh, a low, snorting chuckle. "Wash ye' 'air! The elf wants to wash 'is 'air, Cornelius!"
"Quite a decent demand, Fergus."
"Decent? I 'aven't washed me 'air in nigh on three months, an' there's nothin' wrong wi' me, eh?"
Legolas thought he might be sick. Even Aragorn had washed his hair more than that -- at least he hoped so.
"Fergus, the sun's low in the sky. If we hurry, we'll be there afore sunset!"
"Well, 'ef this bloody elf weren't such a pansy, we'd be 'ere already."
"If you hadn't put a bag on my head, I should be much more inclined to walk faster," Legolas retorted.
"'E's got sass now, Cornelius. Ye hear what 'e said to me, eh? All this about a bag on 'is head -- don't 'e know 'e's a prisoner?"
"We ought to press on, Fergus." Cornelius' voice was urgent.
I do wish I could see what's happening, Legolas thought with a grumble. The inside of the bag was a very ugly shade of taupe, with some nasty smears that smelled quite alarmingly of old blood.
"Come along now," whispered Cornelius, taking Legolas by the arm. "Don't you want some bread?"
~*~*~*~*~*~
Aragorn gave a forlorn sigh and hugged his knees closer to his chest. He had been hiding in the White Tower ever since his confrontation with Gandalf, and now the sky outside was dark. Perhaps Gandalf had taken his snuff and his half-wit boy and gone off to impose on someone else by now.
The sound of drunken laughter and whooping from the streets below convinced Aragorn that this was not the case. The Gondorians were usually a civil, stately people; it was only when Gandalf came to town that things got out of hand. Once, Aragorn would not have minded this sort of behavior. After all, hadn't he adored inns and drunken revelry as much as the next dark wandering traveler? Yes. Yes indeed.
Perhaps Gandalf was right. Perhaps all this kingliness had softened him. Perhaps he shouldn't have let Legolas coax him into thinking that rose really was his scent. Perhaps things would be different if Boromir was still here with him.
The cracked picture frame lay beside him, and Aragorn picked it up now to examine it for the hundredth time that evening. Boromir certainly wasn't into things like hair washing, now that Aragorn thought about it. But Boromir was gone now, gone into the crashing waterfalls, and there was nothing Aragorn could do about it.
It was time he thought about looking for Legolas.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Why hasn't Gorny come for me yet? Legolas thought impatiently as he stumbled along through what felt like a waist-high bed of thistles.
He was certain that he had never felt so miserable in his life. His legs had gone numb and one of assailants (he didn't know which one) had taken to shouting "Looks like he's passed out again, Ferg!" and hoisting Legolas over his shoulder for a while; it was the only rest he ever really had. Legolas made a mental note to tell Aragorn, when he came to save him, to kill the pitying assailant quickly.
No kindliness, no matter how comforting, could make up for the fact that his flaxen hair, knotless (except for an unfortunate incident at one of Gandalf's early Toe-Tasting conventions), now lay under his burlap sack in an embarrassing, fused piece.
"They must be punished," he hissed vehemently in his most sinister voice.
"Eh?" said the closest assailant. "What's that, little buddy?"
"Nothing," Legolas spat sulkily. The kind assailant's constant attention was becoming a nuisance, more noticably so since, after hours on the road, Legolas had begun a swift descent into madness.
His assailant had apparently been satisfied by his reply, because he was becoming distracted by something else.
"You, there!" he was hollering, alarmed.
Legolas would have wondered what all the yelling was about, but he was too busy trying to bring the circulation back into his wrist -- the kindly assailant had been hanging onto it rather tightly.
"Would ye duck down, ye great elf?" someone growled, and the next second, Legolas found himself lying in some very uncomfortable briars. Through the disgusting cloth of the sack that still covered his head, he could vaguely hear the siren call of arrows twanging.
Finally, someone gave a blood-curdling yell, and then Legolas felt himself being pulled violently to his feet.
"Ye best git up an' keep walkin'. D'ye think ye can kip while we're fightin' to protect ye?"
"Now Fergus, you pushed 'im..."
"None o' yer bloody business 'oo I pushed," Fergus replied indignantly, giving Legolas a shove. "Start yer walkin' -- we've near three miles afore we rest tonight."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Have another!" Gandalf roared, sloshing beer down his front. "You'll feel good as new in no time."
"I'm feeling pretty damn marvelous already, Gandalf old boy!" Aragorn bellowed back over a massive tankard of ale. "Wouldn't say no to another drinking game, in fact -- wish we had a few hobbits around!"
"Hobbits? Why, those little fellows can hardly hold their ale next to big'uns like us! Only thing they're any good for is eating, and that's a fact."
Aragorn slid closer to Gandalf and leaned in towards the drunken wizard with a confidential air. "Really now, Gandalf. I'll swear on the shards of Narsil that you've got more of an interest in them than that. I remember those cuddles you were always demanding -- do you think anyone really believed that 'keep an old man warm' line?"
Gandalf gave an explosive laugh, drenching Aragorn in spittle.
"Jolly good times, those were. Have some snuff?"
But Aragorn's face was now white with rage. He glared out at Gandalf from beneath his sopping hair. "How dare you spit upon me?"
Gandalf's smile flickered. "Take it easy, man," he said. "No harm done!"
Aragorn rose quickly and upset his tankard, beer trickling down his lap and into his boots. "No harm? No harm?" he shrieked. "Why, you don't even deserve my anger, you spittle-spewing freak! Why don't you just get the hell out of Gondor and leave me alone with my aching heart?"
~*~*~*~*~*~
The sack was torn from Legolas' head violently, and he stumbled and blinked in the bright moonlight. Giving a yelp of joy, he clicked his heels in the air and was instantly struck to the ground by one of his Gondorian guards.
"No noise out o' ye," the guard growled menacingly. "The master says we're ta bring ye right away, ye hear?"
"Wouldn't it be possible for me to wash my hair first?" Legolas asked, fingering his lumpy locks with disgust.
Another guard, standing off to the side, gave a half-hearted shrug and looked at the burly fellow standing over Legolas.
"Cornelius," the burly guard snarled. "Ye're not ta give the pris'ner a thing, ye hear? He's ta go to the master."
"Aye, Fergus." The guard stooped and took Legolas's arm gently. "We'd best be taking you in, sir."
Fergus shot Cornelius a dirty look and stumped over to a large door. Throwing it open roughly, he took a torch from a bracket beside the door and swiftly vanished into the darkness. Cornelius, Legolas on his arm, followed.
The corridor was dark, wet, and smelled terrible. Cornelius' breathing was loud in Legolas' ear, but that didn't bother him nearly as much as the thought of what Aragorn would do if he happened to so much as hear about Legolas on another's arm. Preoccupied with thoughts of rejection and suffering, he didn't notice he had entered a bright hall until he heard someone say his name.
Legolas turned towards the sound, and his eyes suddenly filled with tears.
"Gimli?"
~*~*~*~*~*~
A great deal of thanks to our two delightful reviewers, MoroTheWolfGod and Lomelinde. Please continue to review and celebrate the hatred of spittle.