A/N - Just a little chapter before the Olympics begin. I would like to dedicate it to my favourite reviewers (because they put me on their favourites lists) Frodolover (aka Tigerlily Baggins) and AudreyArwenStrider! This is for you - and just because of that, it features Gollum and (drum roll here.....) Aragorn! Thank you!
Chapter 7 - Chaos in Olympics central!
It was a chilly day in the middle of December, and Aragorn was holed up in his 'palace' at Minas Tirith. Preparations for the Official Olympics of Middle Earth were well underway - with most of the trials being completed, and now the final arrangements were being made for the Olympics in the summer. This meant that Aragorn was holed up with a stack of paperwork (mainly consisting of the event submission forms), living in chaos and generally being very busy.
"Aragorn honey, the guards say that Gollum's trying to escape again!" Arwen's melodious voice called up from the stairway.
"Lock him up then!" Aragorn replied from his study. He really didn't have time for a deviant little ex (well you wouldn't really call him one now, would you!?) hobbit.
"They've tried that. But he keeps attempting to attack Master Samwise. You know he's visiting with Frodo."
"Fine. Bring him up here and I'll find something to keep him occupied."
Ten minutes later, Arwen led Gollum - who was kicking and screaming, up the stairs to the top of the citadel. He was dragged into Aragorn's office and told to sit down.
"Now Gollum." said Aragorn, "What has Sam done to you this time?"
"Nasssty hobbitses," said Gollum, "Nassty hobbitses tries to hurt poor precioussss.... tried to tie preciousss up with nassty elf rope."
"Gollum. How many times have we been through this? Sam has not tried to hurt you. Well, not recently anyway. You tried to hurt him."
"Nasssty king, you lies to Gollum."
"Gollum, I'm not going to argue with you." said Aragorn, looking weary and generally very fed up. "But I do want you to make yourself useful."
"Gollum's alwaysss happy to help nice king Strider. We hurts hobbitses together."
"Not quite. In that box there is a large model of Mount Doom and 10 rings. I want you to try and throw the rings into Mount Doom."
"Gollum not throwing preciousss into nasssty mountain."
"That's not precious."
"Oh. If Gollum throws ringsss into mountain, Gollum getss nice juicy fisssshess? Yes?"
"Yes." said Aragorn who, in all honesty, would probably have agreed to anything at this stage if it would get Gollum off his back.
"Yesssss. Precioussss helps nice king." said Gollum, "Then preciousss getss nassty hobbitsses." he added quietly to himself.
The rest of the day passed without major incident - except for when Arwen brought Aragorn dinner, only to discover that he had become buried under his paperwork. Gollum perfected the Mount Doom ring toss game - an event that had been designed so that the younger members of each species could participate in the Olympics, and didn't even react when Frodo and Sam paid Aragorn a visit in the afternoon.
All in all, preparations for the Olympics were running as smoothly as the chaos would allow.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thursday morning, Aragorn was paid a visit from Legolas. Legolas did not look happy.
"What happened Legolas? Fangirls steal your shampoo again?" Even though Legolas was his friend, he was not in the mood to deal with anything other than dinner followed by a nice long walk. Although a battle with a few big, ugly orcs would probably provide the same effect.
"Well. First of all, I got harrassed by some extremely scary fangirls who wanted me to judge the elven beauty pageant. The one I deemed the winner - a beautiful maiden who claimed to go by the name of Salad, became hysterical, and the rest just pounced. They completely destroyed my bow - leaving me unable to compete in the archery tournament. Fortunately, they're letting me qualify anyway - but that's not the point. Then, the dwarves invaded our trials, claiming that we had better events than us, followed by the hobbit fangirls. Everything is mayhem. You're the King - do something."
"Legolas. Much as I really want to care right now, I really don't have the energy. Go place a complaint with Arwen about your bow - she'll call Galadriel. Now go play with Gollum, you're both as irritating as each other."
And with that, Aragorn ran off crying to Arwen about how hard it was to be king, Legolas went to find the hobbits in the inn (where Sam was 'helping' Frodo practise for the drinking competition), and Gollum was left to his own devices.
Big mistake.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gollum had escaped.
He left Minas Tirith and headed north-west: to Hobbiton, where he was to exact his revenge on Sam. He had concocted an evil plan, and was aiming to carry it out when Sam and Frodo returned to Bag End the following week.........
A/N - Not as good as previous chapters, I know - but this was just a short one to bring other characters in! As you can see, Aragorn is having difficulties in his new role (paperwork isn't really his thing), and Gollum is turning into a conniving little creature (again)!
The Olympics will arrive soon (probably not for a couple of weeks cos I'm off on holiday on Tuesday and won't get that far before then), but will it all run according to plan? Keep reviewing and I'll tell you!
Rachel xx