Sneezes and Sword Fights

By Joanna

*To everyone who reviewed Chapter One, I've written you each a little something at the end of this chapter! Mostly inane babble to rival Gollum, but you know…also, see the very last note for an important question for you all!

Chapter Two: Quarantine

Legolas let himself into the King's chambers after taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders, as he did in the moments before battle. The fireplace in the room was roaring. Someone had pulled the heavy tapestries tight across the rain-streaked windows to prevent the heat from escaping, and to prevent any cool draft from entering. It seemed that the sweltering closeness of the room pushed against his entry as if it were a wall. Even the air felt full of illness and fever.

Arwen had already taken the children and the rest of the staff to the far end of the palace, leaving only he, Aragorn, and a few guards posted far down the hall at the entrance to the royal family's private quarters.

There was no one at all to save him, Legolas realized.

His first view of Aragorn was his long, red-tipped nose, protruding into the air from the massive mountain of blankets on the bed. The King was swathed in covers up to that nose. Loud snoring that might have rivaled Gimli's filled the room at uneven intervals. The lump on the bed rose and fell laboriously. There was a crackling wetness in the sound of Aragorn's breathing that Legolas found himself wincing at.

Men, even fine ones such as this, were such unrefined, barbaric creatures.

Aragorn's snoring ended on a choking sort of sound and he issued a startled sort of gasp and hacked once or twice before falling back into the cacophony of his rest.

Legolas approached the bed silently and studied Aragorn with interest. His entire face was a bloody red, and Legolas could feel the heat radiating from him, even from a distance. Aragorn twitched uncomfortably in his sleep, muttering something that was lost in a fit of hard coughing.

Curious, because he had little experience with the sick, Legolas reached a fingertip to poke a little at Aragorn's flushed temple, and jumped a little, surprised at the dry, waxy, and hot feel of the fever that burned in the Elessar's skin.

"I ab very sig, my love," Aragorn murmured at the touch, reaching up with characteristic quickness of his reactions, and grasping Legolas' fingers within his own. He brought them to his parched lips affectionately.

Shocked, Legolas could do nothing but stare as Aragorn kissed his fingertips.

Aragorn's eyes remained closed, but his brow wrinkled in confusion as he contemplated the hand within his grasp. It was too large, there were rough patches upon the first two fingers that he knew did not belong on his wife's silky skin…it was as if the calluses were the result of someone who often plucked a bow.

He jerked his hand back just as Legolas did the same, and startled, Aragorn opened his eyes very quickly.

That proved to be a foolish and intensely painful move, for the firelight seared right through his eyeballs and into the front of his brain like millions of tiny and vicious swords. He clasped his hand to his forehead, holding tightly to it lest it come apart from the rest of his skull.

"You are nod my wife," Aragorn growled in irritation and removed his hand as the first blinding pains receded. He opened his eyes to the narrowest slits possible and glared up at Legolas.

"Aye, well, thank the Valar for that," Legolas said agreeably enough and watched as Aragorn's expression changed from annoyance to one of hope.

"I understand now, Mellod nee. You've come to rescue me frob this prison. Go get Gimleed. Led's go hudig."

"Hudig?"

"Hudig. Hudig. Hudig!" Aragorn tried vehemently to pronounce it, hissed in irritation, coughed, and when Legolas still looked perplexed, tried a different tactic. "Led's kill somb deer."

Legolas grinned. "Yes. I understood you the first time. I just found it amusing to hear you say it again."

Aragorn called him a very impolite name that Legolas understood the first time as well, which made telling him that he wasn't going anywhere much more enjoyable for the elf. "You can not go hunting. You are confined to this room. Quarantined."

"Whad are you talkig aboud?" Aragorn asked, pulling himself up on the pillows with effort that left him winded. "Quaradteed?"

Legolas' eyes passed briefly over Aragorn. It seemed that every hair was spiking in a different direction all over his head. His eyes were shot through with red and glassy with fever and water, and set within a face blazing like fire. All of that, along with the fierce growth of stubble on his face and throat and the increasingly dark expression he wore, made him look decidedly menacing.

"Arwen decided," Legolas began, quickly placing the blame where it belonged, "that the rest of the household was in danger of catching your illness. Your advisor seems to have similar complaints, and he spent most of the day with you when you were first feeling ill. The others are not so strong as you, although I may point out that you are actually rather weak and that I have never, nor will I ever, be ill. But that is not the point. You are to be isolated to prevent any more outbreaks of the sickness."

"Where is Arwed?" Aragorn asked, narrowing his eyes.

"She has gone with the household staff, as well as your children, to the North Wing."

"Go ged her. She can nod confind me here in my own roomb like a…like a…" he searched for words wildly, waving his hands around. The exertion cost him, and he doubled over coughing.

Legolas took a deliberate step back from the bed. Not so much to avoid the coughing as to distance himself from Aragorn's reaction to his next piece of news. "Arwen did not want to leave the children in anyone else's care. Especially not if any of your servants are carriers of the sickness. She has gone to stay with them for the rest of the week."

"Then who is goig to loog after me?" Aragorn whined, slumping down on his pillows, and then as the realization of who would be caring for him started to take hold, his eyes rose slowly to the elf's, and he thought he saw a sadistic gleam of pleasure in Legolas' smug stare.

"Well, as I am the only other elf in the city, and as I cannot contract your illness, that task has been appointed to me," Legolas confirmed with satisfaction as Aragorn's eyes widened in what might have been fear.

"I will cerdainly die now," Aragorn sighed in resignation and looked toward the window.

"It could be worse," Legolas tried, in vain, to comfort his friend.

"I ab stuck here wid you and no one else. How could id be worse?"

"You are right. It really could not be. I was just trying to make you feel better."

*

*****

To my most incredible, most kind, most funny reviewers who have totally made all my days since I posted this:

I was especially happy to see some of you who left me reviews for Dragons or Ribbons appear on the reviews for this one, because it gives me a chance to say thanks twice. I didn't get to do since I never posted anything on that one after the initial post of the first story. The reviews for that one were so kind and inspiring and so made me really want another idea to come to me so I could try the light hearted stuff again! Y'all ROCK!!!!!

My Own: Thanks for being the very first reviewer! I always feel so much better when the first one is encouraging! I'm glad you liked Dragons or Ribbons too. I hope you'll like this one as much!

Ruth: Hi again! My dog has long ago resigned herself that she has an insane owner. I don't fight it anymore. She was particularly scornful as I sat here and tried to talk with a stuffed up nose to figure out how Aragorn might sound when he was saying he was the "Kig." I guess it's good I live alone at present. Are you still on your cats' good side?

PlatinumRoseLady: Hello! Aren't men babies? I've known some pretty "macho" men (their word, not mine) who absolutely fell to pieces when they got a stuffy nose. I just naturally assumed that the King of Gondor would be the same way. Bless his royal, and male, heart.

Artemis: Hey man! Yeah, you hit it on the nose…it was SO a plot device, but that's no excuse for unclear story lines. I'll fix it in a revise. In the mean time, I tried to let Legolas "splain" it a little better in this chapter. Did it help or no? And you are too sweet, by the way! Thanks for the joke! Oh, and no, not everything I write is interesting…the majority of it could bore you out of your mind. I have the proof and it's a research paper on Uniqueness Theory and Advertising appeals! Well, half a research paper actually. That I should be working on now, incidentally.

Dot: As if I needed any more encouragement to procrastinate! LOL. I got your review and set aside my reading for class straight away! I understand priorities.

Dragon-of-the-North: Yes! Long Live the Kig! Hee Hee. I too like the idea of the sort of mundane everyday things being forced on the Middle Earth characters. Tolkien might not love it so much, but I'm glad someone else does!

Nuola: I certainly appreciate your kind words, about this one and about Dragons or Ribbons. I hope you were pleased with this new chapter!

Alexa: Hi to you again too! I think a sick Legolas would be hilarious too…especially if they both ended up sick at the same time. I even thought about going against canon at one point in time and letting it happen, but changed my mind. Curse the annoying elves for being so unreasonably healthy. I'm sure this will annoy Aragorn to no end in the days to come.

Lily of the Shadow: Hi friend! I like exclamation points! A lot! Your review snapped me to attention with them!!!!! Hee! Thanks!!!! I feel energized! Everyone should do lots of these!!!!!!

Jedi-Faramir: I'm glad that you don't think I've done horrible things to Aragorn's character in this one. I figured anyone whose ever known a strong willed…or weak willed, for that matter, man might go along with me for a few chapters! I am all about Aragorn the man though, so I thought he'd forgive me this little digression from his manly-man side.

Leiasky: Hi again! No, No, don't cover your mouth, disturb your coworkers. Laugh maniacally at your desk. I bet they leave you alone and don't give you more than your share of the work then! If you could wring your hands a little, or stroke a white cat, it might really seal the effect. I think I just mixed a metaphor there. Oh well. It's late. I just reviewed one of your stories, Doom of Men (I think that was the correct title!). It was unbelievably outstanding and basically broke my heart, and I couldn't write anything else lighthearted afterwards!

Sparkle: Thank you, thank you. I worked for many long, hard minutes on the pronunciation and spelling of "Kig." There were many variations, if you can believe it. I'm so glad my hard work and ability to do "an accent" (apparently the only accent I can do) were appreciated! Hee hee.

Starfolk: I too had need of writing something lighthearted right now, so I'm glad if it provided you any escape at all, for that's the whole point in my writing it. I will try to keep the elf and the king from murder in the tradition of lifting people's spirits, but it may be a hard task! Aragorn is in a most ungracious mood, after all.

As for Aragorn's voice, great suggestion and totally fair point. I'm actually in a dilemma about it how much "cold" dialect to include in the story. I'd considered doing all of Aragorn's lines in it, but I felt like it was becoming the whole story and I was afraid that people would get annoyed if there was too much deciphering to do…maybe I could try to do some toned down "cold speak" for the rest of it, as you suggested. I've tried it in this chapter a bit, but again, not everything is in the cold talk. I too thought it felt awkward going back and forth…then again, it takes me forever to sit here and try to do a stuffed up nose accent to see what things would sound like, so maybe it was a bit of laziness on my part too! I totally appreciate the comment though, and I agree with you…just not sure what the lesser evil is! What do you think? I'd love more comments on this. Is the new chapter better?

TrinityC: Hello, Hello! You are so sweet! Thanks! I loved the idea of Legolas returning to tea with Aragorn's daughters…I had so much fun torturing him the first time. And as far as Arwen dealing with Aragorn on a daily basis, as totally wonderful as he is…how could she every once in a while not just throw up her hands and wonder what the hell she's doing in Middle Earth!

Pie: good to see you again! Yes, I work for threats! I'm continuing, I'm continuing! I find it relatively easy to write annoying men. I guess I've had a lot of interactions with them in the past (is there another kind?). And no…Legolas clearly has no idea what he's about to get into or he would have run away (run away! run away!) immediately at Arwen's request.

Brailah: Okay, I will! And thanks so much!

Estelcontar: Hi to the reviewer with the coolest name ever! I recognized you from your kind reviews of First Light of Evenstar! Thanks for coming over to the light side with me. I'm really glad that you enjoyed the story, and obviously, yep, I'm continuing! I like a surly Aragorn too, for some odd reason. I guess I just can't imagine a man who isn't at times a real brat. It'd be so much easier to tolerate from Aragorn though.

Soul: Well, you know the old saying…Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…or a woman fed up with her whiny husband. Either way, yeah, she's pretty evil at the moment.

You ladies (I think everyone is a lady anyhow…forgive me and let me know if not!!!!) are lovely and gracious and warm and I hope this chapter was what you hoped it would be, though I don't feel it was quite as fun as the first one, but there's good stuff coming up next, I think. At least in my head. Future chapters will likely be a bit longer too.

*Author's Note: Admittedly I think I've probably taken some medical knowledge liberties here. I don't think those in Middle Earth would have really known how sickness spread or didn't spread, but I'm giving the elves a bit of credit for knowing quite a bit about medicine, so maybe there in lies the excuse. I'm just bringing a bit of modern day remedy to Middle Earth, I think, but I hope you'll grant me that leeway, just for a few chapters.

*Help reviewers! If you saw my reply to Starfolk's very good suggestion (which was that it felt awkward having Aragorn going back and forth from "cold" to regular speech) earlier, this will be a bit redundant, but I wanted to make sure people saw this question. Do you like the increased "cold speak" or not? I don't want to overdo it and start annoying people, but it feels weird to have him go back and forth between normal speech and not. This chapter obviously has more of him talking like he has a cold. Is it hard to understand what he's saying? Would you rather see more or less of it in future chapters? I'd appreciate any comments on this, and of course, any other issues you see.