Emily hobbled her way through the doors of the Last Homely House, looking around for her friends. She could hear their merry chatter echoing through the cavernous hallways, but they were nowhere in sight.
"They haven't even noticed I'm gone…" she thought sadly to herself. Her emo moment (hereafter to be known as an emoment) was interrupted by a loud grunt as the short, stubby fellow who desperately needed a good shampoo dropped Mrs. Tocci to the floor.
Aragorn stepped over the body and approached her again.
"I do not know who you are or why you are here…"
"Or why you're wearing such silly clothes!" chirped one of the hobbits, flipping her kilt up in amusement.
"Thank God we always wear boxers…" she thought to herself.
"You're welcome!" boomed God from the heavens.
Aragorn ignored the hobbit and the voice of God. "…but I would advise you to remain on your best behavior. Stay out of the way and do not speak unless called upon." He viewed her with slight disdain. He had gained a lot of scorn with his crown. "I can see that you are used to voicing your opinions. Do not do so. There are more important people here, people who have saved Middle-earth from destruction. People… yes… like me. It is unfortunate that you happened upon our land in a time when immediate arrangements can not be made for your safe return to your own place. I am afraid you are in for several hours of boredom. Now, if you will excuse me, I have pressing matters to attend to. I will leave you in the care of Legolas and Gimli."
"And the hobbits!" called the hobbits, but Aragorn was fast retreating.
Another hobbit snorted, "Pressing matters? Pressing Arwen against a wall in the throes of passion?"
"Do not imply such things about the Lady Arwen, Merry!" cried the eldest hobbit who wore a lot of eyeliner.
It should be noted carefully that this last hobbit, Frodo, found Arwen very attractive, because, just as in The Lord of the Rings, she's not in this story.
"We need a good meal in our bellies, Legolas," grumbled the dwarf, Gimli. "There is no need to tarry with this girl."
"Be still, Gimli," said Legolas rather mildly. "I have still not satisfied myself that she is not an orc."
Everyone rolled their eyes.
"What?" Legolas asked. "These are dark, dark days when another Council of Elrond has been called, and there are darker days ahead, if I am not mistaken. It would not be impossible for the hand of evil to disguise a foul beast as a daughter of man. See how impractical her attire is!" He eyed the white polo shirt and navy kilt rather curiously.
"What, you think I'm hiding swords in my knee socks?" Emily snapped.
"No, I do not mistrust you that much," Legolas said. "But perhaps in your satchel…" He smiled quite innocently as he began to root through her backpack, though everyone knew he was just doing it because she had accidentally spat dirt all over him. She merely groaned impatiently as he pulled out her glasses, her calculator, her massive 2000-page World Literature book, The Princess Bride (which she did indeed carry everywhere with her,) her Bible which she always forgot to put back in her locker after Jesus class, a solitary pen, and her mutant notebook that had two plastic covers in a row, one red, one black. She loved the notebook dearly for its deformity, and she used it for all her classes, which is to say, she sat in all her classes and scribbled down pictures and opinions and scraps of stories indiscriminately. Though slightly private, she didn't mind as Legolas flipped through it. There was nothing objectionable.
Take care to remember these items, for they are the complete inventory of all that the Catholic schoolgirls had, besides the uniforms on their backs. Because of the iPod, Emily was the only one who found it necessary to bring her backpack to a game of hide-and-seek.
And speaking of the iPod, it was the last thing Legolas pulled out of the little black backpack. The last thing to be pulled out and the first to enrage Emily, as he removed its case and started pressing buttons and messing with the touchpad.
"This is a strange device, and surely evil," Legolas remarked, turning it over.
"No!" Emily gasped.
"If it is not evil, it surely wouldn't suffer if I… shot it! It appears to be armored." He pawed the back of it, trying to get it to do something.
"Stopppp!!! You're getting it dirty!"
She had hit a sensitive spot. "I would not be getting it dirty if you had not gotten me dirty in the first place!" He prepared to shoot the iPod.
"Noooooo!!" Emily sprang forward through the air, and, clutching the little mp3 player to her heart, rolled away to safety from Legolas on the floor. "If you destroyed this, you'd destroy me, you psychotic, obsessive-compulsive pretty bo-… erm… elf…" Her rant lost steam as she realized the absurdity of what she was saying to this supposedly fictional elf… about an iPod… from the floor of Elrond's home… What was she doing? Legolas was one of her favorite characters! She loved Legolas, and now he thought she was mental!
Legolas bowed slightly. "I apologize for nearly killing you. What does this thing that is so dear to your heart do?"
"It plays music… see?" Scrambling awkwardly to her foot (the other one still ached terribly from her fall on the rock,) she limped over to Legolas, handed him the headphones, and flipped on some OK Go.
After a moment, Legolas was truly smiling and bobbing his head.
"I have never heard music like this!"
"Rocks, doesn't it?" Emily grinned.
"What are you jabbering about?" Gimli grumbled. "You just said it was music, not rocks… and while I love rocks dearly, neither thing is as good as a nice supper, which, I might add, is surely awaiting us in the hall."
The chubbiest hobbit who had neither flipped up her skirt (that had been Pippin,) nor insinuated that Aragorn was making out with Arwen (that had been Merry,) nor worn too much eyeliner (that had been Frodo,) finally spoke up (that was Sam.) "You are expected, Master Frodo. You had better get in there or you'll be sure to miss second supper."
"We'll all go, Sam," said Frodo. "We were all summoned here for the Council except for the girl, and Aragorn said to bring her anyway."
"What about Mrs. Tocci?" Emily asked, indicating her unconscious teacher.
"We'll take care of her! Ha! Ha!" twittered the elves, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. "Follow us! Follow us! Elrond is waiting!"
And Elrond was waiting. With Catholic schoolgirls, elves, teenaged wizards, and… Yoda.
(More and more and more: I don't own OK Go or distribute any of the contents of my backpack. I hope Five-Star pays me for boosting the sales of their mutant notebooks… I love mine! Also… mucho apologies for making this chapter a total waste of your time, but it's just to set the stage for a lot of things. I realize it sucks greatly, but there was very little I could do with it. I'm going to try to get the Lord of the Rings folks more into character, but I've never written for them before… and yeah, that's about it… with any luck, there are longer, more interesting chapters ahead!)
