If Aragorn was being honest with himself he'd admit that he in a lot of pain. He's briefly toyed with the idea of fashioning a crutch cut from the branch of a tree but- remembering that you should never carry anything that could be used against you as a weapon- had decided against it. Mainly, this was because- whilst he was resigned to the fact that in all likelihood, one of the hobbits would murder him in his sleep- the ignominy of being beaten to death with his own crutch would be just too much.

By the time he realised that actually, he really did need a crutch, it was too late because they'd already entered the woods of Lothlorien and, whilst Aragorn may not have been the sharpest tool in the box, he was smart enough to realise that chopping off bits of Galadriel's trees wouldn't really endear him to her. After all, he was in enough trouble already...

It was too much, it really was, Frodo decided. As if being burdened with an apocalypse related (and therefore highly important) quest wasn't enough, now he'd been knocked up by that smelly, hairy, snivelling git.

That was certainly the last time Frodo Baggins was going to lured into bed by royalty. It had been Pippin's idea anyway. Well, that was Frodo's story and he was sticking to it.

But now Sam was being irritatingly loyal and, simultaneously, silently judging ( Strumpet! His look seemed to shout). Frdo wasn't sure if it was all the hormones making him paranoid, whether Sam was actually hitherto unknown to him extremely devout in his morals, or whether- most horrifying of all- Sam had been harbouring a secret crush on him and was actually just insanely jealous. To say that this last possibility vexed Frodo was to put it mildly.

Someone who definitely was jealous- loudly and annoyingly so- was Merry, who spent all his time alternating between moaning about not being invited to their threesome and slurring the name of Baggins to anyone that would listen.

Nobody had paid much attention until he'd let slip that Frodo and Pippin were cousins. And that's when all the funny looks had started from all the others.

It was most unfair and hypocritical of them Frodo thought. After all, Aragorn. Boromir and Legolas were all of noble birth and everyone knew that nobles got up to that sort of thing all the time. And Gimli was so ugly that there had to have been some inbreeding at some point. Well, either that or dwarves were even more spectacularly ugly than Bilbo had said.

And the others kept making him walk! He remained convinced that there was probably a footpath which led directly to Mordor and that they were just taking the long way round to be malicious to him. Especially Legolas, who'd been shooting him the kind of death glares that only an elf could muster.

Of course, it could just be that the various grumbles and gurgles emanating from Frodo's stomach- loud enough even to wake Boromir who slept like the dead- were proving rather irritating to Legolas and heightened, bat-like elf ears.

Or, maybe it was because two days previously, Frodo had woken up with his normal bout of morning sickness, gotten his trouser leg caught in a branch and had ended up vomiting over Legolas's coat. And his hair.

The ensuing scenes had been somewhat nasty to say the least.

Frodo was of the opinion that it was downright rude of Legolas to bear a grudge considering his condition and was seriously pondering the possibility of having Sam take Legolas out.

His plotting of Legolas's death was rudely interrupted by the arrival of three blond elves, who seemed to just materialise out of the trees and nearly gave him a heart attack. The campest of the three introduced himself as Haldir and proceeded to say vaguely threatening things before blindfolding them and leading them to Lothlorien. None of the above did much to improve Frodo's current opinion of elves.

Legolas was having a bad day. Again. His hair smelt of vomit, the strange noises coming from Frodo's stomach had prevented him sleeping for a total of 104 hours and counting, and, until that annoying twat Haldir had appeared- and slapped him on the bottom dammit!- he'd been convinced that they were going in entirely the wrong direction.

Aragorn had disagreed, using the 'I'm a ranger with a sense of direction better than a compass' card, but to be honest, Aragorn looked like he might keel over and die any second so Legolas didn't really have much faith in his judgement.

Currently though, he was walking through the forest blindfolded, one of his hands being quite mercilessly crushed by Boromir and dragging Aragorn along by the other one. Everyone stopped rather abruptly and he walked slap-bang into Boromir. Boromir was far more sturdily built than Legolas had expected. Fresh pain blossomed in his nose and his ribs.

When the blindfold came off at Haldir's order, Legolas shot Boromir a filthy look and then set off after the others- vaguely aware of Aragorn cowering behind him- to see Galadriel.

Galadriel was beautiful. Galadriel was regal. Galadriel was powerful.

Galadriel was...a bitch.

Well, according to Arwen anyway.

Standing here waiting for her to make her her big entrance- because, like all elves, Galadriel was a drama queen and only ever made big entrances- Aragorn realised that an excuse was called to explain his...naughtiness.

Unfortunately, the paralysing fear which had turned his legs to jelly had also numbed his mind. Plus, now he really needed to pee. He was never going to live it down if Galadriel yelled at him and he wet himself through pure terror.

The need for an excuse was forgotten however, as Galadriel started to make her descent down the stairs on the arm of Celeborn. She managed to get all the way down to the third bottom step before she tripped over the hem of her floor length gown, and ended up stumbling to a halt with a painful looking twist of her ankle and an Elvish curse that made Frodo blush.

Legolas- who seemed to be getting more embittered by the day- snickered as Galadriel crossly batted away Celeborn's concern and tried to compose herself.

"Eight there are here, but nine there were set out from Rivendell. Where is Ganadalf, for I have much desire to speak with him?" Celeborn covered for the still slightly rattled looking Galadriel.

Everyone looked rather sheepish.

"Gandalf is rather...um...dead" Legolas hoped that he looked suitably contrite- no point in them knowing that, as far as he was concerned, Gandalf was the lucky one right now.

"Dead?" Galadriel looked at him querulously and obviously believed what she saw there.

"He has fallen in the shadow".

Legolas nodded blankly and tried to avoid thinking about his father, whose opinion was somewhat less than complimentary. Faced with Galadriel and her creepy mind-reading powers, Legolas's mind inevitably wandered to the things that he would rather Galadriel didn't know. After all, it would never do for her to find out that Thranduil thought she was moody, crazy old hag...oops.

Luckily for Legolas, Galadriel's attention was diverted elsewhere.

Following the revelation of Gandalf's death- which to be honest was hardly something she was going to lose sleep over- she'd launched into her carefully prepared motivational speech.

"The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and..."

She never finished the sentence. Having glanced at Frodo as she spoke and then done a double-take at the revelation evident to her in his face.

Galadriel blanched. The fellowship cringed as one. Celeborn looked puzzled.

"The Ringbearer bears an extra burden on his quest"

In times of crisis Galadriel's speech tended to become even more cryptic than usual. Sometimes she even referred to herself in the third person.

Celeborn had learned to deal with this and accept it as a quirk. After all, in exchange he got the dominant, controlling woman that he craved. Celeborn, like the majority of elves, had all number of complexes arising from the boredom of immortality.

Galadriel, he noticed, was looking more than a little stunned. Then she turned to look at Aragorn and the stunned expression turned to one of pure, unadulterated rage.

"An ally of the Ringbearer has done him wrong- that ally has also betrayed the heart and trust of his fair companion. Vengeance must be swi-"

For the second time in five minutes Galadriel failed to finish her sentence. This time, it was because Celeborn- seeing the murderous rage and hearing the worrying tremble in her voice- had taken the opportunity to slap Galadriel into unconsciouness.

Everyone stared at the fallen queen in astonishment and then turned to look at Celeborn. He shrugged.

"You wouldn't like her when she's angry- trust me."

It was Celeborn's turn to look astonished as a weeping Aragorn suddenly enveloped him In a bear-hug.

Frodo glared at him.

The others all looked varying degrees of sheepish and remained silent.

Finally, Legolas cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Perhaps there's a few things you need to know. How long have we got until she wakes up?"

Celeborn was intrigued.

"Minions...I mean guards", he commanded, "take lady Galadriel to her chamber and lock her in. If you suspect she's using her magic to kill or maim someone come and inform me".

The guards glared at him but did as ordered.

"Well", Legolas started awkwardly, "It's like this..."