Dis: not mine, Tolkien's, no harm intended and no money being made. This was in response to a challenge on the mc-challenge yahoo!Group, .yahoo .com /group /mc-challenge/ (remember to take out the spaces.)

---------- Imladris ----------

Imladris was a peaceful place really, well, at least that was the image that it liked to project. You see, Imladris has a mind of its own, not many people know this, or even recognise it straight away. Things going missing, that's Imladris playing tricks, rooms not opening, again, the haven misbehaving. But there's something else, Imladris seems to like certain people, for example the twins, it adores its twins! They were born under its roof and they entertained it unrelentlessly for many years, what house would not like them? And Glorfindel, the house liked Glorfindel, he talked to it and gave it the attention it deserved. However, there were some people that the house did not like.

Imladris did not like Celebrían, she shouted at the twins, she told them 'not to be silly, the house is not a person'. She was very mean. The house didn't like Arwen either, she wasn't very nice to it, she pulled at it, and when the house tried to interact with her, it went straight over her head. She didn't get any of the obvious signs. The house had liked Elrond, it had liked Elrond very much, but then Celebrían had come along, and Elrond started to ignore the house. But Celebrían gave the house the twins, but she also gave him Arwen. They both stole all of Elrond's attention, and that of his twins. Not very nice.

Yet that's when the house had started to misbehave, it felt unloved, people didn't pay attention to it any more, they took it for granted. It had all started in a sneaky way, imitating fruit. First Imladris had been an apple, that opened its eye and stared at Arwen, scaring her almost to death. Next, he had been a melon in the kitchen, terrifying the staff. Things had just generally progressed from there and when the house saw how much attention it received, there was no stopping it.

Now, it had its target set, Elrond was going to pay attention to him, or it would be the end of his sanity. The house would start rebelling. So that's how, when a strange human came to Imladris with a cart full of...pineapples, Elrond's sanity seemed to start to slip away.

*

The first person to notice something weird about the pineapples was Erestor; of course, he said one kept 'coming onto him.' (the house had, of course, progressed from eyes to mouths and hands inn certain cases.) Elrond was not having a good day, Arwen had been complaining about wanting to see Lórien, Celebrían had been agreeing with her, saying the children needed to travel more and these pesky humans had been trying to barter with him throughout it all. Glorfindel was now trying to give a report on Orc activity in the area, Erestor was complaining about the colour scheme of /Elrond's/ bedroom and hang on, he could have sworn that fruit just winked at him.

Elrond pinched himself on the arm, the fruit was just a normal 'pineapple' (however 'normal' you could call them), nothing to suggest it had just winked at him. 'Hm', thought Elrond, 'these so called 'pineapples' were quite interesting actually'.

Elrond turned to the man suggesting things he wished to barter for, "And what would you like for all of those 'pineapples'?"

The humans face lit up in delight, "Well..."

*

Glorfindel was not happy. Those were his swords, his pride and joy...oh very well, they were random training swords, but still, they had been in /his/ armoury. How dare Elrond just barter them away for some strange fruit that took his fancy. Hmpf. When Glorfindel wasn't happy, others were bound to suffer.

* Erestor was wandering the corridors of Imladris, you couldn't have a room full of green tapestries with red carpet and yellow drapes, it looked awful. Besides, the multiple amounts of furniture that Celebrían had gathered into the room made it particularly unsightly; they were all sky blue. Something had to be done about it, and fast! Lost in thought Erestor did not see Glorfindel walking down the corridor in a mood to take his frustration out on someone, anyone.

"There you are!" The shout disturbed Erestor from his thoughts. "It was you who suggested my swords, wasn't it! I saw you standing next to him, don't try to deny it!"

Erestor looked up and blinked. Why was Glorfindel walking around shouting with a pineapple on his shoulder?

"What? Glorfindel I have no idea what you are talking about!" Erestor said while he was watching the pineapple. It had a tongue! The tongue was..

Glorfindel shrieked and run as he felt something wet against his ear.

*

Elrond as sitting in his study, staring at the new fruit, this was the one that had blinked at him, he was sure. And this was one peculiar fruit, he had left the room a come back to find it had moved, not a tiny bit, or even a few inches, but across the whole room! To make things worse the fruit no had tiny legs and was dancing about from side to side. How interesting, thought Elrond, I must have finally lost it.

*

Celeborn, Lord of Lórien, was pleased with himself. Why you might ask, well, he had thought of the best plan in the world, what do you do when you miss your daughter and she won't come and visit? You visit her! Celeborn arrived at Imladris to find...everywhere deserted. Slowly he began to wander towards the main building nope no-one there. He continued deeper into the house, a woman ran out screaming, "the fruit! The fruit is after me! Help! Aiiiiiii!"

Celeborn blinked and wondered if he should continue walking or follow the woman. He decided it was probably safer to keep looking for Elrond, he would know what was going on, 'I do hope everything's ok,' he thought.

Celeborn rounded the corner and could not believe what he saw. The door to Elrond and Celebrían's quarters were open and Elrond was sitting there, talking to a dancing fruit.

"What do you want?"

"More attention," answered the fruit.

"But you get plenty of attention."

"No I don't, you ignore me constantly, it's all about Celebrían and that darling daughter."

Believe it or not, the pineapple was pouting. The temporary strangeness only stop Celeborn jumping in after Elron for a moment,

"Don't be like that, Celebrían's my wife, I /have/ to pay attention to her. It's not like I fin either of them that interesting."

And that's when Celeborn leaped. It would be a long evening.

*

And so that's how, hours later a bedraggled Elrond crawled into Glorfindel's quarters and muttered exasperatedly, "That fruit will be the death of me!"

a/n oh I'm not sure I like it, but I couldn't think it through clearly, but.look, http:// geocities.com /sas_bratprincess /pin4.gif I made a dancing pineapple to go with it! (p.s. remember to take out the spaces of the address as well) Hehe