Frodo recovered quickly from his ordeal, though now, every time he heard the word 'Christmas' he dropped to the floor and curled up in a ball, hands over his head, muttering incomprehensible words. Merry and Pippin both found this rather amusing, and liked to see how many times they could get away with it before Sam started yelling at them.

In the meantime, Gandalf was having an ongoing argument with Elrond; the wizard wanted to have Frodo take the ring to Mt. Doom, the elf wanted to do it himself and claim all the glory he so justly deserves.

'Oh, come on Gandalf, hardly anybody even knows I fought in the last alliance! I will die and nobody will remember my name!'

'Don't be foolish Elrond, you're an elf; you can't die.'

'But… fine then. I will 'fade' and nobody will even notice I'm gone! Nobody but that dratted daughter of mine and that senile bastard, Bilbo.'

'You cannot take the ring! You must stay here and guard your home!'

'I don't want to! The last time I did that, my wife ended up leaving me! I refuse to give people the chance to call me a lazy coward again! Damn that Sauron, what does he have to offer that I don't?'

'He used to be a man.' Gandalf said simply.

'Man? There is no strength left in the world of men.' Elrond snapped back, his voice full of bitterness.

'That's not what you said the last time you saw Eowyn…'

'Shut up! I was there, Gandalf, I was there the day the strength of men died…'

Isiladur is standing over the fires of Mt. Doom, the ring in his hand. Elrond is not far behind him, yelling for the man to toss the gold into the fire. 'No.' Isiladur replies after a few moments of examining it. 'This thing is pure gold, I'm going to pawn it, see how much someone will pay for the ring that almost destroyed the world! Mwahahaha!'

'The rest, of course, is history.' Elrond muttered. 'After he sold the One Ring for a measly three strips of gold-pressed-latinum to that hobbit-like creature Deagol, who was later murdered by his cousin because he decided he would give the guy a blade of grass for his birthday instead, he died of obsession-induced cancer.'

'What does that have to do with anything?' Gandalf demanded.

'I don't know, it was just an interesting story. Now, I suppose we had best have a council so people can tell you that I should be the one to take the ring, hey? We'll call it: The Council in Which We Select Elrond to Take the Ring to Mordor.'

'How about just: The Council of Elrond?' Gandalf suggested. Reluctantly, the elf agreed.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Gathered in the middle of the main garden, the 'secret' council of Elrond slowly gathered. Of all the attendees, the Dwarfs seemed to be the most out of place. One of them was especially upset. Of course, little of this is noticed because there is also another attendee, who has the effect of attracting all the attention to him. Not that he does this on purpose, but he does do it, because of this, very few heard Elrond's introduction. The only thing that managed to pull people's minds back to the council was when Frodo reluctantly placed a shiny gold ring onto a pedestal.

For dramatic effect, Legolas threw his voice and whispered 'The doom of man.' into the air. To anybody who heard, it sounded as though the ring had spoken. The Prince of Mirkwood smiled at the mystified and frightened reactions.

Boromir, upset that the ring was out-staging him, muttered 'So 'tis true!' He then proceeded to provide a quiet commentary. 'The council is aghast, who will take this ring? What shall be done with it? The questions may never be answered…' He briefly thought of telling the council of the dream he'd had every night since passing through Rohan, but somehow he didn't think that having a Shield-Maiden come to see him in the middle of the night was all that important. Even if she was the King's niece.

'It cannot be wielded.' Estel said suddenly, interrupting the rather annoying commentary Boromir had been providing.

Legolas had been looking bemusedly at the dwarfs' hair. The youngest of them suddenly lost it. 'WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT? IT'S NOT MY FAULT I HAVE FRIZZY HAIR, SOMEBODY-' He sent an angry look to where Elrohir and Eladan were sitting, trying to look innocent '-USED THE LAST OF-' His father cut him off, smacking him angrily on the head.

'Pay no attention to Gimli, he had a nasty scare on our way in and has yet to fully recover himself.' It was a little embarrassing saying that his son had been frightened, but it was far more so to mention that he used conditioner.

Legolas sat back, looking quite pleased with himself. Boromir had not yet stopped in his over-dramatic comments. '…a potentially nasty fight, stopped just in the nick of time…'

'The ring must be destroyed.' Elrond said, and it was suddenly obvious that he'd just finished yet another overly-long speech that nobody had paid any attention to.

'Ahh!' Boromir suddenly interrupted himself. 'No! We should send it to Gondor!'

'What good will that do?' Estel demanded, still cranky from his recent ordeal. Who would have guessed that soap would make him smell so… clean? He shuddered at the memory.

'No no nonononononono! I am going to take it to Mordor for you all!' Elrond said, but his words were drowned out as Gimli decided to make up for his earlier blunder by attempting to chop the ring in two, which only resulted in the smashing of his axe and the shattering of the stone pedestal on which the jewelry sat. Rock flew up in the air, covering everyone with stone-dust; except for the Prince of Mirkwood, who sat calmly in his seat, untouched by even the smallest of stones.

The elves who had been hit all stood up in anger. Legolas calmly stood as well and, wordlessly, held his comrades back in case they got it in their minds to attack the dwarfs, who were all yelling angrily back at the elves, saying it was in no way Gimli's fault.

'Oh, a nasty jab at the conditioner-using dwarf! Who, I wonder, will throw the first punch?' Boromir muttered.

Frodo chose this moment to wake up from his nap, and immediately misinterpreted the reason for the argument. Without hesitating, he stood. 'I will take it!' He yelled, but the only person to hear was the captain of Gondor, who tirelessly incorporated it into his on-going account.

'I will take it!!!!!' He said louder. Gandalf sighed and turned to face the hobbit.

'Well, it's about time! Here I was thinking we were going to have to pry the elves and dwarfs off of one another, really you need to get a better sence of timing.'

Elrond was now jumping up and down on his chair, shouting about how he was supposed to take it, but nobody noticed. Slowly, he stopped. There might be a way he could turn this to his advantage…

'Does that mean you're coming too? You better be, after you put me through that horrible Chris…' he shuddered and looked at Gandalf pointedly, hoping to get the word across without actually saying it. 'Experience.'

'Why must he always guilt me into doing these things?' Gandalf muttered to himself before nodding slowly, reluctantly.

'I wanna go too! I need to get dirty again!' Strider announced.

Legolas stepped forward as well and silently let them know he would come too. By now, everybody was quite certain he was a mute; that was just the way he liked things to be.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

I quite enjoyed writing this chapter, we've finally reached the best half of the movie! I just hope it made a half-decent read. Oh, and as a promise to a friend, I am henceforth going to be handing out Gummie Bears to my reviewers, so do help yourself!

Bookworm ~ I think Sam might be easing off a bit on the obsession as Merry and Pippin are about to embark on a bit of a 'Let's try to kill Sam' spree. He'll be a little busy, does that make you feel any better? Glad you liked the Glorfy/Arwen thing, I just needed to have Glorifindal save the day, since he was so rudely cut out of the movie like that.