At last, the walls of Moria came up into view. Gimli was babbling about how Dwarf doors were invisible, and Sam was looking at him with a confused look on his face. 'No they're not. I've read everything that's ever been written about dwarfs, and I didn't see one thing that said that! I did read, however, that if the location of the door is forgotten, the creator would have to ask somebody else where it is.' The hobbit said pompously.
Nobody heard the horse Gimli was leading mutter the words 'Why doesn't that surprise me.'
'What are you? Obsessed with my people?' Gimli demanded, ignoring Bill.
'Yes.' Sam replied.
The dwarf suddenly looked rather frightened, and the subject was dropped.
Before long, a large stone door came into view. A torch was burning on the other side, sending an orange light through the holes that had been carved into it, lighting up the letters.
'What does it say?' Gimli asked.
Sam rolled his eyes. 'Don't you know your own language? Really! It says: The doors of Dudley the Dragon, say the magic word and I'll open the doors for you!'
'What does that mean?' Pippin asked, breaking away from his conversation with Merry.
'Like you care.' Merry replied.
Pippin shrugged, 'Good point.' and they returned to plotting against Sam! No, not Frodo. Sam had started to scare them so they decided they needed to get rid of him first.
'Hey, look Pip!' Sam had wandered dangerously close to a small lake that had formed around the door. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'
Pippin nodded and the two crept up behind Sam and pushed him into the water.
Spluttering, the Hobbit dragged himself to the surface. Aragorn was looking at the sopping wet figure in horror. The others guessed that the sight reminded him of his bath.
Gandalf had suddenly begun to freak out. 'You disturbed the water! You fools! What have you done?!?!?!?'
'Er' Merry and Pippin said in unison.
'That's what I thought!' Gandalf didn't say this aloud, but he'd also once had a pet fish
'Now, back to finding this password'
'What password?' Pippin asked.
'Like you care.' Merry muttered.
'Good point.'
And so, for the next few hours, they just sat there. Sam went to say goodbye to Bill, who it seemed he didn't want to take into the mines. Everybody was staring at him, shocked that he would let something that belonged to HIM go.
Before he left, Bill surprised everybody by suddenly yelling out the word 'Melon', much to Gimli's satisfaction.
'HA! I told you he could talk!'
'What do you mean?' Frodo asked, befuddled. 'I didn't hear anything!'
'That's because you were sleeping.' Merry informed him.
In a sudden, uncharacteristic stoke of thought, STRIDER glanced towards Legolas. Hadn't he heard somewhere that the elf was some sort of ventriloquist? He then went back to his normal self and not another thought crossed his mind until they reached Lothlorien.
Even more surprising was that the doors had opened. Proud of himself, Gandalf grinned and ushered everybody inside. Glancing back, the fellowship caught sight of a single gold fish playing about on the surface of the lake. The wizard freaked out and started waving his staff around madly, yelling insanely. The shear noise caused a cave in and blocked the passage out.
Once inside, it was Frodo's turn to start freaking out. The place had obviously been abandoned for many years, but worse yet was that the inhabitants had left at that time of year. Wilting holy and a very, very dead, decorated tree filled the room.
Legolas knelt before the tree and seemed to be saying a silent prayer for it before they could move on. Even Boromir had a moment of silence for the loss of the plant.
They started forward once more.
'The wealth of Moria is not in gold or precious gems,' Gandalf began, recovered from his encounter with the fish. (Frodo's ears pricked up at the term 'precious') 'But in Jello.'
'Jello?' Merry asked, confused.
'Yes. Bilbo used to have a shirt made out of it, and I never told him that it was worth twice as much as his tea, but I should have because he ate it.'
Pippin paled and muttered in Merry's ear; 'No he didn't.' Both hobbits snickered.
'Hold on, I have to look at the map.' Gandalf said after a time, and he pulled a moth-eaten paper from his robes and set about trying to figure out which way you were supposed to read it.
'Hello Gimli.' Said a small rock by the dwarf's hand. 'Will you be my friend?'
Legolas chuckled as the man picked up the tiny stone and held it up on his palm, seeming to address what he apparently thought was its 'face'. 'Why, of course I will. I love rocks.' He (very wisely) didn't tell the rest of the fellowship that the stone had started talking. If they didn't believe Bill had done it
'Yay! I love big ugly guys, too, so we should make a great team!'
Frodo, in the meantime, went tentatively over to Gandalf. 'There's something down there.' He said. His voice was still a little shaky form the sight of the Christmas tree, but he was otherwise fine.
'Yes, that would be Gollum and his new best friend.' The wizard replied half-heartedly.
'Oh, who's his new best friend?'
Before Gandalf could respond, Merry and Pippin decided to take up a song. 'Frrrrosssty the snowmaaan was a jolly, happy soul! With his corn-'
'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!' Frodo shrieked.
Before anything could happen, Sam pushed both the singers down one of the passageways. It turned out to be severely slopped and the two hobbits went sliding down the tunnel.
'Darnit!' Gandalf suddenly exclaimed. 'And that's the path we have to take, too!'
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
It wasn't long before they caught up to the carolers, but neither thought it was a good idea to sing anymore.
The next stop was some tome Sam felt the need to visit. He freaked out on Gimli when the dwarf spit on the coffin. Apparently, Balin had not been high on Gimli's list of friends.
'He stole my conditioner- TWICE!' the dwarf explained once Sam had left him alone.
Suddenly, a monotonous hum was heard from the depths below. Legolas' eyes grew very, very big and he backed up as far as he could. His ears would not be able to take the torture that was to come.
She was coming.
Gimli, instinctively knowing that something was approaching, pulled out the shattered remains of his axe-handle. His father had forbidden him to get himself another until he had learned the consequences of using conditioner. STRIDER pulled out his plastic cocktail sword, Boromir his butter knife, Merry and Pippin their fake Harry Potter wands, Sam his fisherpriceâ„¢ frying pan, Legolas his sling-shot. Frodo didn't have a weapon because he needed his hands free to run. Gandalf had his baton, which he'd stolen from some marching-band conductor.
All in all, it was a pretty frightening group, which is why when the squirrels showed up, they charged right at them.
It is a little known fact that squirrels are all ruled by one being, the piccolo-playing-demon-from-hell (ppdfh). If any of you have ever heard the full range of the piccolo, you'd know why Legolas, with his sensitive elf ears was afraid.
Soon enough, ppdfh stepped boldly into the room, instrument held to her lips as she began to play. Driven mad by the sound, the squirrels attacked. Legolas was petrified with pain, Boromir distracted by the interesting material his commentary was now provided with. STRIDER found that, not being a dirty as he was, he actually had to fight. Needless to say, he didn't know how. Gandalf had gone insane at the sight of the little furry animals that reminded him so much of cats (yes, he used to have one of them, too) and Gimli was so busy trying to protect his rock that things weren't going so well for him, either. Merry and Pippin were the only ones with any sense. They'd grown up listening to this sort of music; they started to sing a merry jig that went quite well with the piccolo.
Legolas covered his ears and screamed in horror. Everything suddenly stopped. 'Hold on, you're not a mute?' Merry asked, his song interrupted.
The elf paid no attention and continued to sheik. ppdfh glared at him for out-shooting her instrument's pitch, then proceeded to attempt to drown him out.
Everyone was quite deaf by the time they managed to sneak by. Legolas' screams still reverberated through the tunnels. Had Merry and Pippin not had the sense to knock ppdfh unconscious, there would have been no hope for them.
Just as they reached the bridge of Kaza-dum, an odd orange light caught their eyes. Gandalf looked frantically at those within the fellowship, and slowly turned to Merry. 'If I give you leadership, will you promise not to kill Frodo?'
The hobbit nodded happily, though it was unlikely he really understood, as his ears were still ringing from the combined power of Legolas' screams and the piccolo.
'Good, now go.' He raised his voice. 'This enemy is beyond any of you! RUN!!!' Nobody moved, they were all trying to figure out if Gandalf had actually said something. Slowly, their minds turned to what it was he'd actually said.
Finally, they understood and set off at a quick jog towards the opening.
Halfway over the bridge, Gandalf turned and watched in horror as a lit match suddenly launched itself onto the path. It was massive, a whole centimeter longer than Gandalf's nose.
Nobody waited to see how things turned out; how could the wizard survive an attack from such a terrible foe?! They did catch a glimpse of him tripping over the matchstick and falling into the endless chasm beyond, the fire of the match following closely.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Well, this turned out to be a rather long chapter, but I hope you enjoyed it, Bookworm2000. I'm glad you're enjoying this, though I think I've now gone overboard with Gandalf's phobias And yes, Gimli is quite deluded by now, he's quite attached to that rock, *g*.
Also, I'd like to welcome you, Espionage, to my world. Please don't let me drive you too insane. Here, I've decided to start handing out Gummie Bears to my reviewers, so do help yourself!
