Title: This Is All Your Fault 2/2

Chapter Two: Of Oliphaunts, White Whales, and Overweight Wargs

"I don't think I can survive this Gimli!" Legolas moaned before taking a sip of his ale. "I can handle her for now, but what is going to happen when she outweighs me by a gazillion pounds?"

Gimli shrugged. "On the bright side, at least you should be able to out run her. I warned you. Don't marry her, I said, but did you listen? No! Now you have to deal with her. You should have just shagged her and then dumped her. You wouldn't be in this mess now, if you had just listened to me."

"Bah! Don't you pay any attention to my boy," Glóin interrupted his son. "He's got enough bastards spread between here and the Lonely Mountain to repopulate Moria. You did the right thing by marrying the lass and settling down with her."

Legolas nodded, somewhat relieved that he had made the correct decision by joining with Vordolwen. Maybe Glóin would give him a ray of hope to cling to during the dark hours of the third trimester.

Glóin's eyes glazed over as his thoughts drifted back to when his own wife had been expecting Gimli. "Seems like yesterday that I got the news ..."

It was going to be worse than he had first imagined. Legolas had finally begged Glóin to stop before he dropped dead from a heart attack.

The extra weight he was prepared for, but the rapid hair growth was something else all together. Glóin had made his wife braid her leg hair so the servants would quit tripping over it. Legolas found it hard to imagine Vordolwen looking like a wooly Oliphaunt. Her Half-elven blood already made her hairier then he liked, but he had gotten used to stubble on her legs. He resolved to hire a servant to see that she was adequately shorn on a regular basis. He just hoped she didn't bitch too much about the razor burn.

He secretly hoped that she didn't develop any strange cravings. According to Glóin, he had to hire extra miners to keep up with her demand for chalk. Then she started craving dirt. Good thing the Dwarves lived underground.

The rather blunt description of the actual birth had left him shuddering. He was still trying to imagine his newborn child being expelled out of his personal playground looking like an overweight Warg being forced through a rabbit hole.

There was nothing for it. He had to return home. He had been gone for six months and he was tired of being a coward. He was a Hero of the Ring War, Veteran of the Battles at Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields, and an Elf-lord to boot. Surely he could handle one tiny Elf maid.

Legolas stared at the closed bathroom door. She had installed a heavy-duty lock while he was gone.

"But I'm fat!" came the muffled wail. "You won't love me anymore."

Legolas rolled his eyes. "I would never stop loving you, Pookie. You are the mother of my child and the keeper of my heart. Besides, you're not fat, you're pregnant, there is a difference."

"Ok" came the sniffing response.

Vordolwen opened the door and waddled through it.

"Sauron's Balls! You look like that white whale Círden spotted off the coast last year."

It had come down to the last stretch. He had recovered nicely from the severe beating Vordolwen had given him after the whale comment. The healers assured him that eventually even the limp would correct itself.

The last three months of hell had led up to this moment. The endless hours scouring the forest for mushrooms, thank the Valar that Merry and Pippin hadn't decided to visit. He was thankful that he would no longer be subjected to hours of complaints about hemorrhoids, varicose veins, and leaking breasts.

He held her hand as the labor began, prepared to comfort his wife as she delivered their child.

She broke his hand. Then she started screaming and yelling that this was all his fault. She was never going to share a bed with him again. Legolas had finally work his hand free from her iron grip when she had reached over and grabbed him by the balls. Thankfully, unconsciousness had quickly claimed him.

Legolas was currently sitting on a chair next to bed with an icepack on his throbbing groin and a makeshift bandage on his hand. The midwife had awakened him after the birth was finished. She announced that he had a son but refused to tell him who he resembled more – him or Vordolwen.

She brought a rather large, squirming bundle to him and placed his son gingerly in his arms. Legolas looked down with adoration at his new son. Something was terribly wrong. His son had red hair. Who did he get red hair from? And he didn't look like him or Vordolwen. Then it dawned on Legolas.

"He looks like Gimli!"

The End