A/N: 'nother chappy. Not the best. . .but here it is.
Chapter Five: Elf. Elf. Elf.
I may be dumb, but I'm not a dweeb,
I'm just a sucker with no self esteem.
-The Offspring, Self Esteem.
"Come now, what is so bad about being an elf?" said Gandalf in amusement.
"But I can't be an elf!" she said. "I'm not graceful, I'm ugly as sin, and plus, look at these!" she said in anger, tugging on her ears. "These ain't elf ears! They aren't all pointy- ish." She gestured to Legolas, who looked slightly thunderstruck, to prove her point.
Gandalf smiled. "You are not really an elf."
"Well, there then," she said, nodding.
"But you were born from elves. You, however are not of the elvish kind. You are not human, you are not dwarvish. You are not a hobbit. You just . . . are."
Melanie was completely confused. "What a mind fuck."
"And trust me, you aren't ugly as you think. Your appearance was changed slightly to protect you. You must admit, the people of Earth would think it strange for a child to have pointed ears. Now I change you back to how you should be." and he closed his eyes.
Melanie felt her body changing. But, it felt different from when she changed from horse to a human. It felt right. Her body really did not change, but her ears . . . well, lets just say they were now 'pointy- ish." Melanie touched her ears with trembling fingers. She jumped. This is weird. She thought. Every noise seemed 10 times louder than before and her vision increased greatly, (and that's saying something, since she had 20/20 vision). And, to her amazement, she felt her back healing, and all pain was gone from her body.
To the reader, I say this: having found out you're an actual elf: $100. Knowing it isn't all a dream: $500. Seeing the expressions on Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas's faces: Priceless. This was going through Melanie's mind and she laughed out loud.
"I'm an elf, I'm an elf, I'm an elf! I'm an elf elf elf!" she sang to the tune of "William Tell Overture." She skipped around the four of her companions, grinning from ear to pointed ear.
"Guess what Legolas?" asked Melanie.
"What?" said Legolas.
"I'm an elf just like you!" And with that Melanie burst into a fit of giggles.
Gandalf rolled his eyes. "You do not listen, do you?"
"Okay, okay so I am not really an elf. Do I get to be immortal?"
"I do not know. It is likely," said Gandalf, "But you may not get to see immortality. The other two, both served evil in the last wars. You have the ability to serve evil as well."
"But, but I won't right? I mean, I'm a good guy, right? Right?"
"I hope that is the case. You also have abilities to help the side of the righteous. Which do you choose?"
"How am I supposed to help? I can't do anything. I can't fight, I can't plan, I can't even cook."
"Are you blind?" asked Legolas. "I believe we may yet find a use for someone who can obviously change her physical form at will."
"Ohh... Yeah, I suppose."
Gandalf shook his head as he watched the two of them. Then he turned to Aragorn.
"Now I wish to hear of your tale," he said.
So Aragorn took up in the telling of everything that had happened to them since Gandalf's fall in Moria. At last he reached the death of Boromir and his last journey upon the Great River. The old man sighed, "You have not said all that you know or guess, Aragorn my friend," he said quietly. "Poor Boromir! I could not see what happened to him. It was a sore trial for such a man: a warrior, and a lord of men. Galadriel told me that he was in peril. But he escaped in the end. I am glad. It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir's sake. But that is not the only part they have to play. They were brought to Fangorn, and their coming was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains. Even as we talk here, I hear the first rumblings. Saruman had best not be caught away from home when the dam bursts!"
"In one thing you have not changed, dear friend," said Aragorn: "you still speak in riddles."
"What? In riddles?" said Gandalf. " No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habbit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying." He gave a half of glance to Melanie, and they both laughed. It was like sunshine upon the air, and Melanie didn't mind that she was laughing at herself.
However, Aragorn seemed to think that Gandalf was talking about him. "I am no longer young even in the reckoning of the Men of Ancient Houses," said Aragorn. "Will you not open your mind more clearly to me?"
"What then shall I say?" said Gandalf, and paused for a while in thought. "This in brief is how I see things at the moment, if you wish to have a piece of my mind as plain as possible. The Enemy, of course, has long known that the Ring is abroad, and that it is born by a hobbit. He knows now the number of our Company that set out from Rivendell, and the kind of each of us. But he does not yet perceive our purpose clearly. He supposes that we were all going to Minas Tirith; for that is what he would himself have done in our place. And according to his wisdom it would have been a heavy stroke against his power. Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream. In which no doubt you will see our good fortune and our hope. For imagining war he has let loose war, believing that he has no time to waste; for he that strikes the first blow, if he strikes it hard enough, may need to strike no more. So the forces that he has long been preparing he is now setting in motion, sooner than he intended. Wise fool. For if he had used all his power to guard Mordor, so that none could enter, and bent all his guile to the Ring, then indeed hope would have faded: neither Ring nor bearer could long have eluded him. But now his eye gazes abroad rather than near at home; and mostly he looks towards Minas Tirith. Very soon now his strength will fall upon it like a storm.
"For already he knows that the messengers that he sent to waylay the Company have failed again. They have not found the Ring. Neither have they brought away any hobbits as hostages. Had they done even so much as that, it would have been a heavy blow to us, and it might have been fatal. But let us not darken our hearts by imagining the trial of their gentle loyalty in the Dark Tower. For the Enemy has failed - so far. Thanks to Saruman.
Now, of coarse, when someone says to NOT think of something, that always makes you think of it. So it was with Melanie. She imagined Eilijah Wood and Sean Austin being torched. She shivered . Hopefully no one saw.
"Indeed yes," said Gandalf. "Doubly. And is not that strange? Nothing we have endured of late has seemed so grievous as the treason of Isengard. Even reckoned as a lord and captain Saruman has grown very strong. He threatens the Men of Rohan and draws off their help from Minas Tirith, even as the main blow is approaching from the East. Yet a treacherous weapon is ever a danger to the hand. Saruman also had a mind to capture the Ring, for himself, or at least to snare some hobbits for his evil purposes. So between them our enemies have contrived only to bring Merry and Pippin with marvellous speed, and in the nick of time, to Fangorn, where otherwise they would never have come at all!
"Also they have filled themselves with new doubts that disturb their plans. No tidings of the battle will come to Mordor, thanks to the horsemen of Rohan; but the Dark Lord knows that two hobbits were taken in the Emyn Muil and borne away towards Isengard against the will of his own servants. He now has Isengard to fear as well as Minas Tirith. If Minas Tirith falls, it will go to Saruman."
"It is a pity that our friends lie in between," said Gimli. "If no land divided Isengard and Mordor, then they could fight while we watched and waited.
"The victor would emerge stronger than either, and free from doubt," said Gandalf. "But Isengard cannot fight Mordor, unless Saruman first obtains the Ring. That he will never do now. He does not yet know his peril. There is much that he does not know. He was so eager to lay his hands on his prey that he could not wait at home, and he came forth to meet and to spy on his messengers. But he came too late, for once, and the battle was over and beyond his help before he reached these parts. He did not remain here long. I took into his mind and I see his doubt. He has no woodcraft. He believes that the horsemen slew and burned all upon the field of battle; but he does not know whether the Orcs were bringing any prisoners or not. And he does not know of the quarrel between his servants and the Orcs of Mordor; nor does he know of the Winged Messenger."
"The Winged Messenger!" cried Legolas. "I shot him with the bow of Galadriel above the Sarn Gebir, and I felled him from the sky. He filled us all with fear. What new terror is this?"
"One that you cannot slay with arrows," said Gandalf. "You only slew his steed. It was a good deed; but the Rider was soon horsed again. For he was a Nazgul, one of the Nine, who ride now upon winged steeds. Soon their terror will overshadow the last armies of our friends, cutting off the sun. But they have not yet been allowed to cross the River, and Saruman does not know of this new shape in which the Ringwraiths have been clad. His thought is ever on the Ring. Was it present in the battle? Was it found? What if Theoden, Lord of the Mark, should come by it and learn of its power? That is the danger that he sees, and he has fled back to Isengard to double and treble his assault on Rohan. And all the time there is another danger, close at hand, which he does not see, busy with his fiery thoughts. He has forgotten Treebeard."
"Now you speak to yourself again," said Aragorn with a smile. "Treebeard is not known to me. And I have guessed part of Saruman's double treachery; yet I do not see in what way the coming of two hobbits to Fangorn has served, save to give us a long and fruitless chase."
Melanie shook her head at this. Even though she could not remember the future of the movie, she could put together the pieces faster than Aragorn was. Men really were incredibly stupid. She really wanted to tell them. But there was a little voice at the back of her head that kept telling her, "no, no, no, no, NO!" She decided to listen to this little voice for the moment, but made a memo to herself to ask Gandalf for some weed, if this voice kept up she didn't know what she would do.
The others continued to talk and Melanie sort of zoned out on the conversation. She wondered what her father was doing now that he didn't have his favorite punching bag. Then, suddenly they all turned to Melanie. "What?" she asked.
"We have just decided to follow Mithrandir to Edoras," said Legolas, and as he said this, Melanie noticed his ears were quiet red.
"Okay," said Melanie, staring at Legolas's ears.
"And," he continued.
"And?" she said. Gandalf rolled his eyes. "I believe we need another horse."
Melanie fought back a laugh at this. She failed, and she let out a snort of laughter.
"Well yipee ti yo ti ya!" she said, "I just turned into an elf, now I gotta turn back into a horse! Wow, that's a big transformation! Is this my part in this war, to be a flippin' beast of burden?" When no one answered, she sighed. "If I have to, then I will. Who'll ride me?" she said, and then she realized what she said.
"Oh God!" She said, and started laughing. "I am such a bozo!"
"Legolas," said Aragorn.
This shut Melanie up. If you haven't noticed, she had a tiny bit of a crush on this elf. (Yeah. Right, tiny, sure.) "Oh," was all she said. Then Gimli started laughing.
"What?" she said, rounding on him.
"Y-your ears!" he said, pointing at them.
"What about them?" she said.
Aragorn and Gandalf caught on at this, and they started laughing, too.
"They're just like Legolas's!" said Gimli.
"Where have you been?" she asked him. "I'm an elf too, remember?"
"Yes lass, but they are tomato red."
At this she clapped her hands to her ears. "Oh shut up!" Then a whole bunch of bad thoughts ran through her head.
"Bad brain, bad brain, bad brain, ohh . . ." she thought, and then she realized she said that out loud.
"You don't want to know," she said, her eyes scrunched tight against the nasty little ideas.
"How do I change into a horse?" she asked Gandalf, now that her visions had subsided.
"I am not sure," he said thoughtfully, "I don't know how to activate any of you powers, it is you who must find a way."
"Oh gee thanks," said Melanie, "you're a real help."
Melanie tried scrunching up her eyes tightly and concentrating very hard. No good. Then she tried to remember how it was being a horse. Hmm... she was fast, and big... And then she morphed into the horse. She let out a neigh and looked at Gandalf as though she was saying, "I did it. No thanks to you."
A/N: Thank you so much for all the reviews! I hope you guys keep it up, I'm hungry and need ego-food.
Chapter Five: Elf. Elf. Elf.
I may be dumb, but I'm not a dweeb,
I'm just a sucker with no self esteem.
-The Offspring, Self Esteem.
"Come now, what is so bad about being an elf?" said Gandalf in amusement.
"But I can't be an elf!" she said. "I'm not graceful, I'm ugly as sin, and plus, look at these!" she said in anger, tugging on her ears. "These ain't elf ears! They aren't all pointy- ish." She gestured to Legolas, who looked slightly thunderstruck, to prove her point.
Gandalf smiled. "You are not really an elf."
"Well, there then," she said, nodding.
"But you were born from elves. You, however are not of the elvish kind. You are not human, you are not dwarvish. You are not a hobbit. You just . . . are."
Melanie was completely confused. "What a mind fuck."
"And trust me, you aren't ugly as you think. Your appearance was changed slightly to protect you. You must admit, the people of Earth would think it strange for a child to have pointed ears. Now I change you back to how you should be." and he closed his eyes.
Melanie felt her body changing. But, it felt different from when she changed from horse to a human. It felt right. Her body really did not change, but her ears . . . well, lets just say they were now 'pointy- ish." Melanie touched her ears with trembling fingers. She jumped. This is weird. She thought. Every noise seemed 10 times louder than before and her vision increased greatly, (and that's saying something, since she had 20/20 vision). And, to her amazement, she felt her back healing, and all pain was gone from her body.
To the reader, I say this: having found out you're an actual elf: $100. Knowing it isn't all a dream: $500. Seeing the expressions on Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas's faces: Priceless. This was going through Melanie's mind and she laughed out loud.
"I'm an elf, I'm an elf, I'm an elf! I'm an elf elf elf!" she sang to the tune of "William Tell Overture." She skipped around the four of her companions, grinning from ear to pointed ear.
"Guess what Legolas?" asked Melanie.
"What?" said Legolas.
"I'm an elf just like you!" And with that Melanie burst into a fit of giggles.
Gandalf rolled his eyes. "You do not listen, do you?"
"Okay, okay so I am not really an elf. Do I get to be immortal?"
"I do not know. It is likely," said Gandalf, "But you may not get to see immortality. The other two, both served evil in the last wars. You have the ability to serve evil as well."
"But, but I won't right? I mean, I'm a good guy, right? Right?"
"I hope that is the case. You also have abilities to help the side of the righteous. Which do you choose?"
"How am I supposed to help? I can't do anything. I can't fight, I can't plan, I can't even cook."
"Are you blind?" asked Legolas. "I believe we may yet find a use for someone who can obviously change her physical form at will."
"Ohh... Yeah, I suppose."
Gandalf shook his head as he watched the two of them. Then he turned to Aragorn.
"Now I wish to hear of your tale," he said.
So Aragorn took up in the telling of everything that had happened to them since Gandalf's fall in Moria. At last he reached the death of Boromir and his last journey upon the Great River. The old man sighed, "You have not said all that you know or guess, Aragorn my friend," he said quietly. "Poor Boromir! I could not see what happened to him. It was a sore trial for such a man: a warrior, and a lord of men. Galadriel told me that he was in peril. But he escaped in the end. I am glad. It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir's sake. But that is not the only part they have to play. They were brought to Fangorn, and their coming was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains. Even as we talk here, I hear the first rumblings. Saruman had best not be caught away from home when the dam bursts!"
"In one thing you have not changed, dear friend," said Aragorn: "you still speak in riddles."
"What? In riddles?" said Gandalf. " No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habbit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying." He gave a half of glance to Melanie, and they both laughed. It was like sunshine upon the air, and Melanie didn't mind that she was laughing at herself.
However, Aragorn seemed to think that Gandalf was talking about him. "I am no longer young even in the reckoning of the Men of Ancient Houses," said Aragorn. "Will you not open your mind more clearly to me?"
"What then shall I say?" said Gandalf, and paused for a while in thought. "This in brief is how I see things at the moment, if you wish to have a piece of my mind as plain as possible. The Enemy, of course, has long known that the Ring is abroad, and that it is born by a hobbit. He knows now the number of our Company that set out from Rivendell, and the kind of each of us. But he does not yet perceive our purpose clearly. He supposes that we were all going to Minas Tirith; for that is what he would himself have done in our place. And according to his wisdom it would have been a heavy stroke against his power. Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream. In which no doubt you will see our good fortune and our hope. For imagining war he has let loose war, believing that he has no time to waste; for he that strikes the first blow, if he strikes it hard enough, may need to strike no more. So the forces that he has long been preparing he is now setting in motion, sooner than he intended. Wise fool. For if he had used all his power to guard Mordor, so that none could enter, and bent all his guile to the Ring, then indeed hope would have faded: neither Ring nor bearer could long have eluded him. But now his eye gazes abroad rather than near at home; and mostly he looks towards Minas Tirith. Very soon now his strength will fall upon it like a storm.
"For already he knows that the messengers that he sent to waylay the Company have failed again. They have not found the Ring. Neither have they brought away any hobbits as hostages. Had they done even so much as that, it would have been a heavy blow to us, and it might have been fatal. But let us not darken our hearts by imagining the trial of their gentle loyalty in the Dark Tower. For the Enemy has failed - so far. Thanks to Saruman.
Now, of coarse, when someone says to NOT think of something, that always makes you think of it. So it was with Melanie. She imagined Eilijah Wood and Sean Austin being torched. She shivered . Hopefully no one saw.
"Indeed yes," said Gandalf. "Doubly. And is not that strange? Nothing we have endured of late has seemed so grievous as the treason of Isengard. Even reckoned as a lord and captain Saruman has grown very strong. He threatens the Men of Rohan and draws off their help from Minas Tirith, even as the main blow is approaching from the East. Yet a treacherous weapon is ever a danger to the hand. Saruman also had a mind to capture the Ring, for himself, or at least to snare some hobbits for his evil purposes. So between them our enemies have contrived only to bring Merry and Pippin with marvellous speed, and in the nick of time, to Fangorn, where otherwise they would never have come at all!
"Also they have filled themselves with new doubts that disturb their plans. No tidings of the battle will come to Mordor, thanks to the horsemen of Rohan; but the Dark Lord knows that two hobbits were taken in the Emyn Muil and borne away towards Isengard against the will of his own servants. He now has Isengard to fear as well as Minas Tirith. If Minas Tirith falls, it will go to Saruman."
"It is a pity that our friends lie in between," said Gimli. "If no land divided Isengard and Mordor, then they could fight while we watched and waited.
"The victor would emerge stronger than either, and free from doubt," said Gandalf. "But Isengard cannot fight Mordor, unless Saruman first obtains the Ring. That he will never do now. He does not yet know his peril. There is much that he does not know. He was so eager to lay his hands on his prey that he could not wait at home, and he came forth to meet and to spy on his messengers. But he came too late, for once, and the battle was over and beyond his help before he reached these parts. He did not remain here long. I took into his mind and I see his doubt. He has no woodcraft. He believes that the horsemen slew and burned all upon the field of battle; but he does not know whether the Orcs were bringing any prisoners or not. And he does not know of the quarrel between his servants and the Orcs of Mordor; nor does he know of the Winged Messenger."
"The Winged Messenger!" cried Legolas. "I shot him with the bow of Galadriel above the Sarn Gebir, and I felled him from the sky. He filled us all with fear. What new terror is this?"
"One that you cannot slay with arrows," said Gandalf. "You only slew his steed. It was a good deed; but the Rider was soon horsed again. For he was a Nazgul, one of the Nine, who ride now upon winged steeds. Soon their terror will overshadow the last armies of our friends, cutting off the sun. But they have not yet been allowed to cross the River, and Saruman does not know of this new shape in which the Ringwraiths have been clad. His thought is ever on the Ring. Was it present in the battle? Was it found? What if Theoden, Lord of the Mark, should come by it and learn of its power? That is the danger that he sees, and he has fled back to Isengard to double and treble his assault on Rohan. And all the time there is another danger, close at hand, which he does not see, busy with his fiery thoughts. He has forgotten Treebeard."
"Now you speak to yourself again," said Aragorn with a smile. "Treebeard is not known to me. And I have guessed part of Saruman's double treachery; yet I do not see in what way the coming of two hobbits to Fangorn has served, save to give us a long and fruitless chase."
Melanie shook her head at this. Even though she could not remember the future of the movie, she could put together the pieces faster than Aragorn was. Men really were incredibly stupid. She really wanted to tell them. But there was a little voice at the back of her head that kept telling her, "no, no, no, no, NO!" She decided to listen to this little voice for the moment, but made a memo to herself to ask Gandalf for some weed, if this voice kept up she didn't know what she would do.
The others continued to talk and Melanie sort of zoned out on the conversation. She wondered what her father was doing now that he didn't have his favorite punching bag. Then, suddenly they all turned to Melanie. "What?" she asked.
"We have just decided to follow Mithrandir to Edoras," said Legolas, and as he said this, Melanie noticed his ears were quiet red.
"Okay," said Melanie, staring at Legolas's ears.
"And," he continued.
"And?" she said. Gandalf rolled his eyes. "I believe we need another horse."
Melanie fought back a laugh at this. She failed, and she let out a snort of laughter.
"Well yipee ti yo ti ya!" she said, "I just turned into an elf, now I gotta turn back into a horse! Wow, that's a big transformation! Is this my part in this war, to be a flippin' beast of burden?" When no one answered, she sighed. "If I have to, then I will. Who'll ride me?" she said, and then she realized what she said.
"Oh God!" She said, and started laughing. "I am such a bozo!"
"Legolas," said Aragorn.
This shut Melanie up. If you haven't noticed, she had a tiny bit of a crush on this elf. (Yeah. Right, tiny, sure.) "Oh," was all she said. Then Gimli started laughing.
"What?" she said, rounding on him.
"Y-your ears!" he said, pointing at them.
"What about them?" she said.
Aragorn and Gandalf caught on at this, and they started laughing, too.
"They're just like Legolas's!" said Gimli.
"Where have you been?" she asked him. "I'm an elf too, remember?"
"Yes lass, but they are tomato red."
At this she clapped her hands to her ears. "Oh shut up!" Then a whole bunch of bad thoughts ran through her head.
"Bad brain, bad brain, bad brain, ohh . . ." she thought, and then she realized she said that out loud.
"You don't want to know," she said, her eyes scrunched tight against the nasty little ideas.
"How do I change into a horse?" she asked Gandalf, now that her visions had subsided.
"I am not sure," he said thoughtfully, "I don't know how to activate any of you powers, it is you who must find a way."
"Oh gee thanks," said Melanie, "you're a real help."
Melanie tried scrunching up her eyes tightly and concentrating very hard. No good. Then she tried to remember how it was being a horse. Hmm... she was fast, and big... And then she morphed into the horse. She let out a neigh and looked at Gandalf as though she was saying, "I did it. No thanks to you."
A/N: Thank you so much for all the reviews! I hope you guys keep it up, I'm hungry and need ego-food.