Aragorn gasped when he suddenly submerged into ice cold water. Choking on the sudden mouth-full of water, he kicked powerfully towards the surface or at least in the direction that he hoped the surface was in. His head broke the surface but only succeeded in slamming into stone. The stars danced in his vision for a few moments as he struggled to keep his head above the water line. The underground river took up most of the space and only left a little bit for him to breath. His hand tightened on the bundle in his hands as the current pulled him along at an amazing pace. He thought that he could hear Sauros somewhere ahead of him but the sound of rushing water bouncing off the close walls was creating a cacophony of sound. No, wait; that was Sauros that he was hearing ahead of him in the river. The water couldn't scream curses at him and damn all the Valar upon him and his forefathers and descendants. Sauros probably had the ability to do so but Aragorn wasn't going to check. It wasn't like he actually tried to bring these kinds of things upon his friends and him. Well, okay, maybe he did this time when he touched that square thing on the table. He couldn't help it if he touched things, he was a human and it was natural. You tell a child to not touch something hot because it will burn the child, and what does the child do? Touch whatever it was that they were told not to touch. Like someone would lie to a child just to get them to touch it? Why can't he touch something and it actually create something good to happen? Mayhap Gandalf could help with that. He would have to check next time he meets up with the wizard. Or maybe Galadriel could do something about it. This was something he definitely wanted to look into some time later when he wasn't fighting for his life. Now back to his current predicament.

            The current was slamming him into the stone walls and into whatever it was that was blocking the river's path. It felt like boulders and a few times it became a wall when the river rushed around a bend. He already felt several bruises blossoming on his body as he rode the river down the dark tunnel. He suddenly heard Sauros yelp in pain which seemed closer that his earlier curses. The river swept around several turns and succeeded in slamming him into the wall every time. A moment later and a few more bruises later, Aragorn slammed into something hard and soft at the same time. His free hand automatically found a hand-hold and gripped it tightly as he turned to try and see what he hit.

            "You really did not have to run into me," Sauros growled, surprising Aragorn.

            The river apparently went around a sharp bend and Sauros had unfortunately missed the bend and had been slammed into the stone wall where a small depression was. The constant rush of water had worn an indentation into the wall and the pressure of the flowing water kept him trapped against the wall.  A moment later, Aragorn had slammed into him and now Sauros felt the wall start to fracture from the combined weight of the two men and the river.

            "Where are we?" Aragorn asked hoarsely from the water he had inadvertently swallowed.

            "About to go on another ride," Sauros said grimly as he felt the wall start to give and water press harder.

            "What?"

            The rest of Aragorn's question was replaced by a yell as the wall gave and both were washed away by the raging river.

            "Where are we going now?" he yelled forwards to Sauros as the dragon looked back at him.

            "Do you really think that I know the answer to that? You are the one that got us in this predicament in the first place," Sauros bellowed and held his bundle of books to his chest.

            "I did not do a thing!"

            "You touched something! That is all you had to do! Specifically after I told you not to!"

            The bickering continued between the dragon and human.

~~~~~~~~~~~

            "Where do you think they are?" Legolas asked Elladan as they sat by the campfire.

            "Not where. What do you think they are getting themselves into?" Elladan joked and cast a look over at his friend.

            "Good point. This is Aragorn we are talking about after all. I wonder who has killed who first?" Elrohir joked as Lina rolled her eyes.

            "What is that?" Glorfindel asked suddenly and pointed out towards the lake.

            Everyone turned to look as the sudden disruption of the lake. Towards the center of the lake the water was churning and bubbling up from something under the surface. Walking towards the edge of the lake, all of them waited for something else to happen. What happened was something none of them expected in the least. A geyser of water suddenly erupted from the lake and spewed water into the air along with two solid forms. Yelling voices could be heard from the geyser as the two forms flew into the air and hung there for a moment in suspension before falling down towards the water. The two forms hit the water hard as the geyser stopped spewing and everything was silent.

            "Do you really think-" Elrohir asked softly and looked over at everyone.

            "That is Aragorn and Sauros? I would bet my favorite bow on it," Elladan muttered and waited for any sign of the two to surface from the water.

            "It can not be. They could not possibly get into that much trouble," Lina said shocked as the two mystery figures broke the surface again and gasped for air.

            "It is them," Glorfindel muttered and rubbed his forehead.

            Elladan and Elrohir waded out to help the two as they neared the shore by slowly swimming. Aragorn was still coughing up water as he handed the bundle of books to Elladan and waded up to shore. Flicking his wet hair out of his face, he glared at Glorfindel and the twins with a scowl.

            "Not a word from any of you."

            He pulled off his soaking outer tunic and dropped it by the fire before he started to search for some dry clothing. Sauros shook off Elrohir's helping hands as he stalked up to the human.

            "We still have an argument to finish, human. And you need to learn an important lesson," he snapped while pointing at the Ranger.

            "I have learned my lesson well enough. I now know to never touch anything that could possibly set off a booby trap. It really was not my fault if you think about it," he replied and wiped away the dribble of blood from the cut on his cheek.

            Sauros' eyes narrowed dangerously as he stared at the human. Handing the books he carried to Elrohir, he slowly walked towards Aragorn as the human slowly backed from the angered dragon. The others stepped away from the dragon, seeing the dangerous implications of standing too closely. Sauros was starting to think that the human must have hit his head somewhere along their adventure down the river and up the shoot to be propelled into the air.

            "'Not my fault'? 'Not my fault'! You were the one that bloody touched the damn square on the desk after I expressly told you to not touch another damn thing after the hallway. You almost get me cleaved in half by an axe; arrows shot at me from holes in the wall, and then take a death-defying leap over a gully that almost stopped my heart! And then we get into the room and you had to touch the square on the desk! I just have to ask you one question Aragorn…Do you want regular or extra crispy?"

            Sauros leapt after Aragorn as the human sprinted in the other direction. Aragorn swerved to the side to avoid Sauros as the dragon almost reached him. The horses shied away from the two yelling figures as everyone else tried to catch the two and keep them from killing each other. Well, actually more like keep Sauros from killing Aragorn and scattering his body parts. They heard him say something about chopping off the human's hands and burying them so deep that no one would ever have the chance of finding them. Elladan was surprised when Aragorn was able to spin around him without the elf even touching him just a bit. The human could be surprisingly agile when he wanted to be.

            "I did not mean it Sauros! I never expected any of those things to happen!" Aragorn yelped and dodged Glorfindel and Lina when they tried to block his way.

            He didn't know why they were trying to stop him and not Sauros. It was the dragon that wanted to kill him. Well, they might have been trying to stop Sauros but he imagined that they just wanted to keep them separated.

            "Oh, I know. That is why I am not going to hurt you too badly. Just enough that you will not touch anything else again when told not to!"

            Sauros launched himself forward and caught Aragorn around his legs as the two tumbled to the ground. The dragon pinned the human to the ground and allowed himself to merge into his dragon form just a bit so that his fingers changed into sharp talons. Leaning over the human, Sauros held his talons in front of Aragorn's face and watched as the human's eyes widened.

            "Whenever you are with me, if you touch another thing that you have no inclination as to what it is. Then I will use these. I have not lived as long as Arda to just be killed by someone who 'felt' like touching something and sets off a chain reaction," Sauros said sternly. "Am I understood?"

            "Perfectly. Now get off me, dragon," Aragorn replied and glared up at the dragon.

            "Do you swear to never touch another thing that could set off a booby trap?"

            "Yeah, right. Good luck on trying to keep him to that promise," Legolas muttered and rested his arm on Elladan's shoulder.

            "This is none of your concern Legolas so stay out of this argument," Aragorn snapped as Sauros stood and offered a hand to Aragorn.

            "Are you two going to tell us what you have managed to get yourselves into again or not? I would really like a good story," Elrohir asked as Sauros stepped away to change form into his dragon body.

            "Let the human tell you. I just may fall over laughing again," Sauros said and cast a glare at Aragorn.

            "Yeah, you would," Aragorn said dryly as he pulled off his soaking wet clothes and laid them next to the fire.

            Glorfindel and Lina were looking over the books that the two had brought up with them. Elladan handed Aragorn his set of dry clothing before moving across the campsite and kneeling next to the elf and woman as they flipped through the books. He picked up one of the other books and scanned over the first few pages. The information in the book was startling to say the least. He had no idea that someone was working so hard to put history down on parchment of the Isildur Bloodline. The etchings were detailed and exact as well as the images presented on the parchment sheets in the book. The weapons looked deadly and ready for use in a battle from the drawings and detail put into the depictions. Elladan looked up when Aragorn sat next to him and everyone else circled around the fire.

            "Estel, where did you find these books? They are amazingly detailed all the way up to now," Glorfindel asked amazed as everyone took a book and started to read it.

            "We found all these books at the end of the hallway in a big room. Along the wall was a family tree of Isidur's line and I mean all of the members are the way up to me. There is no visible way that someone would be able to get into that room, at least not the way that we got in. The only other person in that room was the skeleton at the table and I doubt that he did all of that work," Aragorn said as Sauros curled around himself next to the small group.

            "Are you going to tell them what we had to go through to get to that room?" Sauros asked and locked gazes with the human.

            "I will whenever we need a good fire-side story and that time is not now. These books were the only things in that room worth any importance. We need to look for any reference to Glaurung or the Order of Glaurung or dragons or anything that could we could use."

            Everyone started to read the books and scanned the text for any information that they could need. There were a few references here and there but nothing devoted to the specific topic that they wanted to read about. Aragorn started to make a soothing paste for his bruises while the others read and Sauros lazily blew sulfur rings into the air. Several of his bruises were extremely tender to the touch and he flinched while lathering the dark blue spots with the soothing paste. The tautness eased and allowed his muscles to loosen and allow him to finally relax.

            "Since this is so exciting, I am going to take a nap. Wake me if anymore floors fall out from under me or if Aragorn touches something," Sauros commented and glanced over at the human as he shot a glare at the dragon.

            "Do we really want to hear about what happened down there?" Legolas questioned with a partially joking smile.

            "Probably not," Sauros mumbled softly as his eyes closed and he slipped into a light doze.

            "You had floors fall out from under you?" Elladan asked as he looked up from the book he was reading through.

            "Really long story. I will tell it to you sometime," Aragorn said aloud to them before dipping his head and mumbling "When all of you are in a drunken sleep and will not remember."

            "What was that Strider?" Legolas asked, hearing the mumbling but not the specific words.

            "Nothing, mellonin," he smiled in reply and Legolas narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to reply.

            "I found something!" Elrohir suddenly yelped and pointed towards his book.

            Everyone jumped from their seats and crowded around Elrohir as he read the text aloud. "Those who are searching for the Order of Glaurung have traveled a great distance. Many more furlongs are before you of which you must still tread. The next instructions are on the next page and may you succeed on your travels."

            The son of Elrond quickly flipped over to the next page and everyone felt their hopes come smashing to the ground. The text was just a jumble of letters that just meshed together and had no meaning. It looked far worse than the simple number to letter code that Lina understood.

Zpvs rvftu nvtu cf usvf jg zpv ibwf dpnf uijt gbs

Uif Psefs pg Hmbvsvoh nvtu opu cf ublfo mjhiumz

Uif rvftu jt opu gps uif gppmt bu ifbsu boe xfbl pg dpvsbhf.

Zpvs ofyu eftujobujpo jt uif djuz pg Hpoepmjo ofbs uif Dsjttbfhsjn.

Tuboe cz uif Upxfs pg uif Ljoh boe cfc f dp pvoufe bnpoh uif usfft.

Hbaj vqpo uif sfbmn pg uif Fbhmft boe bu uif qfsdi pg Uipspoeps.

Uifsf xjmm cf xifsf zpv nvtu tuboe.

            The only line that made sense was the last line which Elrohir read out loud.

            "To shift one to the left is to shift one to the right. Shift to the left and you will always be right."

            "What could that possibly mean?" Glorfindel asked and a few looked to Lina.

            "I have no idea. The line in Westron must be the code of some sorts. It should help us to solve the phrase, but that is only a guess. It means nothing to me," she said and shrugged her shoulders.

            "Marvelous," Legolas muttered and stood up behind the others. "We have directions to where to go next and it is in code; a code which we can not read. And a dragon from Morgoth's era is about to be released to reap terror on Middle-Earth."

//////////////

Okay, is everyone ready to hear a really funny story? I hope so. Okay, so last week I had Spring Break from school so I went home and did the normal at home thing. That went great; worked on my stories, slept in late, chilled out. Well, things started to go downhill Sunday evening. For those that do not know, I am a diabetic and on Sunday my pump was not working at full capacity. Well my blood sugar continued to climb and then I got sick and then Monday morning my friend rushed me to the Emergency Room. They stabbed me, poked me, prodded me, and turned me into a pin cushion. I stayed at the hospital till Thursday morning. Every hour I would get my blood sugar checked (which included pricking my fingers) and then every three or four hours I would have blood drawn. My left hand had an IV in it and my right arm was at the mercy of the blood drawing people. Well, while stuck in the hospital I asked my father to bring my laptop and my disk that contained this story. Well, he brought the laptop but somehow he…prepare yourself…lost the disk! Well, after freaking out a bit to myself. I worked on other stories and then when I got home this morning I started to search for the disk. I did not find it anywhere in my room. I asked my dad where he thought he may have dropped it and he said it might have fallen out in the hallway. So now my stories are out in the open for anyone to read, alter, or destroy the chapter (this chapter as a matter in fact). Well, on the whimsical chance that someone may have turned it in; I go down to the front desk and ask if anyone has turned in a desk they found in the hallway. And lo and behold! There is my lovely disk! I was just so damn giddy I could not stand it. So, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. I will work on the next chapter as much as I can with school and catching up in my classes.

OH MY GOD! I HIT 200 REVIEWS! I CAN NOT BELIEVE IT *throws confetti everywhere* I LOVE ALL OF YOU! YOU GUYS JUST ROCK MY WORLD! But really, I do love all you people out there in reader land. All of you keep my writing and my imagination flowing.

Deana- I knew that I would have chapters to read when I got out of the hospital and I saw yours in my inbox. The hospital did not have internet connection so I had no contact to the internet world…*shakes head* it a nightmare.

Star-Stallion- You really need to send me your email address. Just tell me whenever you are ready to post and I will touch everything up for you.

Tychen- Sauros is that little sarcastic voice in the back of everyone's head that always comments on everything. Mine sometimes speaks out loud and it gets me in trouble.

HaloGatomon- I am glad that you enjoyed that chapter so much. I do not know how I made that chapter that funny. It all just started to flow.

Frodo16424- Sauros is my favorite character out of all of them. Aragorn is…he is just…it is something with him and touching things. I find it hilarious.

Astievia- My brother and I have a very unique relationship. I can drive him up the wall with just a simple look and he gets totally paranoid. It is hilarious to watch.

Catmint- Sarcasm is a very definite art that requires precision and finesse. I am proud to say that I have perfected this art as much as physically possible for me. I was making sarcastic and comical remarks when I was in the blood Emergency room for bloody sake.

Elvendancer- I had a good Spring Break until I got back.

Bill the Pony2- I just could not put in the boulder; it would have been too similar to Indiana Jones. I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the other.

Isadora2- *bows deeply* Well thank you very much mellonin. I think at the end of the story I will have the twins pull a prank and give Aragorn a present with a sign that says something like that. We are on first name basis? I did not get the memo. Well, anyway, Guten Abend Isadora2! Mir gehts sehr gut und du?

Grumpy- I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as the others.

XxgemxX- *sighs* Thirteen is such a good age. Let me tell you, you had better enjoy it because everything goes to pot when you get older. But I am glad that you enjoyed this chapter so much.

SilverKnight7- Aragorn must enjoy getting himself into trouble. It has to be in his blood.

Legalady- I am glad that you enjoyed this chapter so much. I tried really hard to make the chapter enjoyable. 'An Ancient Bond' is in progress and I hope to get it out soon.

Elven Kitten- I am working on the stories as much as physically possible.

Roccovende- *slams head on desk* My poor arms hurt from typing. I have a huge bruise on my arm from where they were stabbing me and the bruise presses right against the edge of my laptop. So one of my arms is arched slightly to take the weight off of my lower arm. My plot bunnies have had a serious vacation while I was off at the hospital. I had to call in the trappers to hunt down and catch my plot bunnies. The thing with the coat, I figured that the coat was a part of him as a dragon. He made himself form clothes, weapons, and everything else. I know that it is kind of hard to grasp but that is what I imagined.

Ringmarciel- I am glad that you enjoyed the previous chapter so much and hope that you enjoy this one. Till next time.

Leggylover03- It happens to all kids…well not to me. When my mother told me to not lick a cold pole because my tongue would stick, I believed her. Might be because I was smart and licked my finger to stick it on a metal bar in the freezer part of the refrigerator. My finger stuck a bit so I assumed that my tongue would stick to a pole. Probably the only smartest thing that I have ever done. Heehee.

Snow-Glory- Glaurung is not 'attached' or 'inhabiting' Legolas anymore so have no fear. Sauros Jr. will come along at the end of this story or in the next…if I write one after this.

Alariel- I am so sorry that it took me so long to update. It normally does not take me this long but as it said up in the author's note there really was a good reason. I will take your advice into close consideration and keep it in mind. Thank you for reviewing my story.

Andunea the Shapeshifter- Yes, poor, poor Sauros. Glaurung is gold, or at least he was gold when he was first alive. But when he died and came back then he came back as a black dragon. That is my story and I am sticking to it. Just humour the author. Heehee. I will work on 'Purest Heart of Mirkwood' just for you. I can not promise anything but I will try and work on it.

Hiei-Rulez- Heehee, it would be really bad if I just decided to stop working on this story and leave you hanging. I think that if I did then you would find out my address and hunt me down. You would. I will try and get around you reading your story; I promise I will but I can not promise anything. My time is severely limited right now since my little visit to the hospital.

WickedMagic- *bows with hand over heart and sweeps it out to the side* Hannon lle mellonin. I am glad that you like my story so much. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.