Chapter Three: Hansel and the kettle
Disclaimer: I am not J.R.R Tolkien, and I do not own any of the Lord of the
Rings
characters. I should also probably say that I also do not own any of the real fairy tale
characters that I am using. But I do own my drag queen fairy, and various other brilliant
characters made up by brilliant me.
A/N: Okay, my second chapter wasn't incredibly good, but I'll try and make this chapter better. I hope you've all been liking and enjoying my fanfic, and that you'll keep reviewing. Hehehe. This story is sadder than my others, and it's not really a parody. Just a sort of related story using Hansel as the main character. And it's not as funny, either. But anyway.....Read on!
"Did I do anything embarrassing?" asked Gimli.
Everyone giggled. Or more like, roared with laughter. Their laughter scared away a group of birds who were enjoying the afternoon sun. The group was gathered in the same place that the Fellowship of the Ring was formed, so long ago.
"Oh, Gimli," said Arwen, "It was so funny!"
"You can talk," said Aragorn, "You went to sleep drunk, and your last words before you fell asleep were 'roast turkey'."
Arwen blushed, and it was Legolas who found the fact of a drunken Arwen the funniest.
"Legolas, if you tell any other Elf in Middle Earth..." Arwen started warningly.
"Don't worry." Legolas grinned. And a few passing female Elves fainted, because they
thought that he was smiling at them. (And I know that the Elves are meant to be gone
already, but anyway...)
Legolas rolled his eyes.
"Anyway, DID I DO ANYTHING STUPID?" Gimli roared.
More birds scattered.
"Oh, not really," said Sam.
"Except for the fact that you kept raving about salty toasters." said Merry.
"And the fact that you declared to the world that you have hair." said Pippin.
"And the fact that Sam, Merry and Pippin dumped you in the pond, where you announced that you were a water duck." said Eowyn.
Gimli flushed.
"Don't worry, Gimli." said Faramir kindly.
"Anyway, whose turn?" asked Aragorn.
"Ooh! It's ours!" said Merry and Pippin in unison. They had to tell a story together, for, as usual, they would not be parted.
"Alright," said Legolas, leaning back on his chair, "Let's get started, shall we?"
"Okay. Our story is called Hansel and the kettle. Hem hem...
Once upon a time there was a pair of young, married Hobbits. They had a son, named Hansel. Hansel was really cute, but he was bored a lot. He asked his parents one day, when he was ten,
"Can you guys have another kid? I want some one to play with."
The parents didn't want another kid, and they weren't very smart. So they got Hansel a kettle, and drew eyes and a mouth on the front, using the spout as a nose. They gave it to Hansel, who was not impressed. He thought to himself,
'My parents are so dumb. I'd be way better off without them.'
So he made a plan. An evil plan (Mwahahahaha). Despite the fact that he was only ten, he was highly ambitious and clever and cunning.
His plan was to take his parents into the deep, dark forest, and leave them there. Then he would get a job at the hospital in town, make some money, and get a life. So one sunny afternoon, he announced that he had organised a picnic. The parents whispered to one another.
"What the hell has gotten into Hansel???"
"Why is he being so nice and agreeable?"
"D'ya reckon that he's sick?"
"Dunno... check his temperature..."
Hansel thought to himself,
"Am I really such a bad kid that when I want a family outing, my parents think that it's unusual? When I'm nice, does it seem off character?"
Hansel felt bad for about half a second. Then he thought,
"Oh well. At least when my parents are gone, I will have a proper life. And I can live happily with Kettle."
Hansel packed all of his possessions into a backpack. He decided to carry Kettle, as she was his only friend.
"God, I must be pathetic," thought Hansel, "Talking to a kettle and all."
Hansel felt bad immediately, as Kettle, although she never talked, was a great listener. She listened patiently to all of his complaints and criticisms.
Hansel's parents, although they weren't too clever, were very nice people. So they played right into Hansel's hands, without knowing it. They were so thrilled that Hansel really wanted a picnic with them, as a family. So they packed a delicious lunch, and made up two baskets. One was for them, with crackers and sandwiches and cold meats.
The second was for Hansel. Inside Hansel's basket were cakes, finger sandwiches, sausage rolls, cookies, and all the nicest things that the parents could find in their house. Hansel felt bad for about one second (Improvement on last time), but then thought,
"Well, they're probably gonna die anyway, and I'll need food on the road to success, so I deserve the better basket with more food. Kettle might get hungry, too."
So, the family set off for the woods, and Hansel led them to a small, shady clearing. Of course, this whole scheme had taken a lot of planning, and Hansel had often wandered with Kettle around the woods, to make sure that he knew every twist and turn in the trees, so that he could get out easily. But his poor parents had never been into the woods, and they would get lost easily, if left alone. And that was exactly what Hansel planned to do. (Mwahahahahaha).
Hansel pretended to be enjoying himself, eating a little, but saving the rest. His parents soon settled down for an afternoon nap. When their breathing had become deep and regular, Hansel grabbed Kettle, and his own food basket, and crept away from the clearing. Leaving his poor parents all alone, where they would starve to death.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Hansel yelled as he danced down the road, towards the nearest town.
"Whaddaya think, Kettle?!?" But as usual, Kettle gave no reply. Even though Kettle never, ever replied to anything, Hansel still talked to her.
"As if you could talk," Hansel muttered,
"Your nose it all blocked up with cement, your lid is stuck down, and your mouth is drawn on in permanent texta. Stupid parents."
Hansel blamed everything that went wrong in his life on either his parents, or Kettle. That night, Hansel couldn't sleep.
"Stupid Kettle."
The next morning, Hansel lost a penny out of his pocket.
"Stupid parents."
That afternoon, Hansel dropped a cookie in the dirt, and then he trod on it by accident.
"Stupid Kettle."
And so on and so forth.
It was several days walk before Hansel reached the first town. He asked every shop, but no-one needed work.
"Stupid parents."
He found a cheap inn, and stayed two nights. His food had run out by then, and so he had to buy some more. Hansel was a rather cheapo kind of person, so he hated spending money. He always bought the cheapest stuff he could find. So he went to Go-slow for his food. He bought canned bread, canned fish, canned carrot, canned cake, canned fruit, canned pasta and canned, canned, canned everything. Fresh stuff was too expensive.
So he walked for another five days. He reached the next town, and asked for work in every shop. He even asked at a cork sorting shop. Nothing at all. No-one needed work.
"Stupid Kettle."
He needed yet more food. So, off he went to the Reject Pop, to buy canned food.
Hansel turned eleven the next day. He went and bought himself some canned lemon tart as a present.
"If my parents were here, they would have cooked up a great dinner, and given me the best presents that they could afford."
Hansel thought to himself. He felt bad for a minute. Then he thought,
"But I don't need them anymore. They had no ambition, no nothing. They only had love and niceness. And in the real world, that will get you nowhere."
He placed Kettle down on the ground next to him as he ate his canned lemon tart with an aluminium spoon.
Hansel suddenly became annoyed at the fact that he still hadn't found work. He took out his anger on poor Kettle.
"Kettle, why don't you ever try to help? You're meant to be my friend! And here I am, trying to improve my life, all by myself! Why don't you ever do anything? You're just like my parents, never helping, and never doing anything for you! I hope that they get eaten up, like in that story, Gransel and Hettle! I hate them! I am so glad that I left! What happened to 'We're your parents, Hansel, and we love you' and stuff like that! Well, it's my birthday, and they're not here! So some parents they turned out to be! I never loved you and I never will!"
Hansel, full of selfish rage, picked up Kettle and threw her at a the ground. She smashed into a million pieces. Hansel, blind with his idiotic fury, kept yelling and stamping. Then, he noticed a folded piece of paper, lying in amongst the remains of his old and defeated friend, Kettle. He snatched it up, and unfolded it. He recognised his mother's handwriting.
"Dear Hansel,"
He read,
"I know that at some point, you will open this kettle.
You are so curious; you must wonder why it is all blocked up.
Whether you accidentally drop it, or smash it on purpose, your eyes will one day read this letter. I originally planned to tell you this news when you were seven, but it seemed that you were so young. Too young.
But then you asked for a friend. We gave you a kettle. I took my chance, and hid the letter in the kettle. I know that you are a highly ambitious and determined boy, and that I recently heard you talking to your kettle.
I heard all of your plotting. It became apparent that, despite the fact that we were doing all we could to make you happy, well, we were in your way.
We were obscuring your path to success, we were a distraction. So your father and I decided to make a final sacrifice for you.
We would go along with your plan, when you decided to put it into motion.
I waited, knowing that I had little time to live. Your father and I were willing to die for your success and happiness. You are obviously going to be better off without us. I would be leaving you anyway, Hansel. I am dying. I wish that the last of my precious time with you could have been on better terms, and I wish that we might have bonded more as mother and son, but now I will rest in peace, knowing that you are on the way to achieving your goal. I must admit, putting all of my faith and trust in the success of a ten year old boy made me a bit nervous. But you are intelligent. You have intelligence beyond your years.
With your determination and ambition, I know that you will make the most of your life. There is another envelope enclosed. It is all of our savings. Practically all of the money that your father and I ever owned.
Of course, a little went towards necessities, but the rest went here. Which is why, Hansel, as much as we wanted to, we never spent a lot of money on presents.
I am sorry, for your miserable childhood with us. I only wish that we could have been better parents. Remember, we will always, always love you. Even if your heart is cold to us, we love you. -Your loving mother, Helena.
A tear fell from Hansel's eye. Then another, and another. Hansel folded up the letter and put it away, to avoid ruining it. A thick paper envelope was sitting on the ground. Hansel picked it up with trembling hands. He stopped thinking like a selfish, mean old man, and began thinking like the eleven year old boy that he was. He had left his parents to die. He had broken Kettle, his only companion. He gingerly swept up Kettle's remains, and put them in his bag. He folded up his mother's letter, and put that on top of the broken Kettle. Tears streamed from his eyes as he ran.
"What in the world was I thinking? I am an eleven year old boy! I need my parents. I did love them, but I was blinded by my own selfishness. How did I think that I was going to cope???"
Hansel thought back to all the nice things that his parents had done for him. Cooking delicious meals for his birthday. Making sure that he got the best things possible. Letting him sleep on the only bed when it was cold, even though that meant that they had to sleep on the dirt floor with a blanket. Going out into the snow and ice to find a dropped toy or scarf, without a thought to their own well being. His mother had been slowly dying, but still managed to care for him, and manage his every need.
Hansel stopped for only a few hours here and there, to nap beside the road. Then he would jump up, and keep running. People stared at him, but he ignored them. After several solid days of running, Hansel's feet were sore and blistered. But he kept running, until the small house in the wood appeared. Hansel dumped his things inside, and then ran into the forest. After a while, he saw a man's figure sitting under a tree. He ran towards it, shouting
"Dad! It's me! Hansel!"
But no-one replied. As he reached the figure, he fell to the ground. He lifted up the man's head. It was his father. Hansel put his ear near his father's mouth, to catch a breath, a word, anything. Hansel felt a small, faint breath on his ear. Incredibly, amazingly, his father was still alive.
"Hansel..." his father's last whispered word reached his ear.
Hansel's eyes filled with tears. Through the blur, he noticed a hole in the ground. Hansel wiped away tears, and saw, with a painful stab in his heart, his mother's body lying in a dug grave. Hie father, Hansel realized, must have used the last of his strength to dig his mother's grave.
A scream echoed through the woods. It was a scream full of sadness and anguish, and made anyone who heard it despair.
There were some woodcutters in another section of the woods, for the first time ever. They came running, towards the source of the scream. They found Hansel crouched near his mother's grave, crying his heart out. They picked him up, and looked at the dead people, and then at one another. They nodded at each other, and carried the boy away, into their part of the wood. As they walked, Hansel kept crying, "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry..." Merry and Pippin's voices faded, marking the end of the story.
There was a long silence after the end of Merry and Pippin's story. "Oh, boys," said Eowyn, "That was so sad."
"And so off character." said Aragorn.
"Well, at least it's not true." said Sam, as if to comfort himself.
"But still..." Eowyn looked sad.
"Anyway," said Gimli, as if to lighten the mood, "Last time we met, weren't you lads off to make weird songs? Can we hear one?"
"Sure!" said Pippin, "We made loads. Give us any topic, and we are guaranteed to have made a song about it."
"Hmm..." mused Gimli, "How about salty pork?"
"Gimli, thanks to you, that's the first one we made!" Sam declared.
"Let's hear it!" said Faramir happily.
Eowyn, who seemed to have been truly touched by the story, glared at his, as if to ask how anyone could be happy after such a sad ending to a story.
"Okay. Ready? Here goes!
'Salty pork, salty pork,
Gimli likes it, he's a dork.
Salty pork is kind of nice,
But not as good as cows with lice!"
"Err... what the hell?" asked Faramir.
"It's our salty pork song!" said Pippin indignantly.
"Yeah! Don't bag out our song!" said Merry.
"I wasn't!" said Faramir, "I just think that it's very....original."
Everyone laughed.
"Well, it's getting late," said Sam, "I'd better be getting home to Rosie."
"I think that we'd better be getting back too." said Eowyn reluctantly.
"Yeah, we should be leaving too." said Arwen.
"Well, next time, we can meet at my place," Sam said, "Rosie is going to visit some friends, and she's taking the kids with her."
"Okay," said Legolas, "Does everyone agree on Sam's place then?"
Everyone nodded.
"Alright," said Aragorn, "Till next time, then."
All of the friends stood up, and parted under the moonlit sky.
Well, was it any good? Be sure to review and let me know! (Somehow I think that my chapters are deteriorating in quality, but anyway....review and let me know =P )
characters. I should also probably say that I also do not own any of the real fairy tale
characters that I am using. But I do own my drag queen fairy, and various other brilliant
characters made up by brilliant me.
A/N: Okay, my second chapter wasn't incredibly good, but I'll try and make this chapter better. I hope you've all been liking and enjoying my fanfic, and that you'll keep reviewing. Hehehe. This story is sadder than my others, and it's not really a parody. Just a sort of related story using Hansel as the main character. And it's not as funny, either. But anyway.....Read on!
"Did I do anything embarrassing?" asked Gimli.
Everyone giggled. Or more like, roared with laughter. Their laughter scared away a group of birds who were enjoying the afternoon sun. The group was gathered in the same place that the Fellowship of the Ring was formed, so long ago.
"Oh, Gimli," said Arwen, "It was so funny!"
"You can talk," said Aragorn, "You went to sleep drunk, and your last words before you fell asleep were 'roast turkey'."
Arwen blushed, and it was Legolas who found the fact of a drunken Arwen the funniest.
"Legolas, if you tell any other Elf in Middle Earth..." Arwen started warningly.
"Don't worry." Legolas grinned. And a few passing female Elves fainted, because they
thought that he was smiling at them. (And I know that the Elves are meant to be gone
already, but anyway...)
Legolas rolled his eyes.
"Anyway, DID I DO ANYTHING STUPID?" Gimli roared.
More birds scattered.
"Oh, not really," said Sam.
"Except for the fact that you kept raving about salty toasters." said Merry.
"And the fact that you declared to the world that you have hair." said Pippin.
"And the fact that Sam, Merry and Pippin dumped you in the pond, where you announced that you were a water duck." said Eowyn.
Gimli flushed.
"Don't worry, Gimli." said Faramir kindly.
"Anyway, whose turn?" asked Aragorn.
"Ooh! It's ours!" said Merry and Pippin in unison. They had to tell a story together, for, as usual, they would not be parted.
"Alright," said Legolas, leaning back on his chair, "Let's get started, shall we?"
"Okay. Our story is called Hansel and the kettle. Hem hem...
Once upon a time there was a pair of young, married Hobbits. They had a son, named Hansel. Hansel was really cute, but he was bored a lot. He asked his parents one day, when he was ten,
"Can you guys have another kid? I want some one to play with."
The parents didn't want another kid, and they weren't very smart. So they got Hansel a kettle, and drew eyes and a mouth on the front, using the spout as a nose. They gave it to Hansel, who was not impressed. He thought to himself,
'My parents are so dumb. I'd be way better off without them.'
So he made a plan. An evil plan (Mwahahahaha). Despite the fact that he was only ten, he was highly ambitious and clever and cunning.
His plan was to take his parents into the deep, dark forest, and leave them there. Then he would get a job at the hospital in town, make some money, and get a life. So one sunny afternoon, he announced that he had organised a picnic. The parents whispered to one another.
"What the hell has gotten into Hansel???"
"Why is he being so nice and agreeable?"
"D'ya reckon that he's sick?"
"Dunno... check his temperature..."
Hansel thought to himself,
"Am I really such a bad kid that when I want a family outing, my parents think that it's unusual? When I'm nice, does it seem off character?"
Hansel felt bad for about half a second. Then he thought,
"Oh well. At least when my parents are gone, I will have a proper life. And I can live happily with Kettle."
Hansel packed all of his possessions into a backpack. He decided to carry Kettle, as she was his only friend.
"God, I must be pathetic," thought Hansel, "Talking to a kettle and all."
Hansel felt bad immediately, as Kettle, although she never talked, was a great listener. She listened patiently to all of his complaints and criticisms.
Hansel's parents, although they weren't too clever, were very nice people. So they played right into Hansel's hands, without knowing it. They were so thrilled that Hansel really wanted a picnic with them, as a family. So they packed a delicious lunch, and made up two baskets. One was for them, with crackers and sandwiches and cold meats.
The second was for Hansel. Inside Hansel's basket were cakes, finger sandwiches, sausage rolls, cookies, and all the nicest things that the parents could find in their house. Hansel felt bad for about one second (Improvement on last time), but then thought,
"Well, they're probably gonna die anyway, and I'll need food on the road to success, so I deserve the better basket with more food. Kettle might get hungry, too."
So, the family set off for the woods, and Hansel led them to a small, shady clearing. Of course, this whole scheme had taken a lot of planning, and Hansel had often wandered with Kettle around the woods, to make sure that he knew every twist and turn in the trees, so that he could get out easily. But his poor parents had never been into the woods, and they would get lost easily, if left alone. And that was exactly what Hansel planned to do. (Mwahahahahaha).
Hansel pretended to be enjoying himself, eating a little, but saving the rest. His parents soon settled down for an afternoon nap. When their breathing had become deep and regular, Hansel grabbed Kettle, and his own food basket, and crept away from the clearing. Leaving his poor parents all alone, where they would starve to death.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Hansel yelled as he danced down the road, towards the nearest town.
"Whaddaya think, Kettle?!?" But as usual, Kettle gave no reply. Even though Kettle never, ever replied to anything, Hansel still talked to her.
"As if you could talk," Hansel muttered,
"Your nose it all blocked up with cement, your lid is stuck down, and your mouth is drawn on in permanent texta. Stupid parents."
Hansel blamed everything that went wrong in his life on either his parents, or Kettle. That night, Hansel couldn't sleep.
"Stupid Kettle."
The next morning, Hansel lost a penny out of his pocket.
"Stupid parents."
That afternoon, Hansel dropped a cookie in the dirt, and then he trod on it by accident.
"Stupid Kettle."
And so on and so forth.
It was several days walk before Hansel reached the first town. He asked every shop, but no-one needed work.
"Stupid parents."
He found a cheap inn, and stayed two nights. His food had run out by then, and so he had to buy some more. Hansel was a rather cheapo kind of person, so he hated spending money. He always bought the cheapest stuff he could find. So he went to Go-slow for his food. He bought canned bread, canned fish, canned carrot, canned cake, canned fruit, canned pasta and canned, canned, canned everything. Fresh stuff was too expensive.
So he walked for another five days. He reached the next town, and asked for work in every shop. He even asked at a cork sorting shop. Nothing at all. No-one needed work.
"Stupid Kettle."
He needed yet more food. So, off he went to the Reject Pop, to buy canned food.
Hansel turned eleven the next day. He went and bought himself some canned lemon tart as a present.
"If my parents were here, they would have cooked up a great dinner, and given me the best presents that they could afford."
Hansel thought to himself. He felt bad for a minute. Then he thought,
"But I don't need them anymore. They had no ambition, no nothing. They only had love and niceness. And in the real world, that will get you nowhere."
He placed Kettle down on the ground next to him as he ate his canned lemon tart with an aluminium spoon.
Hansel suddenly became annoyed at the fact that he still hadn't found work. He took out his anger on poor Kettle.
"Kettle, why don't you ever try to help? You're meant to be my friend! And here I am, trying to improve my life, all by myself! Why don't you ever do anything? You're just like my parents, never helping, and never doing anything for you! I hope that they get eaten up, like in that story, Gransel and Hettle! I hate them! I am so glad that I left! What happened to 'We're your parents, Hansel, and we love you' and stuff like that! Well, it's my birthday, and they're not here! So some parents they turned out to be! I never loved you and I never will!"
Hansel, full of selfish rage, picked up Kettle and threw her at a the ground. She smashed into a million pieces. Hansel, blind with his idiotic fury, kept yelling and stamping. Then, he noticed a folded piece of paper, lying in amongst the remains of his old and defeated friend, Kettle. He snatched it up, and unfolded it. He recognised his mother's handwriting.
"Dear Hansel,"
He read,
"I know that at some point, you will open this kettle.
You are so curious; you must wonder why it is all blocked up.
Whether you accidentally drop it, or smash it on purpose, your eyes will one day read this letter. I originally planned to tell you this news when you were seven, but it seemed that you were so young. Too young.
But then you asked for a friend. We gave you a kettle. I took my chance, and hid the letter in the kettle. I know that you are a highly ambitious and determined boy, and that I recently heard you talking to your kettle.
I heard all of your plotting. It became apparent that, despite the fact that we were doing all we could to make you happy, well, we were in your way.
We were obscuring your path to success, we were a distraction. So your father and I decided to make a final sacrifice for you.
We would go along with your plan, when you decided to put it into motion.
I waited, knowing that I had little time to live. Your father and I were willing to die for your success and happiness. You are obviously going to be better off without us. I would be leaving you anyway, Hansel. I am dying. I wish that the last of my precious time with you could have been on better terms, and I wish that we might have bonded more as mother and son, but now I will rest in peace, knowing that you are on the way to achieving your goal. I must admit, putting all of my faith and trust in the success of a ten year old boy made me a bit nervous. But you are intelligent. You have intelligence beyond your years.
With your determination and ambition, I know that you will make the most of your life. There is another envelope enclosed. It is all of our savings. Practically all of the money that your father and I ever owned.
Of course, a little went towards necessities, but the rest went here. Which is why, Hansel, as much as we wanted to, we never spent a lot of money on presents.
I am sorry, for your miserable childhood with us. I only wish that we could have been better parents. Remember, we will always, always love you. Even if your heart is cold to us, we love you. -Your loving mother, Helena.
A tear fell from Hansel's eye. Then another, and another. Hansel folded up the letter and put it away, to avoid ruining it. A thick paper envelope was sitting on the ground. Hansel picked it up with trembling hands. He stopped thinking like a selfish, mean old man, and began thinking like the eleven year old boy that he was. He had left his parents to die. He had broken Kettle, his only companion. He gingerly swept up Kettle's remains, and put them in his bag. He folded up his mother's letter, and put that on top of the broken Kettle. Tears streamed from his eyes as he ran.
"What in the world was I thinking? I am an eleven year old boy! I need my parents. I did love them, but I was blinded by my own selfishness. How did I think that I was going to cope???"
Hansel thought back to all the nice things that his parents had done for him. Cooking delicious meals for his birthday. Making sure that he got the best things possible. Letting him sleep on the only bed when it was cold, even though that meant that they had to sleep on the dirt floor with a blanket. Going out into the snow and ice to find a dropped toy or scarf, without a thought to their own well being. His mother had been slowly dying, but still managed to care for him, and manage his every need.
Hansel stopped for only a few hours here and there, to nap beside the road. Then he would jump up, and keep running. People stared at him, but he ignored them. After several solid days of running, Hansel's feet were sore and blistered. But he kept running, until the small house in the wood appeared. Hansel dumped his things inside, and then ran into the forest. After a while, he saw a man's figure sitting under a tree. He ran towards it, shouting
"Dad! It's me! Hansel!"
But no-one replied. As he reached the figure, he fell to the ground. He lifted up the man's head. It was his father. Hansel put his ear near his father's mouth, to catch a breath, a word, anything. Hansel felt a small, faint breath on his ear. Incredibly, amazingly, his father was still alive.
"Hansel..." his father's last whispered word reached his ear.
Hansel's eyes filled with tears. Through the blur, he noticed a hole in the ground. Hansel wiped away tears, and saw, with a painful stab in his heart, his mother's body lying in a dug grave. Hie father, Hansel realized, must have used the last of his strength to dig his mother's grave.
A scream echoed through the woods. It was a scream full of sadness and anguish, and made anyone who heard it despair.
There were some woodcutters in another section of the woods, for the first time ever. They came running, towards the source of the scream. They found Hansel crouched near his mother's grave, crying his heart out. They picked him up, and looked at the dead people, and then at one another. They nodded at each other, and carried the boy away, into their part of the wood. As they walked, Hansel kept crying, "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry..." Merry and Pippin's voices faded, marking the end of the story.
There was a long silence after the end of Merry and Pippin's story. "Oh, boys," said Eowyn, "That was so sad."
"And so off character." said Aragorn.
"Well, at least it's not true." said Sam, as if to comfort himself.
"But still..." Eowyn looked sad.
"Anyway," said Gimli, as if to lighten the mood, "Last time we met, weren't you lads off to make weird songs? Can we hear one?"
"Sure!" said Pippin, "We made loads. Give us any topic, and we are guaranteed to have made a song about it."
"Hmm..." mused Gimli, "How about salty pork?"
"Gimli, thanks to you, that's the first one we made!" Sam declared.
"Let's hear it!" said Faramir happily.
Eowyn, who seemed to have been truly touched by the story, glared at his, as if to ask how anyone could be happy after such a sad ending to a story.
"Okay. Ready? Here goes!
'Salty pork, salty pork,
Gimli likes it, he's a dork.
Salty pork is kind of nice,
But not as good as cows with lice!"
"Err... what the hell?" asked Faramir.
"It's our salty pork song!" said Pippin indignantly.
"Yeah! Don't bag out our song!" said Merry.
"I wasn't!" said Faramir, "I just think that it's very....original."
Everyone laughed.
"Well, it's getting late," said Sam, "I'd better be getting home to Rosie."
"I think that we'd better be getting back too." said Eowyn reluctantly.
"Yeah, we should be leaving too." said Arwen.
"Well, next time, we can meet at my place," Sam said, "Rosie is going to visit some friends, and she's taking the kids with her."
"Okay," said Legolas, "Does everyone agree on Sam's place then?"
Everyone nodded.
"Alright," said Aragorn, "Till next time, then."
All of the friends stood up, and parted under the moonlit sky.
Well, was it any good? Be sure to review and let me know! (Somehow I think that my chapters are deteriorating in quality, but anyway....review and let me know =P )