On my fifth trek through Middle-earth, this is what I saw:
Five Narsil Shards
Four traveling hobbits
Three rings for the elf kings
Two shades of Gandalf
And one ring to rule them all
Everyone ducked and covered their heads in case something appeared above them. When nothing seemed to happen, they were very confused.
"Well," said Frodo, "we've had the next verse, but nothing's changed."
"Yeah, what's up with that?" asked Pippin.
Everyone stared at Pippin. "Now that," said Gandalf the White, "was the most obnoxious, and pointless, waste of words I have ever heard."
Gandalf the Grey was still fighting the one ring. Sam, recognizing the signs of possession from being around Frodo, reached over and grabbed Gandalf's hand before it could reach his pocket.
"Thanks, Sam."
"You should really put that thing back where you found it, Mr. Gandalf."
"Hello? Can anyone hear me?"
Everyone looked. There was a sword lying on the floor.
"Finally! Hi, my name's Anduril, but you can call me Narsil since that's what the song said I was."
Gandalf the White said, "The song also said the shards of Narsil. You're a whole sword."
"Yeah, what's up with that?" asked Pippin.
"Shut up," everyone else said. "Once was annoying enough."
"So anyway, it's not my fault I don't fit the song. Besides, I was never in five pieces. Did any of you watch the movie? Well, if you had bothered to count you would have seen I was in six pieces. So either way, it's…what's wrong with him?"
Everyone turned around. Gandalf the Grey was sweating heavily with the strain of resisting the ring, but his hand was already in his pocket. Sam ran forward to try and stop him. He reached out to grab Gandalf's arm…
Gandalf disappeared. Sam overbalanced as he reached for nothing and fell flat on his face. They could hear Gandalf the Grey laughing, but the direction was untraceable.
"Sam!" The other hobbits ran to him. "Are you all right?"
"He kicked me," Sam grumbled as he got up. "That's not fair, kicking someone who can't see you."
"He's been taken over by the ring," Frodo said. "And the ring doesn't play fair."
"Yeah? What's up with that?" Pippin said.
Everyone flinched. "Gag him!" Frodo shouted. Pippin was tackled by the other hobbits and Gandalf the White. He was tied up and left in a corner.
Unsure what to do next, Merry asked, "So how do we save Gandalf the Grey from the ring if we can't see him?"
"Follow the trail of the ring's destruction," Gandalf the White said wisely.
"Huh?"
Gandalf pointed to a small gold puddle on the floor.
"He melted the elven rings!" Sam gasped.
"But how could he do that?" Merry asked. "I mean, the elves made them."
"One ring to rule them all," Gandalf the White reminded them. "It has power over the other rings. In fact, it's lucky for us that the rings were melted. They would have fallen to the one ring's power and gone over to the other side."
"Maybe we can find some way to reforge them!" Sam said. He knelt down to get a closer look at the puddle. "We'll let this harden so we can peel it off the floor, then remelt it and make three rings out of the gold. It might work!"
And it probably would have worked, except…