Genetics Part Three

Sorry for the length of time between updates; writers block, other fics and university unfairly distracted me from this story. I never actually expected to write this, or the previous chapter; I originally intended the first one to be a one-shot. I was considerably surprised when I got reviews asking me when the next chapter was coming. Warning; yes, I consider this to be pretty OOC. Hopefully some comedy has managed to creep in and therefore redeem me. If not, then I am lost. I could go back to writing angsty slash but I never get reviews for that so assume it's no good, hence I write stuff like this.

Let us leave aside the journey of Aragorn to Imladris. Suffice it to say that it took several months and due to the fact that Aragorn had not even stopped to pack cooking gear, hunting gear, or a change of socks, he arrived at the Ford of Bruinen hungry, tired, and with killer blisters. None of which made him feel particularly charitable. He stormed towards Rivendell, still in a towering rage.

Had Glorfindel stayed inside that day, perhaps read a book, or participated in some singing, or finished his tapestry, things would probably have turned out differently. Instead, he decided to go for a ride.

Imagine his surprise when, close to the banks of the Bruinen, he was grabbed around the left ankle and yanked forcibly out of the saddle. The poor horse ran in terror of the unwashed, stubbly demon that had grabbed its rider.

'What the-' Glorfindel twisted violently in his captor's grip, and managed to get a glance at the vengeful face of . . . 'Aragorn? Is that you? What in Varda's name are you doing?'

'You, you bastard!' growled Aragorn, hauling Glorfindel off into some undefined shrubbery (the botany of Imladris is a sadly under-researched subject. There may have been athelas involved at some point though.)

'Me what? I asked you a question! And you're messing up my hair!'

'You slept with my wife!'

'She was hardly your wife at the time.' said Glorfindel calmly, which is rather impressive given that he was being hauled by his shiny blond ponytail through the undergrowth by a hairy man in a ballistic mood.

At this point Glorfindel decided he was fed up with this state of affairs, and dug his heels in. To Aragorn's chagrin he found that he couldn't go any further. It is hard to drag an elf when said elf has no wish to be dragged. They're stronger than they appear.

'Now look,' said the elf in question reasonably, detaching Aragorn's hand from his scalp by the simple expedient of digging his nails in between the tendons of the human's fingers. 'I'm being reasonable about this. Please explain yourself fully.'

'You slept with Arwen!'

'Once,' granted Glorfindel, looking smug. 'I think the miruvor and Elrond's 'I-am-supremely-paranoid-about-the-state-of-Arda' speech may have helped though. What's the problem?'

'Apart from the fact that she's my bloody wife and you bloody slept with her-'

'She was your girlfriend at the time, and you'd just run off to play the hero with a bunch of assorteds, including Legolas of Mirkwood, who I am sorry to say is not the most heterosexual of the Firstborn, and very obviously had his eye on you. I think you can probably forgive her for doubting your powers of fidelity.'

Aragorn had a slight brain-fuse at the idea that Legolas 'had his eye' on him, but recovered well.

'I thought Elves didn't have affairs – the whole 'sex being marriage' rule,' he managed.

Glorfindel looked at him slightly pityingly; the way a marine biologist looks at someone who voices the opinion that dolphins are fish. 'It's not a rule as such. More like a guideline, if you ask me. Besides; she was convinced the world was going to end. That tends to speed up one's libido.'

About to reply, Aragorn suddenly noticed Glorfindel cock his head at something. The human strained his ears to hear. It didn't require an awful lot of straining, actually. The clanking was reasonably audible.

'Yrch,' said Glorfindel quietly. Aragorn nodded. The elf started to crawl away from the sound. He beckoned to Aragorn over his shoulder. Aragorn followed; time enough to feud later; preferably when their lives weren't on the line.

'They're on the other side of the river,' hissed Glorfindel when he judged they'd got enough distance between them and the orcs.

'Do you know how to raise the waters?' asked Aragorn, his mind running through possibilities.

'No; only Elrond knows how to do that,' said Glorfindel, his eyes narrowing. He too was calculating.

'How many of them do you think there are?'

'A decent number, going by the noise and by the fact that they're here; you don't expect a lone orc to come prancing up to Rivendell,' said Glorfindel. 'It'd be suicide.'

'Could we take them on ourselves?'

'We could try. Only . . .'

'What?'

'Didn't bring any weapons.' Glorfindel blushed, pink as one of Sam's carnations.

'What, none?' Aragorn was flabbergasted. He took weapons with him as a matter of course, whether it was to water the garden or retake the southern bank of the Anduin; the exact details really didn't matter. Edged weaponry goes with everything. Well, goes through everything, at least.

'Maybe a knife?'

' . . . ' Aragorn couldn't begin to understand this.

'Look, I was going for a ride. I didn't expect to be faced with a regiment of orcs!'

Aragorn grunted, and bent down. He rolled up a trouser-leg.

'Ticks?' asked Glorfindel with some measure of sympathy. 'They can be murder round here-'

Aragorn straightened up, a long dagger in his hand. It was sheathed; it looked like he'd had it strapped around his calf. He handed it to the elf.

'Come on then,' he said, getting up off his haunches and wandering off into the forest. He blended very well. Rangers are the ultimate blenders. Elves are technically better at it, when they want to be, but they prefer to be noticed; they like it when people say things like 'wow; look how hard it is to see him! He's so stealthy!' and 'yeah, it's hard to spot him all right.'

Sighing, Glorfindel followed Aragorn.

The orcs certainly were loud. And close.

The elf caught sight of hairy, unwashed orc bodies through the trees. There was much equipment of a sharp and unfriendly nature hanging around also. At about this time, the smell of hairy, unwashed orc bodies assaulted Glorfindel's delicate elven senses, and thus he was less than coherent when Aragorn stalked back through the trees in search of him.

'Come on,' said the human, looking irritated. 'I thought you were supposed to be good at this sneaking business.'

Glorfindel went bright red (always entertaining on someone pale blonde) and choked pointedly, waving a hand in front of his nose. Aragorn took a deep sniff.

'And?' he said, after apparently having savoured the smell of orc. 'It's not that bad, you pansy.'

Glorfindel managed to pull himself together again, and they advanced cautiously.

Shifting through the trees, they attempted an estimate of exactly how many orcs there were.

'I make it ninety-odd,' said Aragorn.

'That tallies with my count,' said Glorfindel. 'Still, the main question is; 'how in graceful Elbereth's name did ninety heavily armed orcs make it this close to Imladris?''

'Face it,' said Aragorn heavily. 'Since the whole . . . jewellery incident, we've all been slightly lax. I mean, once we'd all dealt with the threat on our immediate doorsteps, we sort of . . . '

'Had a bit of a rest?'

'Precisely. It can't have been that hard for them to make it up here; if they came from the south then, hmm, say they made it through or past Rohan; not difficult considering the sparse population, and it's not like the distance between Rohan and Imladris is exactly swarming with people either . . . '

'Well,' said the elf. 'Much as I hate to be the practical one here, musing on how they got here is not getting rid of them, is it?'

'No.'

'Can we handle ninety orcs?'

Aragorn rolled his eyes. 'You once out-fought, or at least out-ran the Nine. Not to mention the many glorious brawls you've taken part in over the millennia. And, oh, how could we forget? The balrog incident. And I've been fighting orcs most of my abnormally long, Numenorian life.' The human snorted. 'What was your question again?'

Glorfindel shook his head slightly disbelievingly. He'd forgotten, insulated as he was by the community of elves he lived in, how direct humans were. And how modest.

'So, is this a run-in-and-slaughter scenario or more of a pick-them-off-one-at-a-time thing?' he asked. Aragorn shrugged.

'We have no bows, so picking them off would require that we stalk and catch each one silently. Difficult. No,' and here he grinned. 'I think we'll have to go with the direct approach.'

Glorfindel sighed again. He was less than keen on the direct approach, especially where it applied to charging ninety unwashed orcs with only the obviously suicidal King of Gondor at your side, and when armed with only said King of Gondor's dagger, unearthed from the depths of his smelly trouser-legs.

Aragorn leapt through the underbrush, screaming at the top of his lungs.

'Anduril! Anduril for Gondor!' he cried, landing smack-bang in the midst of a group of very surprised orcs, who had apparently stopped for whatever the orcish equivalent of a smoko was.

Glorfindel joined him shortly afterwards.

'I hardly feel it's sporting to attack them when their weapons are in a pile against a tree and the most threatening thing they've got is a sandwich. At least I think it was a sandwich . . . '

'It was an orc sandwich, Glorfindel. Hardly the sort of thing someone eats when they're just off for a picnic. Cannibalism doesn't smack of peaceful intentions. I think in the circumstances we were quite justified in not being 'sporting'.'

'But they obviously had to undergo untold hardships to get here if they were forced to eat each other. I'd rather eat almost anything rather than orc.'

'Balrog shite?'

'There's no need to be crude. Honestly; who raised you? An Uruk-hai?'

'Actually, it was Elrond . . . '

'Never mind.'

To be continued . . .

Will Aragorn recover from the testosterone overload and remember why he hunted Glorfindel down in the first place? (maybe . . .)

Will Glorfindel break a nail? (stay tuned to find out!)

Will Elrond find out that Aragorn's been a discredit to his upbringing? (on reflection; probably not)

Will the author get flamed for the insane OOCness in this fic? (no flames so far, let's see if we can keep this streak going!)

Will there be another update sometime before the New Year? (hopefully)

And to all who reviewed; I love you all. Reviewers are gods. Hannon le.

PS: Ninety orcs? Pfff. Anyone who doubts that Aragorn and Glorfindel could take on ninety orcs and win, I refer you to, well, um quite a lot of places, but if you're a book lover; the Battle of Helm's Deep, Pg 528 in the one-volume Lord of The Rings, where Aragorn and Théoden, leading the remnants of their army, ride out in a last desperate charge and "Captains and champions fell or fled before them. Neither orc nor man withstood them." And if you're a movie-watcher instead (and if you are; read the books!); I have two words for you; Amon Hen. (for the completely Tolkien-illiterate; last big battle scene in FOTR)

I'm not sure if this fic is movie-verse or book-verse. Probably book-verse considering Glorfindel saved Frodo, actually, now that I think about it.