Disclaimer:

Masako: Do I own LotR?

Smeagol: No, Precious.

Gollum: But we wills, won't we, Precious?

Smeagol: No, we wont's!

Gollum: Yes! We wants it...

Smeagol: Belongs to Tolkienses, Precious!

Gollum: It's mine! My Precious!

Steph: Hey! Elvis! We need to get back in the story!

Gollum/Smeagol/Elvis: Yes, Stephses.

Masako: Okay...I don't own anything. Sorry for the delay.

AN: I am SOOOOOOOOOO sorry I haven't updated in so long. My teachers are all conspiring to kill me or something, and they're putting me through all heck at school. But I've finally conquered the worst of it (see? archery DOES come in handy!) and now I can update again. Sorry about keeping you guys waiting, though!


Chapter 10

I strictly forbade Frodo and Sam from going another step until I took care of Elvis. I was never exactly the matron saint of care giving and compassion, but Elvis was my friend, and I couldn't stand looking at the shredded skin around his neck.

I'd also like to add that I had almost failed the first aid portion of health class. So instead of doing whatever a respectable doctor would have done, I took the easy way out and applied some of Galadriel's salve.

Hey. It worked for Boromir, didn't it?

Elvis flinched when I touched it to his skin, no doubt recognizing its origins. But, despite the pain it caused him, he simply clenched his teeth and sat rigid as I applied the treatment. Once it was administered, Frodo stepped up to us.

"Are you finished?" he asked.

"Yup. It'll take a few hours to work all the way. Elvis, don't do anything overly stressful with your neck for a while." I turned to Frodo. "Frodo, don't make him do anything stressful for a while. Preferably never. All right?" The hobbit nodded.

"But the promise remains," he reminded me. "Gollum, take us to the Gate."

"To the Gate, the nice hobbit says, Stephses. To the Gate!" Elvis chirped, darting off between the rocks in his preferred way: on all fours. No longer restrained by Sam's rope, he was eager to run and stretch his legs, and he took full advantage of his new freedom. I didn't withold a chuckle.

"Wait up!" I called, racing after him. I heard his voice filtering through the rocks.

"To the Gate, to the Gate! To the Gate, the master says. Yes!" But then I heard another voice. At first I thought it was him, but it was strangely rough and cold.

"No!" it protested. "We won't go back. Not there. Not to Him! They can't make us!" It coughed hoarsely.

"But we swore to serve the master of the Precious," Elvis argued.

"No. Ashes and dust and thirst there is, and pits, pits, pits! And orcses, thousands of orcses. And always the Great Eye watching. Watching..." I finally managed to catch sight of him, and Frodo and Sam weren't far behind. I could see Elvis crouched against a rock, but the other speaker was out of sight. Elvis looked back at me, then saw the hobbits. He let out a tearing shriek and galloped away. I paused for a moment, puzzled. In that time, Frodo and Sam had caught up with me, and the latter hobbit was now breathing hard and clutching his side.

"Hey!" Sam shouted. "Come back now! Come back! There!" he turned to Frodo, completely ignoring me. "He's run off, the old villain. So much for his promises." I cuffed him on the back of the head, resulting in a satisfying 'Ow!'. "What was that for?"

"Just because somebody is faster than you doesn't make them a liar. Now stop whining and let's go." Needless to say, I had not yet forgiven Sam for the bruises on my arms or the swiftly healing skin around Elvis's neck.

Just at that moment, Elvis arrived on the scene, though from almost the opposite direction. I guess he really needed to get rid of that extra energy.

"This way, Stephses. This way, hobbits. Follow me!" he crowed, an started off again, though this time, it didn't seem that he was high on rocket fuel.

It honestly didn't take us long to get out of Emyn Muil. Only a few hours, which is more than decent, considering the three days the two hobbits had spent crawling through the rocks. Elvis knew the area well, and soon he was gliding across the rocks, followed by me, and eventually our two new companions, until he showed us an outcropping of stone that overlooked a nasty greenish yellowish brownish smelly mass, which looked suspiciously like three day old meatloaf surprise. I shuddered and focused my eyes on the horizon. A large mountain loomed in the distance, evidently a volcano, judging by the fire and dark smoke that had gathered along its peak.

"This place has its own personal Vesuvius. Nifty," I mused. Elvis shrugged, long past trying to figure out what I was talking about. Frodo, however, was not so wise.

"Vesuvius-Nifty? What is that?" he asked. Elvis and I both snickered a little at this.

"Nifty is just a word," I explained, after a threatening look from Sam. "It doesn't mean anything, except maybe 'wow' or something like that. It's an interjection. However," I felt that I had to seperate the words, to ward off too much more confusion. "Vesuvius was a volcano, a firey mountain, I've heard them called. There's a lot of them where I come from, so everyone's used to them. But Vesuvius was a famous volcano, which blew up and swalllowed an entire island in molten stone. And judging by the looks of that little ant hill over there, Mordor's in store for an eruption pretty soon. Don't you think so?" Frodo grimaced.

"The name of the mountain there," he said quietly, "is Mount Doom. And that is where we are heading." This resulted in a perfect I Love Lucy Eeeiiiwww face.

"I see," I said at last, recovering from my surprise. "Well, I hope we miss any major eruptions."

We made our way down the ledge and following slope with some caution. Elvis stopped suddenly when we reached the giant mass of old meatloaf. Not surprisingly, it smelled like old meatloaf, and more than a little raw egg.

Sulfer, I decided, not abandoning my old rock loving ways.

"See?" Elvis interrupted my analysis of the source of the sulfer and the components of the moldy looking mass before us. "See? We've led you out. Hurry, hobitses. Hurry! Very lucky we find you," he turned to Sam and grinned. "Nice hobbit," he said, evidently trying to make peace with his new companion. It was a noble undertaking, but not a very successful one. Sam said nothing at first, and walked in the direction that Elvis had gestured to. For a moment, his foot was suspended on the squishy looking moldy stuff, but then it sank out of sight, covered by foul looking water, that accompanied a positively evil stench.

"It's a bog," Sam narrated in disgust. "He's led us into a swamp."

"I don't think so," I commented. "I think this is the legendary place where lunchladies get the filling for the burritos. I knew it was contaminated."

"A swamp, yes, yes," Elvis corrected. "Come, master, come, Stephses. We will take you on safe paths through the mist. Come, hobbits!" He called again. I was already beside him, fighting an urge to vomit all over Sam. It was tempting, though. "Come! We go quickly. I found it. I did. The way through the marshes."

"Marsh? That's great. You know, we could really use some fish and cheese, and a couple boxes of cookies wouldn't be a bad thing either...But you never know what kind of crazed orcs you might run into at your local grocery store, do you?" Evidently, everybody missed my joke.

"Orcs don't use it," Elvis continued. "Orcs don't know it. They go around for miles and miles. Come quickly. Soft and quick as shadows we must be..."

"Are shadows really quick, though?" I asked. "I mean, they only move as fast as the person in front of them, right? Or do shadows not need those here? I don't know about here, but where I come from, it's usually a bad sign if shadows start moving around on thier own." Sam was giving me a weird look, like I had just swallowed a watermelon whole. "What?"

"Where are you from, Steph?" Frodo asked suddenly.

"Boy, your timing is off," I chuckled carefully following Elvis onto the swampland. "Never become an international diplomat. But I'm from Illinois."

"Ill-Annoy? That explains a lot," Sam muttered.

"Yup," I said with an evil grin, stopping suddenly in my tracks. Sam, who was walking behing me, walked headfirst into me, his head suddenly embedded in my waist. "Pervert," I hissed, thwaking him over the side of the head.

"Ow! What was that all about?" the hobbit demanded. "I didn't do anything!"

"Sure you didn't," I said, making sure to drip an unhealthy dose of sarcasm from my voice.

"Are you all right, Sam?" Frodo asked. Immediately Sam straightened, the glare wiped from his face.

"I'm fine, Mr. Frodo," he piped. I watched him in amazement.

"Where on Earth do you get all your energy?" I asked. "Do you eat chocolate for breakfast or something? Or just a lot of carbs?" Frodo tried to ease the confused look from his face as he continued to walk.

"Cha-Ka-Laht? Carhbs? What are they?" he asked. I pondered this question for a few moments.

"Either one could arguably be considered the root of all evil," I said finally. "But everybody loves them anyway."

"Everybody in Il-y-noi, right?" he inquired.

"Illinois. And yes, that's right." Frodo glanced suspiciously at his shirt.

"Is it safe to speak of them?" he asked tentatively.

"Sure," I said.

"Why do your people love what you call the roots of all evil?" he asked. Elvis was humming to himself a few dozen feet away, testing the ground for stability.

"They aren't really," I explained, laughing. "Um...how do I put this? Both of them are kinds of foods. Chocolate is brown and sweet, and good, and it makes you feel good, and it makes people (especially little kids) more hyper than you can imagine, and it's great for PMS"

"Piyemmess?"

"Never mind. But anyway, it's great. Then there's carbs. They're really good too."

"And what are they?"

"Let's see. Carbs are bread, and pasta, and anything sweet, and rice, and..." I continued listing random carbohydrate infested items.

"Bread? Taters?" Sam asked. "You can't be serious. Bread and taters, evil? That's not possible!"

"To you and me, not at all. But I never said that we were the ones condemning them, did I?"

"Then who is?" Frodo asked. I laughed again, amused by his insistance.

"Cheerleaders, preps, et cetra. You know the type: all of those people that are so obsessed with being the center of attention that they'd decapitate themselves for a scrap of popularity."

"Yes. Like Lobelia," Frodo said with a sad smile. Now it was my turn to be confused.

"Who?" I asked.

"Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. A cousin of mine," Frodo explained. "I'm not sure what these 'cheerleaders-preps-etcetra' are, but I think I understand what you mean."

"If she means pompous, selfish, stubborn, mulish, lazy..." Sam chimed in.

"That's the one! Ha! And I thought I'd finally escaped thier evil clutches. Oh well. Your cousin isn't comming over here, if she's anything like the people I'm talking about."

Our soft laughter echoed through the air, and I was suddenly reminded of how vast the swamp was. I shuddered.

"Boy, this place is creepy," I said. "You know, you could shoot a great horror flic here. 'Return of the Mummy of the Bride of the Son of the Wife of the Swamp Beast,' or something like that. It would be great."

"What?" Frodo asked, looking at me like I was crazy. I didn't argue. I probably was.

"Never mind."