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A/N: Well, Merry Christmas, happy belated Chanukah, happy early Kwanzaa, happy early New Year, and happy Saturday! Now, as to the stuff in this chapter – the first badfic is based on a compilation of real fics and stereotypical errors. The second is based on a real challenge we found. Neither is meant to offend anyone. "Newsies" is a Disney musical about newspaper boys striking in the early 1900s. Enjoy, and welcome to any new readers we may have picked up in our change to the LOTR subcat!
Dalamar the Dark and the Seven Dwarves… Elves
Dalamar called the meeting to order once more, and ordered the first round of drinks. The first thing on his agenda tonight was informing some of the participants in the group of new abuse. As if that weren't enough, Skywise had insisted that he was ready to go on a recruiting mission alone, and was expected soon with this week's speakers.
Before he could start, two elves came through the door, both rather haggard looking. "Adar!" Legolas cried in surprise from across the room. "I thought you were too busy to come this week!" Legolas' father shrugged noncommittally.
Dalamar looked quite pleased about the fact that his group had apparently become more famous. "Welcome, friend. As one of our member's father, I'm sure you will be an excellent member of our group if you wish it. Will you, sir, introduce yourself, and say something about your problems?"
The elf from Middle Earth nodded in acknowledgement. "As I'm sure you could see, I am Legolas' father. My name is Thranduil, and I am king of Mirkwood. My biggest problems are being portrayed as a drunkard, due to a rather raucous party I was hosting when Bilbo came around, and abusing my son. The degrees of abuse change, and I've seen everything from grounding him for life to beating and raping him. But I assure you, we are truly on very good terms!" Legolas shifted over, making room for his father, while supporting his statement.
Dalamar looked around happily. "If we can resume our discussion? I have some bad news, friends. Our human agents have found some new, even more obscene instances of abuse, and we felt you needed to know." He took out a stack of papers that looked suspiciously like photocopies. He passed them around the table.
"Well, Legolas," Dalamar's voice was completely serious. "It looks as though you've found yourself a new lover." Legolas looked up, questioning. He grimaced in anticipation. A similar, compassionate look was on his father's face. "Our very own Drizzt Do'Urden." Legolas put his head in his hands in despair.
"Well," Drizzt began, deadpan. "You are very pretty." At Legolas' look of pure terror, a big grin spread over his face, and he through his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I'm just kidding! Take it easy, kid." He chuckled, and Legolas hesitantly smiled back.
Haldir, who had been reading while he laughed at the normally serious drow's joke, spoke up. "Wow, this is really something." Tears of mirth were streaming from his eyes. At his prompting, the others looked at the papers they'd been handed.
"It was a lovely day in mirkwod. Leglas greenleaf and Drizt Dourden were walking along the paths, there hands clasped. Suddenly, passion overtook the 2 elves. They pulled each other close and kissed deeply…" The rest of the first chapter continued along that vein.
Galadriel, who had just been skimming the first chapter, got further along. "See? I told you I'm always the shrink. Listen: 'Of course I now about you 2. I now everything that goes on in my relm. Love is nothing to be ashamed of, my dear elfies. Now, I'll leave you 2 in peece.' I never knew how illiterate I was." She said dryly.
As the group was laughing over the awful writing, Dalamar heard the knock he'd been dreading. Skywise bounded in, nodding almost imperceptibly to the twins. "Hi everyone! I'm still working on getting the speakers here; they walk very slowly. But, I did find something I'm sure Dally and Pet would want you to know about." He tossed some rolls of paper to the crowd.
Elrond caught his neatly and opened the ties. As he looked at the title page, he rapidly changed colors, going from his normal pale tone to bright red to purple, to a blotchy blueberry cheesecake color, to sheet white. His eyebrows touched his receding hairline in shock. He began to hyperventilate. Behind his back, the twins snickered.
By that time, Dalamar had gotten his scroll opened as well. He stared at it in shock and horror. "Holy Nuitari! What is this? I'd rather be paired with Drizzt than with Elrond!" There was a minute of shocked silence. Elrond was still too much in shock to so much as glare at the dark elf for the slight. Legolas, who was still fumbling with the ribbon on his copy, tried to save the humor of a minute ago. "Sorry. It seems as if Drizzt is already taken in this group!"
At that instant, he got the ties open and looked at it. Apparently, the obliging author had included a list of pairings. "Haldir, again? Do these people have no originality?" He rolled his eyes. "Wait, who's Tanis? And Kit, who's that?"
Dalamar sighed. This was even worse than he had anticipated. "Tanis is a half-elf from my world. Kitiara was a former lover of mine who died rather violently, as she lived." He did not elaborate, deciding to change the subject. "Lady Galadriel, who is Arwen?" He noticed that Galadriel had gone sheet white.
"To people who have actually read the books, not just seen the movies, she's my granddaughter through my daughter Celebrian and my son-in-law Elrond." She was keeping her voice carefully calm.
Haldir and Glorfindel went to comfort the Lady of Lorien, and Glorfindel explained, "She usually doesn't get paired with anyone other than Haldir or her husband. And the people who don't read our books are menaces – they've put first cousins Merry and Pippin together hundreds of times."
Finally, the elves got over their shock at what turned out to be only a challenge, so far. Dalamar helpfully lit a magical fire, and the elves were taking great pleasure in throwing their copies into the blaze. During the excitement, Skywise had snuck away again. While watching the elves from Middle Earth vehemently venting their anger, Drizzt walked over to Dalamar. "At least no one has put us together yet, as far as I know."
"True." Dalamar quieted for a minute, thinking he heard laughter. His thoughts were interrupted once more with the arrival of Skywise. He bounded in, followed by seven short, bearded men dressed in warm looking, bright red suits. They had green caps with bells, and shoes with long, pointed toes that were similarly decorated.
Dalamar stared at them dubiously, not wanting to offend, but not wanting this meeting to turn to disaster as the others had. "Um, my good sirs, aren't Snow White's noble companions dwarves? We do appreciate the service you gentlemen did for the fairy tale community, but this is a group for elves only." He glared pointedly at Skywise, who just grinned.
One of the dwarves, who was standing as a leader, stared at Dalamar as though he'd grown a second head. "Look, buddy." His voice was deep, throaty and hoarse, and gave the suggestion of an Italian mobster. "Do I look like a dwarf to you?" As the dwarflike man spoke, his accent became more prominent and more apparently fake. At Dalamar's shocked silence, he continued. "Hey, I'm talkin' to you! Yeah, that's right. You in the dress. We ain't no dwarves, so shut your trap."
"Uh…" Dalamar could feel the sweat forming on his forehead. "I'm terribly sorry for the misunderstanding, good sir. My colleague failed to tell me that you gentlemen were the speakers. Now, if you would introduce yourselves, I'll allow you to get on with your lecture." Dalamar winced, anticipating what horrific things the lecture could contain.
The leader drew himself up to his full three feet or so of height. "I am Carl and these are my colleagues – Bill, Joe, John, Ralph, Bob, and Precious." Legolas bit back a laugh when he realized that the last, Precious, was a female. He remembered his friend Gimli telling him that all dwarves had beards, but he'd never heard of an elf sporting facial hair, let alone a maid! Elladan and Elrohir, however, had no such problems with laughing, and were doing so rather raucously in the back of the room.
Carl, however, seemed not to notice. "We are some of Santa's Elves, and we live in the North Pole. We heard about your plight, and decided that we have your answer. You need unions."
He waited a minute for that information to sink in. Most of the elves had completely blank looks on their faces. He rolled his eyes. "Guilds? Come on, you can't tell me you hadn't thought of it before?" He looked at the elves rather ashamed faces. "In a union is protection. Unions have power. They go on strikes, they get pay raises! Come on, people!"
"Um, we're not paid." Zegaldis piped up from the back of the room. "And, we can't really go on strikes when half of this stuff isn't done with our consent in the first place."
Carl rolled his eyes again, much to the annoyance of some of the Middle Earth Elves. "How plain do you want me to make this? Okay, I'll tell you what happened with us. See, we work for the big guy. You know, Santa. So, years ago, we was like slaves. We had to work from dawn 'til dusk, and later, even when we couldn't see. Whenever the big guy came around, we had to be smiling, or we'd get kicked out."
"So," the one called Precious continued. "We finally heard about the humans forming unions, and thought it might be a good idea." Though her voice was nearly as deep and husky as Carl's, it didn't have the fake accent. "So, we started to meet clandestinely at night after work, and came up with a plan. After several weeks, we had finally gotten an organized group. As soon as we could, we had a sit down strike. We refused to work until we got pay raises, better living conditions, and benefits. Any questions?" She seemed to have taken over from Carl.
"Yeah, I do." Elladan's sarcastic voice cut through the turmoil. "If we don't control what they write, how can we strike?"
Precious seemed at a loss for words, but finally had an idea. "Little girl, two years back. Newsies…" She muttered cryptically under her breath. "You should publish your own stories. The press holds more power than you might think! Maybe if you published these meetings. Anyway, you already have a group. All you need is some backbone!"
At this, all of the elves bristled, especially Dalamar and Drizzt. Dalamar fought to get his emotions back under control. "Well, thank you all for your time and discussion topic. We will keep your suggestions in mind." He politely showed the 'elves' to the door.
As they left, the other elves breathed a collective sigh of relief. As the tension left the room, they all turned to glare at Skywise, but he had already, wisely, left. Finally, after several companionable glasses of wine, the elves started to leave in small groups. As Drizzt was leaving, Thranduil pulled the young Drow over.
"Now," the king of Mirkwood began, with a mischievous smirk. "You be sure to treat my son well." He grinned.
Drizzt smiled back. "I will if you will."
A/N: Well, hope you all enjoyed this new chapter of madness! To our faithful reviewers:
Lazy.kender19: Oops, sorry about the confusion between the two. But, I'm glad you feel we did right by 6 otherwise. Hope this chapter did not disappoint.
Guan: Glad you enjoyed, and thought that the fight scene was good.
Juno Magic: I'm glad you could sympathize with 6 – I think we all can! Hmm, AHFAFFC, I may have to do something with that…
Sorcerous One: My apologies, oh fountain of Drizzt knowledge. Maybe over break I'll actually read the books, and can then write stuff about him without being bashed by you!
