Chapter 8: Brown Dresses, Huge Paniers and Gollum Impressions.

Amber and Mary ran down the hall with Ramses and Emerson only a few feet behind. Katie was around the corner, but they could hear her yelling "Get back here Mary! You too Amber! I swear if you bring anyone else here you shall be put to death by stoning!!"

Amber and Mary exchanged amused glances and ran faster.

They reached the door to the library and Amber opened it. Just as soon as Mary tried to jump in Ramses lunged forward and grabbed her ankle. They both fell with a loud thump and Emerson, unable to stop, tripped over Ramses legs and fell on top of Mary.

Amber sighed and said, "What do you think this is, human dominoes?! We have work to do!"

Amber pulled Ramses and Emerson up and pushed them into the library. Mary followed glowering.

As Amber closed the door Mary said grumpily, "What did you grab me for Ramses? We were going to let you in too, you didn't have to be so damned violent! AND you didn't appologise. AND nobody helped me up! I can't-"

"Will you shut up Mary!" Amber interrupted. "Just because Emerson is here doesn't mean you need to be such a drama queen!"

"Yes it does!" Mary said haughtily. Katie finally got to the door and started to bang on it... well she triped on the hem of her skirt and fell into the door first.

"Um, never mind that." said Emerson, extremely embarrased. "I hope you aren't going to be doing any more spells. The last ones were rather..... erm...." He trailed off watching Mary and Amber advancing slowly with their 'sticks' raised. "They were... um.... rather distracting... um..."

"Oh, you think those were distracting do you?" Mary asked with an evil grin. "I could always put a love spell on you, now that would be distracting!"

"Hey, hold on, you can't do that!" said Ramses. "He's married you know!"

Mary and Emerson spoke at the same time.

"NO HE'S NOT!! Well, not YET anyways."

"WHAT?! MARRIED?! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"

Ramses rolled his eyes and said tiredly "Well how do you think you have a son then?"

"Um I don't know about you four, but some of us are trying to read!" said Jada popping her head above a chair, Pippin's head comming up beside her's. The four of them looked at the two hobbits funny. "Keep it down or I'll... do something terrible to you both."

"Oh, and you're sure that the two of you are just reading?" asked Amber innocently.

Jada just rolled her eyes and turned around.

"Anyways, lets get off that subject." said Mary, trying to stop Emerson from asking who he was married to. "We need to bring back Jesse."

"What?" said Ramses. "I thought you said you wouldn't bring back anyone else!"

"Yeah, well we lied." said Amber, pulling out her spellbooks. "Go and find the Mediator books Mary."

After a short search Mary found the fifth Mediator book and handed it to Amber. Amber prepared to do the spell, but Mary stopped her.

"Hold on," she said. "Are you sure there's a spell to make him visible once we bring him here?"

"Of cource," said Amber. "I checked up on that before we got here. Amerna prestofkle moldeaslred kepetyo."

While she was saying it, Emerson said, "But, why can't we see this person?"

Mary shrugged and said "Cuz he's dead."

Emerson and Ramses gaped at Mary astonished as there was a bright light in the room. Emerson looked around wildly, but he couldn't see anyone there.

Jada's head popped over the chair again. "What was that?!" she yelled.

"Nothing, nothing, go back to your Pippin- er I mean book." said Amber. She then opened the spell book to a different page and said a new spell. "Jukkilop berrtyujgh ollikasterwod."

There was a faint glow in the middle of the room, and it formed into a human shape. It grew more clear until the four of them could see Jesse de Silva standing in the middle of the room, looking dazed.

"Wh-what happened?" he asked "Where am I?"

"Typical response." Mary said. "You are in Middle Earth Jesse."

Jesse looked around at Ramses then Emerson then Mary then Amber... then at her ears. They were pointed.

"Yes, yes I know... it's the pointed ears isn't it?" asked Amber pointing to her elf ears. Jesse looked stuned. "Thought so... elf, probably never heard of one before though. Mary you tell Jesse everything, Ramses and I are going for a walk."

Ramses looked puzzled as Amber pulled him out the door. "We are?" he asked as Amber opened up the door revealing Katie trying to get the elves to ram an enormous battering ram into the doors.

"There you are!" Katie yelled angrily. "You locked me out again! And you had better not have brought anyone else back!"

Mary grinned and said, "Oh, I doubt you mean that."

Katie was about to say something when she looked into the room at Jesse. "Oohh, he's kinda hot..."

"That there be Jesse De Silva, you aught to know him Katie." said Amber pulling Ramses a long almost running into Mercedes and Legolas. Katies eyes popped out of her head and she ran into the library and tackled Jesse.

"I think he finally likes me!" Mercedes whispered to Amber, who then rolled her eyes and continued to drag Ramses down the long hall way.

"This will take forever. MARY! I need your help!" yelled Amber. Mary came running down the hallway with Emerson in tow.

"What do you want?" asked Mary. "I wanted to watch Katie and Jesse, they are so funny!"

"Yeah, we need to get to the garden... oh no. It's Arwen." said Amber looking at the she-elf in horror.

"Lady Amber and Lady Mary, you two must come with me right now... the counsel starts in one hour, and you two boys must go with Legolas, he will show you where everything you need is. Your friends are comming too. Come." said Arwen taking Amber and Mary's arms then walking down the hall.

"Are they allright?" Emerson asked Katie as he watched Arwen dragging the two screaming girls down the hall.

"Oh yeah, they'll be fine." said Mercedes. "An experience in a real dress will do them some good."

"Please! NO DRESSES!" said Amber nearly falling over her skirt and up the stairs. Arwen didn't say anything just lead them to a most beautiful room.

"Oh... is this my room?" asked Mary walking over to the closet and looking at all of the dresses. "The dress thing is a bit of a let down, but still! Look at this room Amber! The amazing architecture..."

"Whatever." said Amber disinterestedly. Mary's eccentricities were huge. "Where's my room?"

"How about we make a deal." said Arwen. "If you wear a dress to the counsel you can have the room and I will place Emerson in the next room over."

"You got it!" Mary yelled and started looking through the dresses.

"You can't bribe ME that easily." said Amber warily.

"Oh I think I can." said Arwen. "If you wear a dress I will place you beside Mary and then Ramses on your other side." she paused a moment then said, "I also have quite a few pushpins here that might persuade you..."

Amber gasped then said "Allright, allright. But... only since you asked so nicely. It had NOTHING to do with pushpins!"

Mary put on a pale blue dress and Amber put on a royal purple dress and they headed downstairs.

IN THE LIBRARY:

Arwen came down to meet the rest of them who were sitting with the hobbits trying to explain to Jesse what he was doing there. Katie looked permanently attached to his arm.

"I shall show you all to your rooms now." said Arwen.

"What did you do with Mary?" asked Emerson. He paused then added, "And Amber as well."

"They have been shown to their rooms and persuaded to wear dresses to the ceremony." Arwen replied.

Mercedes looked at her in awe." How did you do that?!" she said incredulously. Arwen just smiled and led the way upstairs.

Everyone dressed for the counsel, though the dresses were too big for the hobbits. Victoria was very put out by this.

"Can't you just shorten it a bit?" she asked about a brown dress with huge paniers that had taken her fancy.

One of her assistants said to her, "A little bit! We would have to take off about four feet!"

She wore the dress anyway, much to the others amusement.

They met in the great hall of the castle.They were all looking extremely impressive (except for the hobbits; Jada and Leigh-Ann were in regular clothes and Victoria looked like a parchute). Mary and Amber were missing however.

"Maybe they're too scared to come out in dresses." Katie said.

Emerson gave her a dirty look. "Mary isn't scared of anything, much less a dress. Besides, they couldn't be more scared than YOU were!"

"Yes but that was the OTHER dress." said Katie.

Mercedes was helping Katie pick a dress. Marce forced Katie to wear a bubble gum pink dress. Needless to say, Katie wasn't appeased. She put up such a fuss that Marce let her put on a different one that was dark green. Mercedes wore the bubble gum pink one.

"So where are they then?!" asked Emerson. Everyone shrugged.

He got up to leave, but Arwen stopped him. "You can't leave now." she said. "We must start without them. They will show up eventually."

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Mary and Amber were scrambling around the library looking for more spell books. They were fairly slow, since their dresses kept tripping them up.

"Hurry up Amber, We're going to be late!" said Mary.

Amber glanced up at the clock. "Oh no, we are late!" she said.

"Why don't we use a teleporting spell?!" asked Mary.

"Good idea!" said Amber. They clasped hands and said the spell....

.... and appeared in the air above the counsel!

They began to plummet down, both of them screaming at the top of their lungs. Everyone looked up and scattered, except for Emerson. He ran underneath, presumably to cath them, but it didn't work out as he had planned.

Amber knocked him onto his back and fell heavily on top of him. Mary fell separately and laned on the one ring.

"Sorry about that." said Amber as she got off of Emerson. He had the wind knocked out of him, but managed to sit up.

"Are..... you..... allright.... Mary....?" he wheezed, trying to get his breath back.

"Yeah, I'm fine, though Amber did the stupid spell wrong!" she said. "You couldn't have gotten us just a BIT closer to the ground?!"

The rest of the counsel appeared. They were taking their seats when Legolas exclaimed, "The one ring! It's gone!"

"Oh, don't worry! It's right here!" said Mary holding it up.

Legolas sighed in relief and said, "Good. Just put it back on the pedestal now please."

Mary looked at the ring then said in a hoarse voice, "But its my preccciousssssss. You cannot take the precccciousssssssss. You wants to STEAL the precccciousssss!"

Everyone was silent as they stood in sheer disbelief. Mary rolled her eyes and said "Oh come on, I was just kidding!" and she placed the ring on the pedestal.

Mary grabbed Emerson's arm and went to sit down for the counsel.

Gandalf was shocked at the magical ability of these two girls. Their spells did go somewhat haywire, but they had only had their powers for a day and they were doing spells that only grays could perform!

At the end of the counsel everyone went back inside except Mary. Emerson wanted to ask her why, but Amber persuaded him to leave her alone. She sometimes needed to be by herself in order to arrange her thoughts.

She began to walk around the garden when she saw in her mind the vision of a burning eye, calling to her from the forest. She felt compelled to follow and she walked slowly into the trees...

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"Where is she going?" asked Katie who was watching Mary from the window.

"I don't know.... You might want to follow her Katie." said Amber

"I'll come with you." said Jesse, who had gotten over his shock and was becoming entranced with this strange world.

"So will I." said Emerson, but Amber stopped him.

"You two go." she told Katie and Jesse who then followed Mary. "Let them go by themselves." she said to Emerson. "They'll be fine I'm sure."

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Mary could sense nothing but an overwhelming need to find the source of the eye. She moved quickly through the trees and couldn't hear Katie and Jesse following and calling her name.

"What is wrong with her?" asked Katie, still holding onto Jesse's arm.

"I don't know. Maybe she-" Here he was interrupted as an army of orcs burst out of the trees!

Mary gasped and stopped as one of them grabbed her arm. The trance was broken, but she was still somewhat slow. As she fumbled for her dagger, the orc hit her in the stomach and she collapsed, hitting her head on the ground and becoming unconcious.

The orc picked her up and spoke to his companions in his strange language. They all shouted something and ran, carrying Mary in front of them.

Katie and Jesse chased after, but they weren't as fast as the orcs.

Jesse stopped Katie and said. "I shall follow them, you must go back and tell the others!"

"Oh, but-" Katie started, but Jesse dematerialized. "Oh, damn!" she said and ran back to the castle.

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In the library of the castle, Emerson stood pacing in the middle of the room.

"Where the devil are they?!" he yelled. "I can't imagine what is taking them so long, I think-"

He stopped as Katie rushed breathlessly into the room. "We have to go!" she yelled. "Mary's been kidnapped! Jesse followed her-"

"Oh no!" Amber yelled. Emerson turned and turned his glare to her.

"Oh yes, and they are perfectly safe, eh?!"

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MWAHAHAHA!! TBC....

HAHA VIC! HUGE PANIERS!! BROWN DRESS! hehehe. it was all Katie's idea, I swear!