THAT RUGGED RANGER CAUSES TROUBLE AGAIN!
By Luton Airport and Bricket Wood Services
Disclaimer: All place and character names belong to Tolkien; their sadly twisted personalities now belong to us. It should also be noted that characterisation of major, well characters has probably been influenced somewhat by the fantastic work of the Bagenders authors. Go read their work now!
Feedback: Constructive criticism and praise welcome.
Summary: The tale continues yet again, only this time our favourite motley crew are on their way to save Gondor. Will they succeed? Will they fail? Is Eowyn really a man? Is Grima really a small furry rodent of disputable evolutionary origin? All these questions plus morewill never be answered in this fantastic piece of literary genius. Therefore, read on!
Be warned, strange humour with mild language and some strong slashy overtones lies within.
Our story begins with a most miraculous and completely unbelievable event. It's supposed to tell the tale of how Aragorn, son of Arathorn, future King of Gondor, met and wooed the love of his life. But, alas! Instead, it is a tragic tale of magic gone wrong and the ensuing jealousy, a tale of battles and victories and loss, a tale of pipeweed and mushrooms and squirrels. And it begins with one man storming Isengard, that most infamous stronghold of the traitor Saruman the White. So suspend your sense of belief here dear readers and follow us, as the tale begins…
Legolas, the rather good-looking, acid-tongued son of Thranduil, King of Mirkwood, watched somewhat dumbfounded as Aragorn, Chieftain of the Dunedain, fled from his side to wade up to the entrance of Orthanc. It took a few minutes but he got there in the end and Legolas watched, riveted, as Aragorn, wet and dishevelled somehow managed to persuade the Ent on guard to let him into the tower. In fact, quite how he achieved this is actually a very interesting tale that we won't bother you with now, but suffice to say it involved a lot of ants, entdraught and those blue flowers nobody knows the name of anymore. But we digress…
Legolas, standing on the far side of the temporary lake, used his superior elven hearing to listen, in something akin to horror to the bangs and clangs and unearthly screams that marked Aragorn's passage as he fought his way up the tower. There followed one last BOING and for a few moments silence reigned supreme. Legolas stood, transfixed, waiting for whatever would happen next. His patience was soon rewarded as Aragorn finally emerged from the tower, dragging somebody by the ankle along behind him.
"Master! Master! Save me! Help me Master!" the somebody wailed. Whoever it was, they had a very annoying voice, Legolas distantly noted.
Suddenly Saruman emerged onto the balcony and Legolas watched, fascinated, as the wizard had a nose at what was going on below. The aged Maiar took in the scene and laughed a bit.
"And welcome to the witless worm you are too! Good luck!"
So Legolas then stood by, helpless in his shock, as Aragorn prized the person's fingers from the doorframe, threw the struggling figure over his shoulder and proceeded to wade back across the water. As he reached Legolas the man shifted the somebody into a more comfortable position before trotting back to the rest of their party. Legolas then found himself following the ranger out of a rather twisted need to see what could possibly happen next. He arrived at the makeshift campsite just in time to see Aragorn tie the somebody over his saddle, stolen-maiden style.
At that point the others in the group took one look at Aragorn, and one look at Legolas, and decided that they really didn't want to know.
"What's going on? Legolas? Are you alright?"
The Elf turned to look at Eomer. He kept looking at the man for a very long time until eventually he pointed to Aragorn. At that moment the somewhat ragged ranger moved and revealed none other than Grima Wormtongue.
Eomer gasped.
The journey from Isengard to Edoras remained a bit of a blur for Legolas years after the War of the Ring had ended. All he knew for certain was that Eomer and himself had spent much of the ride in a sort-of catatonic state of shock, whilst making random bits of conversation with each other that consisted of little more than the odd grunt now and then whenever they noticed Aragorn manhandling his new love bunny. This was often.
Eventually though they arrived at Edoras and Aragorn had to leave Grima alone for a little while whilst he wandered off to confer with Gandalf and Theoden. To ensure the safety of his most beloved wombat, he tied Grima to his horse before he left.
Everyone eyed the ex-councillor suspiciously, having yet to forgive the man his Grand Betrayal of Rohan. They began to edge closer, and Grima began to back away as best he could. It wasn't enough. Legolas and Eomer, having seen the man left alone, snapped. They jumped upon the poor fellow and proceeded to slap him silly.
Aragorn returned a while later to find his little squirrel in a right old state. The poor man was covered in red palm prints and his hair was in a frightful mess. He sighed and picked his precious chickadee up off the ground, kissing better all his bruises. He gave the other man a quick hug before noticing Eomer and Legolas standing very near-by, looking innocently at the sky and commenting on the weather. He patted his precious poodle on the bum and walked up to the pair.
"Did you see what happened to my Grima?"
"No, we haven't seen anything out of the ordinary at all, have we Legolas?"
"No. Why? What's wrong Aragorn?"
"Someone's beaten up my dinky puppy-dog!" he said, looking around at Grima, a bit concerned. If Legolas didn't know who his love bunny's assailant was, how on earth was he ever going to figure it out? He was nowhere near as smart as the elf was, and he wasn't any good at guessing games either!
In his brooding, Aragorn completely missed Legolas rolling his eyes skyward, whilst giving Eomer an amused look. But as Aragorn turned to him the Prince gave the man a sympathetic look.
"Oh no! That's terrible! Who would do such a thing?"
"Yes, we should be sticking together in these troubled times."
Aragorn nodded agreement, relieved at his friends concern over the assault of his diddy lamby-poo. 'Well, if you're sure you didn't see anything…"
"Sorry Aragorn, but we'll let you know if we get any news."
"Oh, most definitely."
"Thanks very much." As Aragorn rushed off back to Grima he completely missed Eomer and Legolas collapsing into silent mirth behind him.
Eowyn had watched these proceedings through narrowed eyes. Here, for our most esteemed readers are the thought patterns of Eowyn as she watched the above events unfold.
"I give up! The only two men in the world I've ever loved and they now fancy the socks off each other! Typical! Absolutely typical! That is it! I've had enough, I'd be better off dead with the way things are going now. Sod all this namby-pamby find-a-husband-and-settle-down nonsense, I'm going to war! I'm as good as any man when it comes to fighting, I'll show them! And if I have to die then I might as well do it in style and die a heroic shield-maidens death. Men! I'll take a few of them with me too, that I'm sure of. And who knows? This might give me the opportunity to show-up that stupid brother of mine once and for all! Stupid man, out-butched by his own sister! Hey, that sounds pretty good actually, where's my war horse?"
It was eventually decided that the Company should ride south to Gondor in an effort to better fight off the massed legions of the Dark Lord. After a few very long, very boring days everyone was camped out for what was to be a very eventful night. Which was just as well really. Everybody was getting a bit bored of riding now and snippy arguments were to be heard frequently. In fact, they weren't just bored with the riding; now that the adrenalin of war was wearing off they were all realising just how boring other manly men actually were, and they were all beginning to give serious doubt as to why they had come on this stupid expedition at all! So an eventful night was bound to do the world of good for our favourite group of manly men who, to be frank, would have found a dying sparrow exciting at this point. Yes, busy was good!
It began with Gandalf riding off to Minas Tirith, with Pippin to keep him company. Aragorn had always had his doubts about that young hobbit and he guessed tonight's swift departure proved him right in his suspicions. The hobbit had finally managed to seduce Gandalf and now they were eloping together to the city. Aragorn was very pleased with his deduction and a sense of inherited elven smugness was just setting in when he was roused from his musings by the sound of approaching horses.
Cue the entrance of two exceptionally gorgeous elves, pretty enough to give Legolas a run for his money (as he saw who was approaching the Prince pouted in consternation. Damn! He was no longer the prettiest). Oh yes, and they had brought Halbarad and a bunch of Aragorn's ranger friends with them.
Aragorn was overwhelmed to see the visitors. His brothers had come! That must mean Elrond had sent him some vital piece of information that would spare him the bother of having to work out what to do next all by himself. Elbereth bless the old man!
He went to greet the Twins and they were soon joined by Legolas, who had gotten over his mini-sulk quickly enough when he had realised that here were the two people most likely to be sympathetic to his plight regarding Aragorn. The man began the introductions and as soon as he got round to Eomer he saw that the Twins interest had suddenly become hooked. He smiled to himself. Poor Eomer, he was in for a right old time.
A little while later and Eomer watched with a small measure of trepidation as the Twins approached him.
"As we're about to set off into dangers unknown that will no doubt claim the lives of us all…"
"Do you fancy some hot elven lovin'?"
"No!" He couldn't quite believe this 'conversation', and he decided it was time he take Legolas' warning to heart. He started to look for ways out of the situation.
"You sure? There's two of us, it could be fun", they wheedled, persuasively.
"No! Now just…" Eomer suddenly found himself distracted by a really interesting dying sparrow. "Later, later" he replied to the Twins distractedly.
A meeting was called with all the major characters attending to take counsel on what they would do next. Elrohir delivered Elrond's advice and because he couldn't be bothered to think of an alternate plan of action himself, Aragorn agreed to go with Elrond's command that they take the Paths of the Dead. It was also decided to keep this plan hush-hush from the men because they didn't want them all running away like little girls before morning.
And thus it was that everyone settled down for the night, and after the excitement of the sparrow's brilliant performance earlier on had died out, most of the men got a pretty decent night's sleep. This was just as well really when come morning Aragorn announced his intention to take the Paths of the Dead to Gondor.
"Right men! And elves, thank you Legolas, yes and hobbits too Merry, put the sword down, put the sword down! Someone disarm that hobbit! Thank you young man." Aragorn breathed a sigh of relief at having survived such a near death experience before he boldly carried on.
"Right people! It is very important that we get to Minas Tirith quickly in order to save it from the forces of evil. You have before you a very difficult decision to make. You go through the Paths of the Dead with me or you can go through the evil haunted woods with Theoden your King."
En masse all of the Riders of Rohan went over to Theoden's side of the clearing. Aragorn looked crestfallen at his side, which contained Eomer and twenty of his best men, Halbarad and his rangers, the three elves, Gimli and Grima, who was making a valiant attempt to get over to Theoden's group. It was only when Aragorn turned his patented puppy-dog eyes on him that he stopped struggling to escape.
"Will none of you journey with me?" Aragorn turned a hurt look on the Rider's of Rohan, and they shifted guiltily under his gaze.
"Do none of you wish to ride onwards to glory under my command?" Nobody moved and he heard Legolas gave a weary sigh.
"None of you trust me!" he sniffled. "You don't like me!" he wailed, smiling just a teeny bit to see panicked looks making an appearance on many faces among the crowd of Riders. There was a murmur about how they did trust him and all; they just didn't want to die horrible lingering deaths by taking the Paths of the Dead. Aragorn let them go on for a moment before deciding to move onto the Grande Finale of his performance.
"If you trust me, prove it. Ride with me to riches and glory and power and prestige!" Three Rider's went to join Aragorn's group and he looked as them disbelievingly.
He heard Legolas sigh again before the elf called out "Is that IT? You cowardly bunch of men!"
That did it. Whatever they were the Riders were not cowardly. Scared and frightened and wimpy maybe, but they were not cowardly. Two hundred of the Riders instantly joined Aragorn's group and Aragorn looked at Legolas, somewhat impressed. Why hadn't he thought of that? Well, only one thing remained to be done now and then they could be off.
He turned towards where Merry was and said tentatively, "Merry, will you join us or will you ride with Theoden?"
Merry didn't answer, but continued to glare. Aragorn, recognizing the signs, began to back away slowly. One close call was enough for today.
"Um…well, very well then. Take care Merry." And with that he beat a hasty retreat, his company following in his wake.
Theoden's company watched Aragorn ride off. When they were out of view they turned to look at their King. Deciding that he really couldn't ignore that 'please help us, we're being massacred horrifically' arrow that had arrived from Gondor last night, Theoden gave his men the order to get ready to go.
This they did, briskly and efficiently, until one remark caught everybody's attention.
"Here, are you a woman?" asked one the riders, looking at Eowyn suspiciously, as she stood before them wearing a long brown dress, with her golden hair flowing freely down her back.
"Do I look like a woman to you?" she asked them, in her normal voice.
"Now you mention it, she does look a lot like that Lady, what's her name, Eowan, Theowyn?"
"Eowyn!" snapped Eowyn.
"Yeah, her."
"Do I really?" Eowyn said softly, eyes narrowing. "And does the Lady Eowyn have a moustache?" She pointed to the obviously false one she was wearing.
"Umm…no?" guessed one of the smarter riders.
"So how can I be a woman then, hmm, when I have a moustache?"
This stumped most of the men. The stupider ones nodded and made various comments along the lines of "yeah, women don't have moustaches!" And the smarter ones looked at Eowyn, and then at her big pointy sword. She Looked back. The really smart men then decided that it wasn't in their job description to go running around after the errant nieces of the King and slowly began to back away.
One of the really stupid riders then pointed to Merry, who had decided to tag along with Eowyn, just happy to have found another kindred soul who appeared to be, to all intents and purposes, even more violent than he was.
"He can't come along! He's a short-arse!" declared the really stupid rider. A sudden silence fell; the only sound heard being the stunned gasps of all present. All eyes turned to Merry, to see what would do next.
Three hours later and the men were finally moving off, having just finished burying the remains of their comrade.
Aragorn and his company had made good speed, arriving at the Paths of the Dead early. With a few hours to spare, everyone tried to get some rest.
Feeling too scared and nervous about what he was about to lead his men into come morning, Aragorn sought out reassurance from an unlikely source. He sidled up to Gimli.
"Gimli?"
"Och?"
"Are you scared?"
"Course not! I'm a dwarf; we love dank, dark spaces."
"Oh."
"Why? Are you scared Aragorn?"
"Oh course not! I'm future King of Gondor I'll have you know!" Aragorn puffed himself up a bit, just to make his point. He didn't like the way Gimli was looking at him.
Gimli pretended he didn't notice. "Are you sure?" the dwarf wheedled. "You look awfully pale, och, and you're shaking!"
"I am not!" Aragorn asserted, in a tone of Righteous Indignation.
"Alright then."
"Alright. I'm certainly not scared if you're not scared."
""Which I'm not." Gimli backed this statement up by nonchantly lighting his pipe and taking a relaxed puff.
"Which I'm not either." Aragorn said, looking around nervously.
"So neither of us is scared then."
"Oh for the love of Elbereth! We're all scared, alright? Now will you please shut up! I've had it up to here with your silly and pointless bantering!" Legolas shouted across to them.
"Sorry Legolas" Aragorn stammered, climbing off of Gimli, who he had tried to hide behind as quickly as possible when the elf's yell had startled him. He looked around, embarrassed, and walked away to find Grima.
Legolas watched Aragorn's hasty retreat, seething with pent up rage. He was approached by Eomer, who was smoking away on his pipe and had come to have a nose at what all the noise was about. Legolas watched him approach, eyes riveted to the pipe in his friends hand. He knew he shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but he just couldn't help himself! It just calmed him down so effectively and left him free from all rage for hours. With the Paths of the Dead before him, as well as the prospect of many more days to be spent in Aragorn's company, Legolas snapped. He didn't care anymore!
He grabbed Eomer's pipe and inhaled deeply of the weed. He almost missed Eomer's expression of shock, as a feeling of calm descended upon him.
"Um…Legolas, I didn't think elves liked pipeweed."
"They don't." Which was true; it smelt and tasted foul. But who cared? Certainly not him anymore!
"Then can I have my pipe back please?"
"No. I need it! It calms me down! It's mine, all mine!"
"Alright Legolas, calm down." Eomer began to look for back-up and signalled to the Twins, who were watching from nearby. They swiftly arrived on the scene and after one look at Legolas wrestled their fellow elf to the ground in a short but successful scuffle for the pipe.
"Now Legolas, you know you're not supposed to smoke pipeweed" Elladan said, handing the pipe back to Eomer, giving him a pat on the bum for good measure.
"I don't care!"
"Remember last time when…"
But whatever it was that happened last time shall never now be known, alas! For it was at this moment that Aragorn rallied everyone to begin the journey through the Paths of the Dead.
So it was that our valiant hero's bravely entered the Paths of the Dead, crowding in through the door and trying not to go too far into the passage. It was very dark in there after all and they had heard Tales about this place. They ushered into the tunnel and the door closed with an ominous bang behind them. The torches flared to life and Aragorn's voice rang out across the still-scared-but-trying-not-to-show-it rabble.
"Onwards brave soldiers!"
Everyone set off in a mad scramble, desperate not to be caught at the end of the column. That honour eventually went to Elladan and Gimli, whilst Elrohir was up front, riding next to Aragorn and his widdle ittle wombat. Legolas had joined them there, suffering from a giggling fit, and Eomer had put himself somewhere in the middle of the line, trying to distance himself from the crazy elf and thus not implicate himself further in the Pipeweed Incident. He was very conscious of the fact that Aragorn was beginning to give him very suspicious looks.
The Company travelled onwards like this for a half day or more. At that point Aragorn turned to Elrohir with a puzzled frown.
"Why are we here again?"
"So that you may invoke the Dead who betrayed your ancestors and create a massive army with which to save the world whilst also allowing the Dead to fully redeem themselves and move peacefully on into the afterlife. At least, that's what Dad said to tell you to do."
"Well, alright then." Elrond was not one to be crossed and Aragorn knew that from experience. He called a halt to the Company, drew a deep breath and cried "Dead people! Come forth!"
The torches flickered and went out for Dramatic Effect. Cue comic confusion from various silhouettes in the darkness.
"Legolas, kindly remove yourself from my lap. Och!"
"Sorry Gimli."
"Halbarad, is that you touching my bum? Eek! Get off! Get off! Mmph!"
There was a thump as two of the silhouettes fell to the floor. This was followed by a cry of "Quick Elladan, over here! I've got him!"
"Here?"
"OW!"
"Sorry, wrong heir."
"Araghmmph!"
(Insert high pitched girly scream here, courtesy of Grima)
The lights flared back to life, revealing an interesting tableau. There was Gimli, sitting squashed under Legolas and trying to push the tittering elf off his lap (the pipeweed had fully kicked in now), and Halbarad was sulking in a corner, because nobody had attempted to grope him in the dark. Elrohir could be seen straddling Eomer, kissing him silly whilst Elladan held the man down. Both elves looked up as the lights went on, ahem-ed, stood and straightened their clothing. As they wandered off, a muttering could be heard that sounded suspiciously like "next time brother, next time!" And Aragorn was, well, he was wrapped in Grima, who had scrambled up Aragorn in terror.
As Aragorn tried to prise the ex-councillor and Servant of Evil off of him the Dead appeared. With their arms crossed they watched the Company, looking completely unimpressed. The Company fidgeted under their gaze, feeling a bit embarrassed, until Aragorn finally freed himself and turned to face the Dead People. He readied himself to launch into his Dramatic Speech by clearing his throat and throwing his arms wide in approved Big Speech Central to the Story and Vital to the Success of the Forces of Good fashion.
"Ahem! I Aragorn," dramatic pause, "son of Arathorn…"
"Never heard of you", shouted Dead Person no.1.
"Son of whom?" enquired DP no.2.
"Sounds like some sort of rosebush to me!" DP no.6 commented to his neighbour.
"I Aragorn, son of Arathorn, future King of Gondor…"
"You? A King? Where's your crown? Who made you King anyway?" asked DP no. 43.
Aragorn was a bit thrown by this question. "Well…I…erm…well, I just am King" he stuttered.
The Dead people looked at him unimpressed, again.
Aragorn was getting a bit irate now at how badly his Big Moment was going, and at how the giggles emanating from Legolas were really ruining the mood of the moment. So he said, a bit sulkily "Shut up! You can't talk to me like that! Me and my big army of heroes are off to defeat the Dark Lord and then I'll be King of all!"
"What army?" shouted a random DP from the back of the crowd.
"Well, you lot."
"Hang on a minute. We haven't agreed to anything yet!" An indignant conversation began among the Dead People.
Aragorn ignored them and flustered on with his Dramatic Speech "I call upon you dead people…"
"Hey! We resent that! We prefer to be called the Living Impaired."
"…call upon you dead people to fulfil the oath you made to my forefathers before you betrayed them and died." He took a breath to continue. This was a mistake, a big mistake. The dead were off again.
"Who were they?" demanded DP no. 8, looking a bit puzzled.
"The tall ones with blond hair" supplied DP no. 11.
"No, no, no! They were the short fat ones with the boats" countered DP no. 12.
"Hey!" Aragorn protested. "My ancestors were not fat!" The dead ignored him.
"Boats?" asked DP no. 99.
"Yes boats. They were Numenoreans, remember? You twit" DP no. 12 said, scathingly.
"Were they?" DP no. 99 was getting very confused now.
"Yes!" DP no. 12 replied, exasperated.
"No they weren't. They were Gondorians." DP no. 11 wasn't one to give up ideas easily.
"What are Numenoreans?"
The other dead people turned to no. 8 to look at him in Contempt. Aragorn seized this opportunity and concluded his Rousing Speech.
"Whoever they were, you betrayed them!" He glared at the dead people. "I know who you are!" He pointed to DP no. 5562, who hung his head in shame. "Anyway! You betrayed them and they died and I call upon you now that you may be released from this hellish existence as the Undead."
"Living impaired!" someone shrieked, in a shrill voice. Everyone turned to look at Legolas.
"Eomer, there is a reason we keep him away from the pipeweed. Don't think I didn't see you earlier."
"But…I…but…" he was cut short by the DP announcing their intention to join Aragorn.
"Alright then, we'll tag along."
"Yeah, it ain't like we've got anything better to do. You don't tend to get many visitors in such a morbid place."
After the excitement of Aragorn's Dramatic Speech, the journey out of the Paths of the Dead seemed very boring. The Dead People were especially fidgety, so when they spied Gimli up in front of them, shooting them numerous surreptitious yet frightened glances they decided to have a bit fun. They took turns to sneak up on him and yell "Booooo" into his ear, or they would walk through him with an apologetic "terribly sorry old chap didn't see you there".
Up near the front of the column Legolas was also getting bored. He noticed the Dead People playing and decided to join in. Thus it was that he spent a very constructive amount of time running up to people whilst going "wooooooo", and trying to walk through several of his companions.
Eventually Aragorn decided that he had had enough of such childish behaviour, and he urged his horse speedily towards the exit. Everyone else ran after him, desperate to avoid being left in the passage with only that mad elf for company.
Eventually everyone found their way to the outside world again, where they promptly collapsed onto the ground for a well deserved rest. Legolas was put under the guard of Elladan and Elrohir to give everyone's nerves time to recover.
All went well, until Eomer walked by the Twins on his way to look for some water. The distraction this provided allowed Legolas to put his plan of escape into action. He ran for it, making a mad dash past the Twins, past Eomer and Gimli, and past numerous rugby-style tackles too. He reached and mounted Aragorn's horse and began to ride away as fast as the wind itself, only pausing to throw a bewildered Grima back towards camp.
Aragorn ran after him for a while, but realising the futility of the exercise he went back to the others and roused them to chase after the errant Prince of Mirkwood. Bloody elves!
Thus began a three day cross country chase, as Legolas desperately sought the exceedingly rare and extremely delicious pink mushrooms of Imladris, and the Company desperately sought Legolas.
They eventually found him at a harbour somewhere along the Anduin, doing something we won't tell you about now because trust us, you REALLY don't want to know. The Company, which had grown somewhat in size thanks to all the inquisitive followers they had gained these last three days, all breathed a sigh of relief and flopped down to the ground. Eomer and Gimli cornered and bagged the elf and handed him over to Aragorn, who took the elf behind a bush and attempted to bring him back to himself via extreme violence, lots of slaps and plenty of name calling.
Whilst this wasn't all that good for Legolas (it merely knocked him unconscious), it made Aragorn feel very good. He found it an excellent way to be rid of all that pent-up frustration, and a marvellous form of revenge for all those 'headaches' that had cropped up during his brief liaison with the elf.
Legolas awoke two days later with a terrible headache, to find a seagull pecking at his nose. He shoo-ed the bird away and sat up, slowly absorbing bits of information that soon told him where he was, and exactly what that funny feeling he was currently experiencing in his heart must be.
He stood up. Oh! That was it! That man had gone too far this time! He was really going to pay!
Legolas was slightly miffed. How DARE Aragorn awaken the sea longing in his heart!
"You BASTARD!"
Aragorn tore his gaze away from Grima. "What?"
"SEAGULLS!" Legolas shrieked.
"What?" Aragorn asked, confused.
"Fangorn Forest! The prophecy! Galadriel! Seagulls! The Longing!"
Aragorn stared at him, still not quite understanding what the elf was trying to say. Legolas glared back at him, and he could practically see Aragorn's mind working as it went over the broken sentence again before it clicked. Ah! The sea longing.
"How DARE you?"
"How dare I? It's your entire fault anyway. I fail to see how I can be held in any way responsible for your future tortured existence."
"Fail to see? My Fault! THE BLOODY SEAGULLS! MY FAULT!" Legolas screamed, unable to recall a time when he had ever been this angry before.
"Yes Legolas, your fault. If you hadn't gone off to look for whatever the hell it was you were looking for, leading us all on a three day quest to find your pitiful arse, we wouldn't have ended up in a harbour next to all these lovely boats! We wouldn't have had to use the boats to sail up the Anduin to arrive in Minas Tirith on time for the battle either, instead being able to take a leisurely ride across country to the bloody city. But nooooo! You just had to smoke the pipeweed didn't you? Even though you know you're not allowed to any more, and you just had to escape and go prancing off into nowhere after the pink bloody mushrooms of Imladris! We're miles from Imladris Legolas! What in the Valar's name were you thinking! So yes, it is all your fault that the sea longing has awakened within your heart, and no-one else's."
Aragorn drew a much-needed breath and stalked off to his cabin, only pausing along the way to grab Grima. Legolas glared after Aragorn, to irate to move.
"He's right you know" said a miscellaneous dead person from behind him.
Legolas growled and the spirit retreated. He knew the man was right, but that didn't make the truth any easier to bear.
Aragorn had finally arrived at Minas Tirith and had gotten his army off the boats and to the sidelines of the fight. Quite how he had managed this is likely to always remain a mystery, but word has it that it involved Aragorn's sword and a threat of making those still on the boat in exactly ten seconds time look after Grima for the duration of the battle.
Thus it was that Aragorn's motley crew of manly men and the living impaired sat at the edge of the Pelannor, watching the proceedings with misgivings. Everyone was very tired and very pissed off after having spent the last five days stuck on a boat with a sulking leader and an angry elf. It had been an experience to try the patience of even the most patient man (he'd lasted three days), so the last thing any of the Company wanted to do now was go and fight a big old battle they would probably lose and die horribly in anyway.
This despondent attitude didn't stop Aragorn from trying to raise the spirits of his men though, nor did it prevent him attempting to convince his army to join the battle.
"For Gondor!"
"Why should we help them? They never helped us!" shouted rider no. 372, a rather astute fellow.
"For the King then."
"What you? After all you've put us through?"
"You have got to be kidding us!"
Aragorn growled at that, and threw his sword down in disgust and defeat. Damn it! Why had he never listened to Elrond more during all of those boring meetings? The man was a master at the art of persuasion, just look at where he had gotten Aragorn!
It was at that point that a cheeky young orc named Kaz made the biggest, and last, mistake of his life. He ran up and killed DP no. 502, before running back off into the fray. All the other Dead People stood for a moment, looking at where no. 502 had been maintaining his existence.
"The bastard!"
"He killed Murray!"
"How? He was already dead."
"Let's get him!"
"Charge!"
"Aargh!"
The Dead people charged into battle and proceeded to hunt down Kaz and all his unfortunate orcish friends. The others members of the Company, the living ones, watched them go before realising that they were now all alone, exposed, on a battlefield, with a mad homicidal hobbit running amok. So they followed their dead fellows into the fight, Elladan only pausing to hand Aragorn a banner Arwen had made him, which he had forgot to hand over earlier.
Aragorn watched them all run off in confusion. What had just happened there? He heard Merry's war cry in the distance and deciding that this was the best he was going to get right now, he trotted off after his army. A minute later he returned to the sidelines to drop Grima off (no-one had wanted to baby-sit the man, so he had had to come along), giving him a quick farewell kiss before riding out to meet his Destiny.
For a few days the Company of manly men, and Eowyn, rode swiftly towards Minas Tirith, encountering many strange and wonderful creatures on the way, the details of which we won't bore you with here. So tough!
The brave Company eventually came within sight of the city and they watched the enemy batter the gates for a while whilst Theoden dithered about whether to help out or not. It was only when Merry, over-eager to join the battle, began to attack his own horsemen that Theoden gave the order for a charge. A cock crowed from somewhere inside the city and the Rohirrim attacked.
Eowyn headed the charge, riding next to her uncle and together they rode straight into the thick of things. Eowyn then spent a very happy hour cutting down lots of enemies, keeping a careful count with which to humiliate her brother later on, the idiot! Where was he anyway? She hadn't seen him anywhere in the battle thus far and so figured that he had yet to arrive. Good, that gave her plenty of time to build up a good headcount to out butch him with.
A loud cry sounded from behind her and she turned to see that Aragorn had finally arrived. Damn! There was her brother too. She turned her attention back to Aragorn and watched him, amused, as he tried to persuade some…things to do…well; it looked like he was trying to persuade them to join in the battle. She casually skewered a couple of orcs who wandered into her line of view, and noticed that her brother was riding towards her.
"You!" he said, looking nastily at her.
"YOU!" she replied, and Looked back at him.
He rode off, and feeling slightly less smug Eowyn turned around, ready to rejoin the fray. She found herself face to face with the Witch King himself. They looked at each other, and Eowyn sighed at what she saw. Putting her hands on her hips, she said to this most fearsome of opponents, "Honestly! What are you wearing? Look at you!"
The Witch King looked down at himself, puzzled by the way this strange mortal was acting. Why wasn't it cowering before him?
Eowyn, having received no answer to interrupt her flow, had gone into full-on nag mode and nothing was going to stop her now from saying her piece. Bloody men! She'd just about had enough of them and the Witch King was about to feel the full force of her impatience and frustration with them.
"How inappropriate a set of robes can you get? I'm surprised you can move in them, let alone disembowel people! And black! Black is so passé, so last age. Look at you, blood and dirt and entrails everywhere, your poor missus, she must spend hours scrubbing those robes clean, did you ever think of that before racing into battle? No, of course you didn't, she should make you clean them yourself."
Eowyn stopped to take a breath. A thoroughly bewildered Witch King shifted guiltily and hissed at her.
"Don't you hiss at me! I don't take that kind of thing you know. I bet you never used that sort of language in front of your mother…"
The Dead People were thoroughly enjoying themselves at the Battle, running amok and killing all who got in their way, be they friend or foe.
Off at the sidelines of the Battle two Kings were having a bit of a rest, watching the Living Impaired chase orcs around the field.
"Who bloody well brought them along?" asked Theoden, as he observed two over-enthusiastic spirits try to decapitate each other.
Aragorn shifted a bit guiltily. "I dunno", he mumbled, deciding to deny all knowledge of the ghosts.
Just then, DP no. 5876 ran towards the Kings. Very, very quickly. With an enraged hobbit on his heels. He ran through Theoden and Merry attempted to follow him.
Aragorn looked down at the mess, checked to see if anyone was watching him, and beat a hasty retreat back into the fray.
Grima meanwhile was busy hiding under Aragorn's spare horse. He screamed as a head rolled past.
Gimli was having a merry old time, killing things, and repressing the urge to massacre any elves present, muttering "he's my friend, he's my friend" to himself.
He dispatched his current foe, a bit too enthusiastically, and found himself face-to-face with the largest uruk-hai ever created. It fairly loomed over our gallant dwarf.
"Grrr!" the uruk-hai growled at him.
Gimli looked at him, a bit non-plussed. He growled back. "GRRRR!"
Not one to be outdone so easily, the uruk-hai began a fearsome war dance, not unlike the Haka in style. Gimli watched him politely, and when he had finished he said "och". Our multi-talented dwarf then attempted an ambitious and not completely unsuccessful break-dance, finishing his piece with a fantastic head spin, his helmet creating sparks with the speed with which he revolved.
By now the uruk-hai was very confused. This had never happened to it before; all his enemies were usually dead or dying in extreme agony at this point in the proceedings. So it did the only other thing it could think of which might have this wily foe cowering in fear before it. It brandished its mass-made uruk-axe and let out a mighty bellow as it swung the thing around his head. It then looked down at the pesky midget, feeling somewhat pleased with itself. It allowed itself a very rare, very small smile.
Gimli grinned back.
"Och! You call that an axe? This is an axe!" He revealed his own superior weapon and saw the uruk-hai tremble in fear. There was a thud and an uruk-head landed on the ground, coming to a rest in front of a hysterical Grima.
Gimli watched it come to a standstill before jumping into the air.
"Och yes! Who's the dwarf? I'm the dwarf! 51 dead! Oh yeah! I've beaten my own personal best!"
Just then Legolas skipped by, singing "501…502…503…504…"
Gimli stared at him as he pranced off into the distance, before running off in a refreshed rage to kill more things.
Meanwhile, Legolas too was having a grand old time. He was prancing around (yes, prancing), singing and randomly shooting at or slicing up the enemy.
"This is easy! 505…506…so relaxing…507…508…509…la la laa!" he sang. "So refreshing after that damned week on that forsaken boat with THAT man! 510…511…512" he said viciously, stabbing one poor orc in the eye at the mere thought of Aragorn.
Legolas paused to gather himself and skipped off again. "513…514…515…aah! Much better, so much fun!"
Shortly after joining the Battle Eomer had found himself confronted with his sister.
"You!"
"YOU!"
And that was that. The two siblings went their separate ways, determined to win their ongoing personal war once and for all by out-butching the other.
Thus it was that a little later Eomer could be found on his horse, thinking of really manly ways to kill his enemies. Here, for our most esteemed readers, is his top five:
1) Bite their heads off!
2) Cut out their hearts, show it to them before they die, and pretend that the blood splatters that are slowly ruining his brand new battle outfit don't bother him at all. Nope. Not one bit.
3) Scream "Eowyn" really loudly and watch his enemies die of terror.
4) Grab a decapitated head and beat his enemies to death with it, pulverizing their remains into the ground whilst ranting angrily about his horse of a sister.
5) And the piece de resistance: give Legolas small amounts of pipeweed, tell him the orcs really want to be his friends, and let him loose.
Eomer was jolted from his rather disturbing thoughts of his Butch Killing Spree (as he had named it) by a complete silence that had descended upon the field of Battle. Turning to see the reason for the halt in proceedings, Eomer was hoping to see something really impressive like the Witch-King or the Dark Lord or something. But when his eyes found the true cause of the disturbance, he fell helpless to his knees, raised his arms pleadingly to the sky, and screamed in anguish.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!"
Eowyn had spent the last half an hour nagging the Witch King. She had successfully covered numerous topics in this time, moaning at him about his attire, his language, his aggressive behaviour, and his shyness and lack of self confidence manifesting itself in his need to hide underneath a large cowl.
As the battle raged about them the Witch King gave in and broke into sobs. He grabbed Eowyn and began weeping about how his subjects had never appreciated him when he was King, and how they had complained all the time about his autocratic rule over them, calling him a bad leader and other nasty names, and how his Master the Dark Lord was always woefully underestimating his ability as an evil acolyte just because he let his pretty ring get lost a few times. The list was endless, and Eowyn patted his cowl, murmuring "there, there" to him. She was feeling very smug again. Not only had she helped someone (a first for her, and man did it feel good!), but she had also managed to redeem the Witch King and bring him over to the forces of good. Now, if that didn't show her brother up once and for all then nothing would. Yes, today had been a good day…
Her thoughts trailed off at that point, as Merry ran up towards her and proceeded to kill the Witch King. The hobbit paused to savour his victory. Quite unable to grasp what he had just done, Eowyn stared at him, shaking with fury. How dare this short-arse ruin all her plans!
"You bastard! I was making real progress with him too!"
She screamed an unearthly scream and slapped the now cowering Hobbit unconscious, breaking a nail with the sheer force of the blow. Her continued rage-induced shaking also caused her fake moustache to fall off. Sudden silence descended upon the Pelannor as men, orcs, horses, ringwraiths, uruk-hai, elves and a dwarf all turned to look at her.
Someone near to Eowyn pointed at her and shouted accusingly "It's a woman! And she's killed the Witch-King!"
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" A heart wrenching cry, full of anguish sounded across the field. Ah! There was her brother.
Hysterical rider no. 28, our friend from previous sequels, had lost it completely at this latest revelation. He was pointing, hyperventilating and screaming "a woman, a woman! Aargh!" Aragorn held out his sword and rider no. 28 ran straight into it. Grima fainted as yet another head rolled past his hidey-hide.
Overcome somewhat by happiness at finally having beaten her brother in a manner that transcended all time and doubt and would ensure her place in the History books, Eowyn joined Grima in a dead faint.
Satisfied and reassured by this show of typical feminine weakness, the men recommenced the battle.
Eowyn woke up in the Houses of Healing some time later. As she recalled the circumstances that had placed her here, she began to curse in a manner quite unbecoming a young lady. When she had finally run out of things to say (quite a while later, let us assure you), somebody spoke from the bed next to her.
"How you doin'?"
Eowyn turned to the owner of the voice and gasped.