I feel so special. This is like the third chapter this week isn't it? Heh… yeah, well, don't be expecting this to happen again for the rest of my school year, which lasts until like the start of June. Only… I guess I do have finals week and those are all really short days, and I never study anyways… but we'll just have to see what happens when we get there. Still far off *sigh*
Wow, people are right on top of the reviewing. That's awesome. Very nice.
Elderberry: Wow, we're in the same boat! I have no idea how to say it either. I guess that's why it's good that it is written then! And who knows what Sauron thinks. He's a twisted fellow.
Pherhyandoiel: I don't know how Sauron would react to caffeine. It might be kinda scary, don't you think? Too much sugar and stuff isn't good for anybody… although that really doesn't make anybody stop.
GollumRox: You know what was weird? That day I had been talking to my mom about how you always asked me if I had seen A Clockwork Orange whenever I glare at you. You know my mom saw that. I think that is creepy.
Mystic Catface: No she wasn't the one that threw herself off a cliff. That was Nienor… yeah. And when you say action, what do you mean?
Ruler-of-Da-World: My fanfic has fan art! YOU DREW A PICTURE! *runs around flailing arms* COOOOL!!! I feel super spiffy. That's neato neato! You have to scan it and send it to me so I can see. Please. You should see some of my math homework sometimes, I doodle all over it trying to figure out how to draw them. I think I have Haldir pretty set by now, but I just can never get Sauron's hair to look quite dead animalish enough. And he always looks hacked off in my pictures anyways, so that's probably good. I love your reviews, they ramble, but it's fun! Woo! And I looked at your bio again, trying to find that one fic (which I did read) and you quoted me again! Yea! Special.
AAAClub: Yes I have Spring Break for I am in the U.S. in Idaho to be more exact. Yup. And if I'm lucky now, I will think that you are lucky later! I'm sure. It all evens out. Well… actually maybe it doesn't since your school year could be way different than mine. Rambling! Sorry. And don't complain too much: I have to do a Julius Caesar rap in my English class when I go back to school next week, and in my group I'm Caesar. It's creepy and degrading and makes me very sad.
XNemesis: I know about computers being stupid. This new one is much nicer. Only it already hates me because it booted me off of word yesterday and deleted a whole page of what I wrote. And you know, sometimes you just can't word things the same a second time. So I was miffed with it. Yeah, Sauron is going to have to meet a lot of people. It'll be fun. And what is with people losing appendages? Sauron and Frodo with their fingers, Morgoth with his foot, Beren and Maedhros with their hands. I'm probably missing somebody too… oh well.
Kit Cloudkicker: Whoa… names. Did you just know those off the top of your head and then research them a bit more or what? When I made up the names, I looked through like the whole etymologies to find words that were possible. Then I tried putting them together in lots of different ways with different spellings, and Iaewur looked the best. Not that you can actually say it, but it was the best looking one.
packers fan#4: Thanks for sharing that.
Spoofmaster: Yeah, it is really pathetic that he got whooped by a dog, even if it was a special dog. Hehehe… it makes me laugh. Especially when I'm sitting reading the book at 2 in the morning, then it makes me laugh a lot! There are a ton of vowels, aren't there? The two parts are 'iae' and 'wur' so maybe breaking it up helps? Or maybe not? And I get a commercial!! Oooo, coooool! What's your new parody? I think GollumRox said something about you making a LOTR one, but you must not have posted it yet. I'll look for it when you do.
Yeah, that's it. This chapter is shorter just to warn you upfront, and the one after this is REALLY short, but hey, you better not complain. It would have been four chapters this week at least.
Even though it was still early morning, there was a fair amount of people making their way around the market. Although it was obvious that this number was nothing compared to what it would be like later in the day, there was enough that Sauron groaned. "Sheesh, I never can just have it simple, can I?"
Haldir didn't reply to him and began to walk into the lane. His nose was instantly bombarded with hundreds of different smells that he found quite pleasant and so figured that Sauron would dislike. So long as he didn't start up on another coughing fit, Haldir could care less.
Looking around at everything, he decided that it would be better to try and get right to the point. Just by seeing everything around him he knew that if he were to just browse around a bit while Sauron was looking for his stuff that there would be a good chance that he'd be wandering about all day. There were so many things that were strange to him that he wanted to look at closer, but he restrained himself.
He stopped for a moment for Sauron to catch up, who was taking longer in his attempt to make sure he did not brush up against anybody at all. "Try to make this quick, or else I'll get sucked in and you'll have no hope of getting me out until the evening, okay?"
"Won't need to warn me twice," Sauron replied frowning slightly as he looked around. "I can't believe that you could stay here long."
"Well I would, whether you believe it or not, so hurry it up!"
"Fine, just help me find the ruddy places and I'll get about this business."
"I doubt that I can help you much. You're tall enough to look over everybody, whereas I am definitely not," Haldir said, just a bit bitter. He hated admitting his relative shortness.
"True, but you know more about how these things would be set up than I do."
Haldir snorted. "At my home yes, but this is different. I guess we'll both just have to look. Two eyes are better than one after all."
Sauron just looked at him funny, and Haldir took a moment to figure out why. He then cleared his throat in an attempt to keep from being unable to control the laughter that had welled up. "Or, um, four eyes are better than two. Or two pairs are better than one-"
"Shut up," Sauron groused.
"Will do," Haldir replied.
They made their way through the lane, scanning the sides for any sign of the elusive shop which would have some clothes. At first it seemed that this might take more time than had been assumed, but then Haldir spotted a shop.
After going against the flow of the crowd for a moment, they came to the other side of the lane and the shop. "After you," Haldir said with a smile, waving forward.
Sauron just shook his head and entered.
It was not very large, and what room it did have was absolutely packed with clothes. There was a woman sitting in the back of the room reading who momentarily looked up and smiled at them before returning to her book.
As Haldir had earlier surmised, pretty much all of the clothes were very light in color. He heard Sauron sigh in such a way as to suggest that he was not very surprised either.
Halfheartedly they looked through what was there, and when it was official that there was nothing there that was dark enough for Sauron's taste, they left. It was the beginning of what turned out to be a long search.
They didn't really talk much, which suited both fine, as they made their way up the lane to the end of the market and began to make their way back down the other side in the next few hours. It had all been pretty fruitless thus far and both were getting a little irritated with it. Even Haldir, who was still interested in all of the strange new things that were present, began to want to get done.
A little before noon Haldir called for a break as his stomach was starting to complain. He got some food from one of the stands and proceeded to eat it all by himself since Sauron had once again insisted that he was not hungry. "You know, I'm sure that you're going to get hungry sometime in the near future. You might as well have something."
"I wouldn't let myself starve. If I'm hungry I'll eat."
Haldir considered him over the top of his food. By now he was seriously beginning to think that Sauron was not capable of figuring out if he was hungry or not. It would explain why he was so freakishly thin.
Once he was done they started off again, going to another shop which was not far from where they had stopped. When again there was nothing, Haldir finally thought that it was time to say something.
"You know," he began while scanning for anymore shops, "you might not find anything that is what you're looking for."
Sauron did not reply right away. "I know."
"So you might have to settle for something that isn't dark."
There was an even longer pause. "I know."
"Well then, that's good. I'm starting to get annoyed with this anyways, so how about we give it three more shops and if you don't find anything in those, in the last one we'll just pick something up?"
"Fine," Sauron said morosely, which made Haldir smirk a little. All that over clothes, good heavens.
Again there was nothing in the next one, although it had been a bit better than some. And then they came to the second to last one.
They went in and split up like they had for the last few hours. It made it go by quicker. By this time, Haldir had gotten a system to how he looked, and by doing this he found nothing. He had gotten to the last shelf when he heard something that made him pause.
It sounded like a squeal.
He set down the pile of clothes that he had been leafing through and stood up straight, blinking a little bit. When he looked around the store, the only other person he saw was Sauron.
This required a few more blinks. "Was that you?" he asked.
Sauron did not answer. Instead he held something up. "I win!" he exclaimed happily.
Haldir looked at what he was holding and grinned. Lo and behold, it was the previously unseen darkly dyed tunic. Not that he would go so far as to say that finding it granted the title of winning, but it didn't really matter.
"It's the darkest thing I've seen all day! Granted, it isn't black, but it's close enough. Ha, I knew there had to be something out there!"
Sauron looked amazing happy snatching up the few articles of clothing that were darker colors. Haldir found to be much nicer to have him be happy than sullen, but it was still a bit creepy. After all it was just clothes. But then again Haldir reflected that it seemed that most of the time things did not go his way, so when it did he might as well enjoy it while it lasted.
They found the shop owner and paid the money for the clothes. Haldir was a bit surprised with how little of the coinage they brought needed to be used for these. It made him feel quite rich actually, but he tried to keep it from going to his head.
Once that was done they headed back to the house, both in quite better moods than they had been a couple minutes earlier.
However as they walked, Haldir couldn't help but remember that strange noise he had heard in the shop. "So…" he began slowly, not wanting his question to knock Sauron off his cloud, "you're happy now?"
"Yes, sadly," Sauron admitted. "If anybody back in M-" He realized that what he was going to say was not anything that should be heard by the people around and so after dragging out the sound for a couple seconds continued. "-my lands had seen me getting pleased over clothes, I'd probably lose nearly all the respect I had."
"Well you aren't there anymore, so it doesn't make any difference. And here it would be better to be wanting a good appearance than the other way around."
"Ah, like I care about your respect anyways."
Haldir did not really consider what Sauron said as he was trying to figure out the proper way about presenting the question that he wanted to ask. "So did you make that noise back in the shop?"
Well, that wasn't quite as tactful as he had wanted to be. Then again, he never had been any good about beating around the bush. He had always been a bit too blunt for his own good. No reason to stop now.
"What noise?"
"You know."
Sauron cocked an eyebrow. "Um, no I don't."
"Come on, you don't have to pretend that you don't know."
"Seriously, I have no idea what you're talking about! What noise?" he asked.
Haldir was starting to think that Sauron really didn't know what he was talking about. He looked genuinely confused. "That squeal."
"A squeal?" Sauron asked, looking even more confused.
"Yeah…"
"Are you suggesting that I squealed?" It was a bit strange, but he actually looked a little amused by the implication rather than angered about it.
"Um, yes."
"Honestly, do you think that I would squeal? I don't think that you all have rubbed off on me that much yet."
"But there wasn't anybody else in there besides you and me though."
"Then it was probably you."
Haldir frowned. "No, I didn't have anything to do that about. You were the one who had 'won,'" he said, pointing to the clothes that Sauron was now carrying under his arm.
Sauron did not reply, and Haldir could just about hear the gears turning in his head. Apparently this last argument that Haldir had made hit something home. He cursed, causing Haldir to flinch slightly. "I can't believe this! I've been here for a day and I squealed!? This can't be happening!" He looked about ready to rip out his hair. "I have to do something bad."
Haldir's ears perked up at this. "What?"
"Bad. I need to do something bad, now."
"No, no, no, no, no you don't."
"Yes I do. I'm slipping. It's completely unacceptable."
"No!" Haldir hissed, pulling him away from the sides of the road where the prospect of doing anything wicked was very high. "You can't do anything bad! That's why you're here."
"No, I'm here because I was a retard and did not think to put guards around the one place where my power could be destroyed. See, if I had taken that into consideration a bit more, I can assure you that I would not be here. Well… I might, if I had gotten powerful enough. That's besides the immediate fact though."
"Don't do anything. I swear, you won't be happy if you do."
"When am I ever happy? Won't be much of a change."
"You seemed to be happy a couple minutes ago."
"Well I'm not now and that is all that matters. Come on, I need to do something. Let go of my sleeve."
"No."
"Please?" he implored.
Haldir was a little surprised by that, but didn't say so. "No."
Sauron thought for a moment and seemed to give up. "Fine. You're absolutely no fun at all. You're a complete stiff."
"Whatever."
There was no response to this, and the rest of the short walk to the house was completed in silence.
Does anybody else think that he stopped that easily? Hm hm hm? *wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more say no more* Expect another chapter in a day or two.