I have another good excuse. This chapter was hard to write. It took me forever to figure out how to jump as much time as I had to, and I have no idea if I did it all right anyways. No matter! It's a chapter so it counts. And it's loooong. Which makes it count even more! Hahahaha.

Oh, quick question for you readers. Does anybody know if you can put stories back up that have been taken off? Sounds stupid, I know, but I have no idea why they were removed and nobody wrote me back when I e-mailed to find out. So I wanted to see if anybody else knew so that maybe I could repost my spoofs.

Now that that is out of the way, reviewers! Bakunka!

Pherhyandoiel: Obviously you liked it! Good! And I hope you had a good Spring Break. School… makes me sad.

XNemesis: Cooking is fun! Woo! Actually not really. I too happen to be of the opinion that other people should just make it for me. Kinda where I got the idea in the first place. I just bribe my brother with mints and make him go off and cook stuff. He's getting pretty good. Manipulation skills, honing them down you see. Haha.

AzureDragoness: No, it didn't really count did it? But he knew more than Haldir, even though it was like nothing. And you must be lenient on me because they are only late because I want to make sure I can post them. Yes, see, cause I have to do good in school for my parents to let me on the computer, and so it takes me so long to write them because I'm trying to do good at school. Just in case though… *goes and digs Ice Cream Scoop of Doooom out of the random kitchen utensils cabinet*

Ruler-of-Da-World: Elhith is just so talented, he can do all the random things that Sauron and Haldir can't. What a coinkydink! You're probably out of Easter break now… maybe… so you didn't miss anything! It'll get more of a plot soon. Spiffy eh? Muahahaha. Most of it's kinda random though. Random is my favorite word however! And I read that thingy, did you get my review? I probably said stupid stuff, I can't remember though. My new word is bakunka.

Twisted Mary Sue: Work, school, it is all one endless line of life sucking activities is it not? Such is the world though. Enough of that depressing crap, don't worry about the updates. So long as you get there eventually. Just not so eventually that you die first. That would be crap. Sorry to dig up memories, that can always be… creepy. And I'm so addicted to so much stuff right now that I really should just live in a cave for a while.

Darth T-Rex: Brilliant! Yippy! You know that is one of my many nicknames. But it was meant more sarcastically though… no matter! Glad you enjoyed.

Black Thunder44: Depends on who you ask and under what circumstances whether cooking is degrading or not.

GollumRox: Yes I know Thu is your ain true love. That's why I said it. Derr. Your reviews are bakunka. But they are reviews. Yea.

Carmen: You must not obsess with the Doritos. It'll give you karma.

AAAClub: Many of the things in here are things that you probably wouldn't see everyday. But that's fun!

Ms. B: Heh, you are reaaaaaally far behind. Haha. Poor Ms. B. Now you'll have even more to read! Sorry! I still love you though. I'd almost call you my master besides the fact that I can't and won't have any masters. :-D

Okay, I'm done. Phew!

*****

After flipping the page of the book he was reading, Haldir reflected on how nice and peaceful the house was. It had to have been the thousandth time he had thought such. But he was enjoying the peace so much that it was hard to not be constantly reminding himself of how lovely it was.

He was not exactly sure who he had to thank for it. It had probably been a couple different people. Not that it really mattered to Haldir who had done it but that it had been done. He had needed the break.

Those first two months that he had been there were as close as it got to having a nightmare in the middle of a dream. Everything was wonderful, as good as a person could possibly wish. Except for one thing. And that thing was, of course, none other than Sauron.

It seemed like he was bound and determined to twist every little thing that Haldir might have otherwise enjoyed. Well, it more than just seemed that way. Haldir knew on good authority that it was such. Heck, Sauron had only told him so himself.

While a certain pattern had existed in that time, it had not been a very pleasant pattern. Sauron would do something and Haldir would figure out some way to retaliate. Elhith would stand by and just observe.

There had been, of course, a few occasions when they had gotten along amazingly well to the surprise of everybody, including themselves, but those had been very rare. Most of the time they had just acted like four year olds and insisted on pestering each other in hopes that one would break eventually.

Then a few days after it had reached the two month mark since they had been there, right when Haldir was thinking that he might just like to break and get it all over with, Eonwe had come. Sauron was to go and spend some time away. Where away was Haldir had no clue. So long as it was away from him he could have cared less.

Sauron had cared a bit though. Evidently he had an idea of where he would be going and didn't like it at all. Not that he liked much anyways, but he seemed to loath this even more than most things.

Eonwe had simply laughed at him for a minute or so and then had forced him out the door without any further ado. And that had been the end of that.

So for the last fourteen months or so Haldir had been free. He'd taken the time and gotten used to the new environment. By now he had Quenya down and had blended in with everybody else to the highest point possible. All things considered, life was good. At times he even forgot why he had gotten out of Mandos.

A week ago however he had been reminded. Sauron had finally finished his rounds or whatever for the next couple decades and would be coming back soon. Ever since then Haldir had been trying to gear himself up. It had been so long since he had been sarcastic or anything which had typically been his nature. He thought that it would probably take a while to get back into it again.

At that moment there conveniently was a knock on the door which jolted Haldir from his thoughts. He groaned inwardly and looked over at Elhith, who was once again in the kitchen having to cook a meal. Haldir still hadn't been able to figure it out, try as he might. It could have had something to do with the fact that he was always afraid to risk even making an attempt after that last episode.

When Elhith just shrugged in a way that said that there was nothing that he could do about it, Haldir finally got up and went to the door to open it.

He was not too surprised to see Sauron there. Yup, he was back. Great.

"Well?" Sauron demanded, frowning at him. "Let me in. I live here too."

Without any more ceremony than that he came in, tossing a couple saddle bags at the bottom of the stairs. Haldir just stood looking at him for a minute as he proceeded down the hall to the kitchen.

He followed after him, and found that he had already made himself quite at home. Which wasn't really that remarkable since, as he had pointed out, he did live there. Only he hadn't for over a year. Apparently that was of no consequence though.

Sauron sighed and leaned back in the couch, stretching his legs out in front of him. "I hate horses," he muttered as he closed his eyes. "Abdominal creatures."

"You had to ride one back here?" Haldir asked.

"Yes, the whole cursed day." He opened his eyes again for a moment and looked at Haldir. "The whole cursed day."

"How many hours straight?"

"Too many. Something like eight I'm guessing."

Haldir snorted. "That was really wise."

"I forgot, okay? I think I've ridden a horse an amount that you could count on your fingers, and none of them were recent enough for me to recollect."

"You always seem to learn the hard way," Haldir pointed out.

"I do, don't I?" he admitted.

"Going to do anything about it?"

"Can't. It's just part of my nature. Ugh, I am so sore," Sauron complained, pressing the heel of his hands against his eyes. "Did I mention that I hate horses?"

"Yes, in fact, you did."

"Okay, good. I just want that to be clear."

"You're going to end up walking everywhere you know."

"I don't care. Horses are evil."

Haldir smirked at this.

"What are you smiling about?" Sauron snapped at him.

"I was just thinking that if horses are evil that you should get along well with them," he replied.

"What, because I'm evil?"

Haldir nodded.

"Well you know, evil is only an opinion. See to me, I would say that horses are evil because they make me miserable, and anything that makes me miserable must be evil. Therefore I would say that the Valar should be there too. So horses and the Valar. Now, I wouldn't go so far as to call you evil, but you are an annoyance. Then I would say that I was good because everything I do is right by my standards. This is by the terminology that you would use of course."

"That made absolutely no sense. You are wanting to be good now or something?"

Sauron shook his head. "No. See, you use evil to describe things which contradict what you think is right. Horses contradict what I think is right, therefore they are evil."

"Your logic is so full of holes that if it was a boat it would sink."

"Speaking of boats, water is evil too. Stupid Ulmo. Anyways, it does too make sense, you're just too dense to figure it out. I had thought that by now Valinor would have worked enough on you that you'd be a bit more discerning that you were before. Guess not."

"I get what you are saying, it just isn't applicable since the word evil was pretty much made specially for the endeavors of your master and yourself."

Sighing, Sauron began to crack his fingers. "I'm not going to get into this right now. I'm so tired that I can hardly think straight."

"Maybe that's why nothing you are saying makes much sense."

"Or maybe… not," he replied, lacking a better comeback at the moment.

At this time Haldir began to think a little. How long had Sauron been back? All of five minutes maybe? And they were already getting into these stupid picking conversations? So much for peace.

Sauron seemed to get over this very quickly and went off on something else, although this was much easier to reply to than the topic before. "Do I smell food?" he asked.

"Probably. Elhith was making dinner I believe."

"Still haven't learned to cook?" Sauron scoffed at him.

Haldir narrowed his eyes. "No, have you?"

"Of course not."

"I hope you weren't meaning for that to be an insult then because the only way it would work would involve you receiving it also."

"Doesn't matter," he said as he got up. He grimaced slightly when he did this. It seemed that it was not any kind of joke that he had been riding way too long.

"Are you going to need medicine or something?" Haldir asked, watching Sauron wince at just about every step he took.

"No, I just need a new pair of legs. And back too probably."

"Elhith is the remedy savvy one, I'm sure he has something the would help and be a bit less drastic."

Sauron grunted but did not say anything.

"Where were you that made it take so long to get back?" Haldir asked as they walked slowly to the kitchen.

"In the mountains way out there," he said, gesturing vaguely off to his left.

"What where you doing there?"

"Quarrying," he replied succinctly.

"Sounds like fun."

"Not really. It was probably the least so of everything I've done while I was gone. Hard manual labor is just about everything that I dislike rolled into one. Maybe it should be added to my list of things which are evil."

By this time he had gotten to the kitchen and sat down in a chair, displaying a 'you can serve me now' look upon his face.

Elhith looked over at him briefly. "Back again?"

Sauron nodded. "Looks that way doesn't it?"

"Learn anything? Morals perhaps?"

Sauron snorted. "Morals? I think I have plenty of morals."

"Did you learn any good morals then?"

"Oh, we're getting into that good/evil thing again are we?"

"Should I rephrase it as 'did you learn our morals' then?"

Sauron nodded. "That would be better."

"All right. Did you learn our morals?"

"I learned them, yes. Took them to heart, no."

"Figures," Haldir put in.

"Did anybody ask you for your opinion?"

"No, but I gave it anyways, didn't I?" Haldir retorted.

"Well next time keep it to yourself. Nobody cares."

"And that is supposed to deter me how?"

Sauron sighed angrily. "Now the reason why I liked being all alone so much comes back. There wasn't anybody around to backtalk!"

"Except yourself, which seems to be somebody you enjoy talking to."

"Dinner then!" Elhith broke in, stopping them before they could really get started.

They glared at each other for a moment and then began to eat in silence. Elhith looked completely unbothered and smiled pretty much through the whole meal. Then again he was probably getting immune to the arguments and had expected them to be part of the routine.

Once the meal was over Haldir helped Elhith clean everything up while Sauron remained in his seat. Haldir normally would have nagged him about this, but since he looked like he was trying to psych himself up to simply get out of the chair he decided just to let him be.

After a bit, coincidentally when the meal had finally been picked up, Sauron managed to stumble up out of the chair. Haldir couldn't resist smirking at the use of some various phrases, all of which included the word 'horse,' that followed this action.

Elhith however, whose seemed to hold no grudge against anybody and treated everybody with the same amount of attention, looked up from drying a plate. "What's that about horses?" he asked.

"He hates them," Haldir answered.

Sauron glared at him, which wasn't something spectacular. It pretty much seemed like he had such an expression on all the time. Haldir decided that he'd have to figure out a word for it. Glare just didn't cut it anymore.

"Why don't you like horses?" Elhith continued.

"Because riding one made him sore."

"I'm perfectly capable of answering questions that are directed to me without your help Haldir!" Sauron said crossly.

"Then speak up quicker."

Surprisingly there was no remark to this last comment, and Elhith was left to fill in the gap. "Would you like anything?"

"I would like many more things than you could possibly offer."

"Would you like anything so that you aren't sore then? Am I going to need to make sure that I'm always being very specific?"

"Yes and yes."

"Come with me then. I'm sure that I have something."

"Come with you where?"

"Upstairs."

"Uh…" Sauron began, frowning.

"You're going to have to go up sometime or another, so it might as well be now. Haldir, you can carry his stuff up for him."

Haldir was going to object to this, not necessarily because he felt like being contradictory, but because Sauron looked over him and smirked in such a way to make it obvious that he'd like to have Haldir's pride smashed around a bit. However, before he could say anything, Elhith spoke again. "Just carry them. And Sauron," he said, looking right at him as he pointed and jeered silently at Haldir, "you be nice too."

Not waiting for any arguments, Elhith set the plate down and went to the stairs. The other two came along a bit slower: Haldir because he didn't really want to help Sauron out, and Sauron because he just couldn't move very quickly at the moment.

At the bottom of the stairs Haldir picked up the bags - there were five. For a second he thought about letting Sauron go on first while he picked them up, but then decided that considering the pace he was going at being behind did not seem very satisfactory. Having decided this he hurried up, not really caring if the bags bumped into the stairs. Or more like ran into them hard.

However after the first time they smacked nicely into one step, Sauron yelled at him. "Can you at least show some amount of care with my things?!"

"Why ever would I do that?"

"Because I asked?"

"Mmm…"

Elhith jumped in, once again. He was becoming quite the mediator. "Haldir, don't be difficult. You're not setting a good example."

The instant after he said this Haldir and Sauron agreed on something, although indirectly. They both objected to Elhith's words, even if it was for different reasons.

"My example is better than what he acts like any day!" Haldir exclaimed.

"I don't need anybody trying to set examples for me!" Sauron said at the same time.

Elhith sighed. "Well, you are both wrong. Haldir, you were expected to get him to stop acting this way rather than keep him in a cycle where it is better for him if he continues being a complete snit."

Sauron looked a bit unsure about whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.

"So you need to at least try not to act like a snit yourself. Otherwise he'll be able to condone what he says by telling that you do it too. And Sauron, apparently you do need an example because the way you act now is not the way you should act."

"I think that you are underestimating how decently well behaved I've been," Sauron said, sounding almost a bit put out.

"Really? Well, you're more than welcome to prove me wrong."

"I believe that the worst thing that I've done the whole time I've been here was stealing that jewelry back when. Or wait…" He trailed off and frowned a bit, pausing at the third step. "Actually I did attempt to make some minor explosives while I had been doing forging. They hadn't really worked like I wanted them too though."

Elhith shook his head sadly, but Haldir was a bit interested. He hadn't heard that one word before.

"Explosives?" he said slowly, not sure about the word.

"Yes, explosives," Sauron said, looking over at him as he finally started to come up the stairs again.

"What are they?"

"You don't know?" he asked incredulously.

"No…"

"I thought I had used those on Lorien before when I was hiding out in Dol Guldur," he mused. "You sure you don't know about them? They are often in fireworks, maybe that rings more of a bell?"

"Fireworks? Oh… those things Mithrandir makes?" Haldir said, wondering if he was getting closer to figuring it out.

Sauron scowled a bit at this. "Yes, that horrible…" he rattled off for a minute, one in which Haldir wasn't about to interrupt him. Presently though Sauron seemed to become aware that Haldir was still expecting some sort of answer. "Well, yes, he makes them too. But he knows I made them first!"

The expression on his face now was as close to a pout as was possible without really being a pout.

"You made fireworks then?"

"I did, a long time ago. Like, a loooong time ago. Then I changed a couple things around in them and made just explosives. Those were more interesting."

"Which do…?"

"They blow up."

"I gathered that."

"Well, you put this powder in some container, usually of metal. Then there is a fuse which you light, and when the fire reaches the powder is goes BOOM!!!"

Elhith tripped on the top stair when Sauron screamed out this last word. Sauron snorted, smiling slightly.

"That reaction is what I loved about things blowing up," he said, a very reminiscent tone about his voice.

"Yeah…"

"So yes, see, I'd make these things and I'd have the orcs take them out to battle with them to huck at you guys and stuff. Then you'd all blow up into thousands of little pieces. Only, the orcs really didn't get the hang of the concept for a while and consequently would keep it a bit long and make themselves blow up into a thousand little pieces. They figured it out eventually."

"That was more information than I was really going for, but that's okay."

"It's so hard to tell how much you want to know sometimes. Or always."

"It isn't really how much you tell, it's what you tell."

"Oh."

"Besides that though, I am a little interested in how you got the idea in the first place," he said as they finally got to the top of the stairs.

"Bit of a funny story actually," Sauron said with a wry smile.

"A funny story, really? Now is this one that I would find funny or one that just your warped humor finds funny?"

"It would probably be funnier to you than it is to me. And it was not even funny to me for a long time."

"Care to share then?" Haldir asked.

"Sure, why not," Sauron replied.

"Sauron's Story Time. Lovely."

Sauron paused. "Don't ever say that again."

Haldir shrugged.

"Where to start…" he pondered. "Well, in any case, I always had a… um… obsession with fire, putting it gently."

"You don't say?" Haldir said sarcastically.

"I never tried to keep it secret," Sauron shot back. "Anyways, I don't have any idea how I figured it out, but somewhere down the line I made fireworks, though they were junk to begin with. I got there eventually. But then this one time I tried something really weird with them. Honestly, I have no idea what I was thinking. So I tried to send this one off once, only it did not work well and only went up like ten feet before falling down again."

Haldir raised a brow at this. "Well, go on."

"While it did not go up very much, it went a ways," Sauron reflected, as though trying to find something good in a bad situation. "Unfortunately, it happened to go right into Yavanna's favorite part of the garden and blew up about a fourth of it."

Haldir instantly smiled. "Really?"

"Yup. And so that is how I figured out the basics of destructive explosives. It also happened to be around that time that I learned about gardening."

Before then Haldir had been laughing softly, however now he just did so outright. "What?!" he asked, controlling his laughs long enough to speak.

"Obviously, Yavanna wasn't very happy with me. Well… yeah, she was downright mad. Aule managed to smooth it over a bit, yet to make up for it, I had to go and help her fix everything. It was useful after a while though; I used a lot of it in planning out the crops that I made my slaves farm. Sometimes it's interesting what things will come in handy later on down the road."

"There is just something very wrong with you going around and planting flowers, you know that?"

"Hey, it wasn't just flowers," he said in defense. "Being part of the ainur, I didn't plant just flowers, okay. Give me a little credit here."

"Okay, sorry that I lessened your horticultural abilities, forgive me," he said, smiling.

"I said you'd find it funny. I was right wasn't I?"

"Yes you were. That was quite amusing."

"I think it was that incident though which sparked my like of destruction. I didn't do anything about it for a while however."

"That's… nice?" Haldir said, unsure of any fitting response.

Elhith had gone off to his room to rummage around for the medicine, and now they had finally reached Sauron's room at the end of the hall.

Haldir went in and set the bags down on the bed. Interestingly, the cover gave off a small cloud of dust as a result.

Sauron blinked at this, and then looked at Haldir. "You guys haven not been in here at all, have you?"

"No."

"That's great…"

"Well for one thing you told us not to," Haldir pointed out.

"I did, that's right. I didn't mean it that literally though. I don't suppose you have anymore sheets or something so that I'm not just sleeping in dust?"

"Caring about something's condition now?"

"It's contagious, what can I say?"

"Fine," Haldir grumbled as he went out to find the asked for sheets.

By the time he got back, Elhith had apparently found what he had been looking for and had given it to Sauron, who was downing the small vial of only Elhith knew what. When he was finished Elhith went off again and Haldir tossed the sheets to Sauron.

Catching them, he frowned. "I have to do it?"

"Yes. I went and got them, I'm sure you are capable of putting them on the bed."

Sauron sighed. "Ah, it's so good to be home."

"Oh, and we're so glad you're back."

For a moment he waited for the imminent retort, yet there was none. He turned back and found Sauron merely smiling cheesily. "I'm sure you are, considering how many lovely plans I have for future excursions. Now g'night Haldir."

Although left with this less than encouraging thought, Haldir did not see anything else he could really do about the matter at the time other than sleep. Might not do much to keep Sauron from formulating his plans, but it'd keep Haldir from falling asleep while he tried to go pull them off.

*****

That was a hard chapter. Seriously. So… much… time… passed!! That really bothered me. But I couldn't keep going at the current rate. And I have a plan, a plan, a plan, and I had to get there. So no other choice. Tell me what you think!