Chapter Seventeen: The Never-ending Council

Up in Skittleman the Many Colored's treehouse, Skittleman and Grima were evilly plotting. "Mwahaha!" Skittleman cackled. "Horseyland shall be under my command soon! And they shall fear my lumberjack powers!"

"You lie!" said Grima.

"Be silent! I do not!"

"You lie!"

"Grima, stop that or I'll stick some fake eyebrows onto your head."

"You lie!"

"No, I really will give you fake eyebrows!" Skittleman insisted. Grima was silent. "Much better," said Skittleman. "Now on to business. I shall conquer Horseyland! I shall bombard Helm's Shack with a large quantity of Skittles!"
He pulled a bag of Skittles out of his pocket and hugged it. "Skittles. Taste the rainbow."

"You lie!" said Grima. "We don't have enough Skittles to do that."

Skittleman thought to himself for a moment. "Hmm. You're right. So much for that evil plan. Well then, send out the Super Sporks!"

oOoOoOo

Meanwhile, Aragorn was on his way to Helm's Shack. "Hey, I see a massive army of Super Sporks headed in the same direction I'm going! We have something in common! I love having things in common with other people!" He continued to ride until he reached the rickety shack.

He got off of his horse. "Hey, everyone! I'm back!"

Frodo folded his arms in front of his chest. "You're late!"

"A Ranger is never late, Frodo Baggins, nor is he- Wait a minute. Frodo Baggins? Get out of here!"

"Okay Strider!" Frodo snapped his fingers and disappeared. Sam had let him borrow his teleporting powers and he was testing them out.

Legolas ran outside. Wait, scratch that. Legolas skipped outside. "Hi Aragorn! I stole your freaky little Foilstar pendant that Arwen gave you." He handed the Foilstar pendant to Aragorn. Eowyn, who was watching behind a bush, popped out from behind it.

"Aha!" she cried. "I knew it, Aragorn! You and Legolas are lovers!"

Aragorn started to laugh. "Yeah right! Me and him? I love Arwen. Besides, Legolas could never be anyone's lover. He's too much in love with himself!"

"Hey! I am not!" Legolas protested. He suddenly saw his reflection in a puddle of water and was mesmerized. "Ooh..."

Aragorn pulled him away from the puddle. "Snap out of it, elf boy."

Theoden walked out of the shack. "Oh no, Aragorn's alive! He'll fill up the shack with his horrible odor!"

"You're mean!" Aragorn whined. "Just give the shack some air holes or something!"

"We can't," said Hama. "If we mess with the shack, it will probably collapse and then we won't have any defense against any armies that could attack."

"Speaking of being attacked," said Aragorn, "Skittleman the many Colored is sending an army of Super Sporks! What do we do?"

Theoden shrugged his shoulders. "Let them come."

"You don't want to do anything about it or anything?" Aragorn asked.

"Nope, just let them come," Theoden replied.

"Wow, what a lousy un-loving king we have," commented a peasant.

oOoOoOo

While Helm's Shack prepared to be pulverized, slow events were slowly happening slowly in the Incredibly Old, Astoundingly Creepy, Impossibly Foreboding, Exceedingly Disturbing Forest.

"It is time," said Treebeard, "for the Ents to have a meeting so that we can say hello and then remind each other of what our names are! It may sound extremely pointless, but we Ents have no lives whatsoever and therefore it is very important. I'm going to gather all the Ents, so stay out of the way!"

"Sounds like the council of Elrond, but with trees!" Pippin commented.

"I'm not a tree!" Treebeard insisted irritably. "Oh, look, there's Quickbeam!" Another Ent appeared. "This is Quickbeam. He's going to be your babysitter, since you guys are bad naughty Magical Hobs." Merry and Pippin were forced into straight jackets and led away, and Treebeard stood right in the middle of a big clearing. "Hoooooooooom! I have no idea what that means, but hoooooom anyway!"

"Uh, does that mean we're supposed to come out there?" asked the Ents who were hiding among the trees.

"Yes, you fools!" said Treebeard irritably.

"Oh, okay!" All of the Ents stepped forward and made a circle around Treebeard.

"This reminds me of Boy Scout camp," said an Ent. "Let's sing a campfire song!" That Ent was promptly stepped on by Treebeard and a couple of Ents sat on him like a bench.

"We won't be hearing from him anymore," said Treebeard. "Anyway, let's make our introductions. We will be speaking in Entish, so that it takes as long as possible." He spoke in Entish and pointed at himself. "I'm Treebeard."

Five Hours Later:

Three Ents introduced themselves.

Twelve Hours Later:

Seven Ents have introduced themselves.

Many, Many, Many Long Hours Later:

All of the introductions were finished. Finally. "Well that sure was enlightening," said Treebeard. "And also highly necessary, even though I already know all of your names."

"So that was a waste of time," said an Ent.

"No, of course it wasn't. Anyway, the first part of our council is now finished. Let's all feel proud of ourselves! Next, we're all going to say hello to each other!"

One Day Later:

Treebeard applauded himself. "Wow, what an accomplishment! We've finally finished greeting each other! Now the council can actually start!"

One Day Later:

"Excuse me for a moment while I go see my Magical Hob pals," said Treebeard. "You guys can all have a coffee break." He walked away and found Merry and Pippin, who were with Quickbeam.

"Can you take the straight jackets off now?" Merry asked.

"Fine, fine," said Treebeard. "You don't need them anyway. It's Denethor who needs a straight jacket. Quickbeam, send these to Minas Tirith so the Steward can have them." He took the striaght jackets off of Merry and Pippin and handed them to Quickbeam.

"So are you and all the other trees finished talking?" Pippin asked.

"I'm NOT a tree!" Treebeard yelled. "And yes, we're done. Finally. We spent a long time getting to know each other and then it took us more than an entire day to figure out that you're not Sporks. Aren't you proud of us? We've accomplished so much!"

Merry and Pippin simply stared at him in stunned silence.

"We've been waiting here for three days just for that?"

Treebeard nodded happily. "Yep! Isn't that wonderful?"

"No, not really," said Pippin. "You trees obviously don't have lives, but we do! Skittleman has been a bad naughty wizard and we should teach him a lesson!"

"Aw, but I like Skittles!" Treebeard whined. "They taste like the rainbow! But I agree, we should teach Skittleman a lesson since he's a lumberjack and lumberjacks are pure evil!"

"Hey!" cried a group of offended lumberjacks

Treebeard threw an armful of pinecones at them. "Be gone with you, you tree killers! Never show your ugly bearded faces here again! Now let's go kick some wizard behind!"