Author's Note: Welcome back, everybody! Thank you so much for reading chapter one of my little fic! I'm glad you enjoyed it a little. Our class has finally made it to watching the Two Towers, despite the early onset of end-of-term reports, and it's now time for chapter two! Yay! And if I seem to pick on anybody in this fic (Gimli, Boromir, Aragorn, hint hint) it's only out of love. 'Cause I really do love 'em all. (kitty smile)
Disclaimer: All characters, places, battles, etc. here mentioned belong to Prof. Tolkein. Not me. Sigh. What I wouldn't give for a pet hobbit...
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Dear Diary;
I like running. I like running through sunlit fields in the spring, chasing swallows and butterflies. I like running in moonlit woods on a summer night, playing tag with my friends and the shadows of the forest trees. But I do NOT like running across barren wastelands of hard, colorless rock in the wintertime, following a human who hasn't had a bath since who knows when and followed by an out-of-shape dwarf whose bathing habits I don't even want to consider.
Three days. Three days we've been running. We still haven't caught up with the Uruk- Hai. This is one of the very small short rests we have taken so far, and I just thought I'd check in and let you know I'm still alive. Aren't you glad, Diary? I am SO glad that elves have the advanced ability to sleep on their feet. While running, no less. At least we know we're on the right trail; Aragorn found one of the hobbits' little leaf brooches. So we may yet hope to again hear their squeaky little voices begging us for food.
Gimli can't last much longer. He's weakening, I can sense it. Aragorn keeps telling me to keep an eye on the mud bunny and make sure we don't lose him, but I'm getting tired of saying "Come on, Gimli," and "Keep up, Gimli." If he falls down again I shall just pull his cloak over him and leave him alone. He'll catch us up eventually. This I can say for dwarves: they are tenacious beyond belief.
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
How talented am I? There aren't many people who can claim that they have written a journal entry on the back of a running horse.
A few hours ago we ran into the Riders of Rohan. Or, rather, they ran into us. They were not very polite. Despite my inner urges, I was forced to stand up for Gimli. The question of difference in races aside, I couldn't just let some random horse lover walk up and threaten to decapitate one of my companions. If Gimli died, who would I laugh at?
After some chill pills and a little persuasion from Aragorn, Captain Eomer lent us two horses. I swear that given the opportunity that man could persuade Saruman to buy a box of Ranger Scout cookies for himself and each of his ten thousand orc soldiers. That's how good Aragorn is. It makes me sick.
Anyhow, now that we have the horses things are looking up, even if I do have a dwarf gripping my waist like he's starving and I'm a giant ham and turkey sub with all the fixings. It's getting hard to breathe. I don't think he likes the horses much. I like them, though. Aragorn's horse is named Hasufel, and the one I'm riding is Arod. They are delightfully spirited.
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
My pony ran away! Uh, I mean, Arod ran away, and Hasufel. Pulled their pickets and took off. I don't think they like Fangorn Forest any more than Gimli does. It's a little close, and a tiny bit stuffy, but I like it alright. And this is where we've tracked Merry and Pippin to, so this is where we're going to stay, regardless.
We have had a stalker, as well. He's old, dressed in white, and scared Gimli during the night. My vote is on Saruman. From what I've heard, that man doesn't know when to give up. Next time he comes around I might have to introduce myself via an arrow.
My, these trees are angry about something. I think it might be the mud bunny's axe. Hmm, maybe if he keeps it out one of the trees will grab him around the neck and twist him up into a hairy little dwarf pretzel...
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
Aragorn owes me five dollars. Gandalf is still alive! It was him we saw last night, the big sneak. Apparently he has obtained a new set of designer robes, all nice and white and clean, and that's why we didn't recognize him. He's still cryptic as ever. I'm a bit ashamed that I was so frightened of a Balrog that couldn't even take down an old man. Elven instincts, go figure. Oh, well, maybe the thing was defective, or having a bad day, or something.
But Gandalf had excellent news! Merry and Pippin are perfectly fine, and Gandalf himself sent them off with an ent. An ENT, Diary! A real ent! My new goal for this trip is to speak with one, and possibly get it's autograph. I swear, Daddy and the brothers will never believe it.
Oh, and Arod and Hasufel came back. They just went off to greet Gandalf's horse Shadowfax. Oooh, he's beautiful, Diary! I want to pet him so badly! Again, I blame those pesky elven instincts at work.
Right now we're back on the horses, heading for Edoras, and again I am being squeezed by the dwarf. Couldn't be a gorgeous young elf girl, oh no. At least what amounts to the capital of Rohan should have a shower. Right this minute I'd kill for a bath, and I swear that if I don't buff my nails soon I'll just fall off this horse and die. Shooting close to a thousand arrows a day is murder on the cuticles!
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
Lucky thing I keep you down my shirt. They made us hand over everything we had before we entered Theoden's hall, and I swear the guy who took my bow looked like he wanted to strip-search us. It wasn't a nice feeling. Besides, I don't want anyone to read a single word I've written here. Aragorn would beat me up, Gandalf would probably turn me into a chipmunk or something, and Gimli would axe-murder me in my sleep.
Anyway. King Theoden looked terrible. I mean, it almost made me sick! He looked like a corpse. Thankfully Gandalf fixed him up a bit. I was a little concerned when he did it, though. It looked like he was inducing Theoden to have a heart attack. But the king survived Gandalf's good ol' home remedies, and I believe he's even a little better off for it. He's still old, and he's still cranky, but at least he doesn't look dead anymore. And as an added bonus Aragorn, Gimli and I got to rumble with the hall guards. I haven't been able to punch anyone in ages! It was nice.
Well, now that Theoden is firmly on our side, I think I'll go hunt up that shower. I asked Aragorn if he wanted to come and he got all offended, like I said he smells bad or something. And for the record I said no such thing. I merely implied it. And it stands to reason that when you are spit upon by some grimy little backstabbing advisor named Wormtongue who needs extensive therapy, you'd want to wash it off, right? Well, not Aragorn. Apparently Isildur's heir and the future King of Men is above soap and water and antiperspirant. But that's none of my concern. Just because I'm on his team doesn't mean I'm obligated to stand next to him.
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
My estimation of Edoras just hit rock bottom. There is not a single bath or shower in this entire hall. A hotel or visitors' center with one, maybe? Nope. A river, stream, lake or pond nearby? Nada. No wonder everyone here smells like horse! I'm tired and sore and upset and my legs hurt, and it looks like I'll have to stay dirty for the rest of my long, long life! This just isn't right! Ah, my hair is all full of dust! I'm filthy, Diary! FILTHY!
Okay, calm down, Legolas. Mustn't panic, now. Think. There has to be some water around here SOMEWHERE, right?
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
Well, well, wouldn't it just figure? I found the water, alright. Do you know where it was? It was concealed in the stables, in giant stone horse troughs that were so immaculately clean I had almost no qualms about bathing in one. How like the Rohirrim, to treat their horses better than their people. Good thing I carried some soap from Rivendell.
Oh, Valar, how embarrassing. Me, a prince, reduced to washing in a horse trough. In full view of the horse, no less. Arod gave me a strange look. I told him to be silent. Odds are someone comes in there every hour on the hour with the express purpose of cleaning the horse water anyway, so he won't have to deal with soapy drinks for too long. Besides, the dirt came off an elf, not a dwarf or human, so it can't be that bad.
At least there is one benefit I discovered of bathing in a horse stall: the high walls guarantee that you're not spied upon by half the girls within a three mile radius. I'm sure the horses were laughing at me, though. Oh, well. At least I'm clean. Now all I need is a manicure and I'll be set.
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
Gandalf is off my Christmas card list. He found out about my little bath. Either someone saw me coming out of the stables all squeaky clean and he found out from them, or Shadowfax told him. I bet it was Shadowfax. And then the wizard went and told Aragorn and Gimli, and they spent most of the day laughing at me. I'm not speaking to any of them.
Right now we are, once more, on the move. This time we are headed for Helm's Deep, which will hopefully prevent the massacre of the entire population of Edoras. Gandalf rode off, like he usually does when danger is immanent. I think he just enjoys making a big dramatic entrance and saving everybody.
I refused to ride with Gimli. He is trying to ride on his own, which is just providing me with some much-needed amusement. He was flirting with Theoden's niece Eowyn and the horse spooked. I don't blame it. He hit the dirt and bounced. I laughed. So did Eowyn. So did Aragorn. He needs to laugh more. I can tell he's thinking about Arwen. I hope all that works out, because if I have to listen to her moping around the Gray Havens moaning about how much she misses Aragorn, I might do something rude like tell her to shut up.
I'm hungry. Not to be obviously rude, but Lady Eowyn can't cook. She tries, poor thing, and Aragorn lied and said her stew was good, of course. I miss Daddy's wine. Sigh.
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
Well, Aragorn is gone. He fell off a cliff attached to a warg, and I found a nasty little orc fondling his Evenstar pendant. It never ends.
Arwen will probably gut me when she finds out what happened to her precious little Estel while I was on the same battlefield as he was. I am not the Ranger's keeper! He'll probably miraculously show up in an hour or two, anyway. He's lucky in an almost criminal way. It's almost like he has horseshoes and rabbits' feet stuffed down his armor. But I don't grudge him his luck, because he'll need every ounce of it to keep lord Elrond from strangling him when he finally marries daddy's little darling.
I am not liking the look of this Helm's Deep place. Never trust any given location made entirely of rock. It's embedded in the side of a mountain, for Eldar's sake. Gimli is ecstatic. Oh, well. I suppose that mountain ups our odds for survival when the army from Isengard arrives. Now, to go find a snack and await Aragorn's timely arrival.
I really hope he shows up. I don't want Arwen to beat me.
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
The prodigal Ranger returns! I informed him that he looks terrible. The look he gave me informed me that I am a pointy-eared twit, and I would do well to shut up. He didn't say that, of course, but I could see it in his eyes. Gimli was happy, and Eowyn was ready to cry. Am I the only one who has figured out that everyone who seems to be dead has at least a fifty-fifty chance of miraculously returning alive?
Aragorn brings ugly news. An army of orcs ten thousand strong is heading right for us. They'll hit around nightfall, he says. And my hair is starting to frizz, so that means rain, at around the same time as the orcs, if I'm not mistaken. My hair is hardly ever wrong. Lucky, lucky days. King Theoden is in low spirits. I can't truthfully say that I blame him.
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
Aragorn and I had a fight.
I just got a little stressed, that's all, wandering around listening to all the talk of death and destruction. One fifth of the soldiers out there are under fourteen! They need to still be wrestling in the grass, playing their children's games and riding their ponies, not putting on helmets and gearing up for battle. Quite a few of the others are older than Theoden himself! I wouldn't trust these men to look at a Playboy without having a stroke, and now they are all that stands between a free nation and complete and utter destruction.
So I was on the verge of a panic attack and tried to have a little friendly discussion with Aragorn in elvish. All I did was quite reasonably point out that we are all going to be brutally, mercilessly, pitilessly slaughtered in a matter of hours. And I did it in elvish, as I said, so no one else even understood me when I foresaw their doom, but that didn't matter. "Lord" Aragorn got all testy and yelled something like he was willing to die as one of them. You should have seen the soldiers' faces when he said "die" and "them" in the same sentence. It was like their eyes had been pre-programmed to open up very wide when those words were spoken. Troop moral has hit a record low.
Aragorn says it's all my fault. I say it's his fault for yelling out his dramatic dialog and forgetting to speak it in elvish. He can be so pissy sometimes. But I'll have to be the one to apologize anyway, because that evil son of a king's heir smelled the chocolate on my breath when we were yelling at each other. He pulled me aside and said that if I don't apologize in public he'll find what's left of my stash and eat it all. Damn him. Damn him! Do you have ANY idea how HARD it is to keep a Hershey bar fresh and intact in the face of what we've been through?
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
Well, I said I was sorry. If looks could kill there would be one less Ranger going to battle this evening. I think he's going to try to find my chocolate anyway, now that he knows there is some. But that's where I have him beat! In anticipation of his little tricks and the upcoming battle that could very well kill us all, I have eaten the last of my stash. It was a bittersweet victory.
And I have some surprising news. Haldir and a company of archers have come to join the battle. I wonder what, exactly, was the dollar amount of the raise Elrond and Galadriel obviously promised these poor saps. So just maybe we might have a fighting chance.
Right now we are stationed on the battlements, watching the tide of orc flotsam and jetsam creep closer up the Deeping Coomb toward the Hornburg. If I were any lesser a being, I might be intimidated. Unluckily for the orcs, however, my anxiety attack is well in the past, and I am ready to give them a warm welcome at arrow-point.
Heh, Gimli is too short to see over the wall. I said something really scathing about getting him a box, but he just laughed at me. I think the mud bunny has realized that I don't dislike him as much as I let on.
Ah, a raindrop. The first of many, I bet. Must sign off now. Battle is immanent. If I survive, you'll be one of the first to know. I wish I could siphon off some of Aragorn's luck.
O.O.O.O.O
Dear Diary;
The sun is shining, the lembas is tasty, and the orc carcasses are piled high! It's a beautiful day!
The battle was won. At dawns first light Aragorn, Gimli, Theoden and myself decided to ride out and give the orcs one last bit of hell before we were overrun, and who appeared in the moment of direst need but Gandalf and all the absent Riders of the Mark! The orcs that weren't mown down ran headlong into a forest that has somehow mysteriously sprouted at the mouth of the valley. I don't know why, but for some reason I don't think many orcs will be returning from that little picnic.
Might I also humbly say that I kicked slimy, hairy, pimply orc behind last night? Forty two of them met their proverbial maker at the tips of my knives and arrows. And I have decided that if I escape from this war alive I will take up a new hobby: skateboarding. Valar know I have the reflexes for it.
The one damp spot on my otherwise cheerful mood is that Gimli bagged one more orc than I did. I shot the one he was sitting on, and he gave me a bunch of bull about how it was only twitching because there was a dwarf axe stuck in the back of its skull, but I say it was still alive.
I'm willing to not argue the point, though, even if he did have the nerve to call me a pointy-eared elvish princeling. Everyone always goes for the ears when they want to insult me. I don't know why they do this. I'm usually told that my delicately pointed little ears are cute. Go figure.
And as if my day were not good enough, now i have dirt on the mud bunny! Figuratively speaking. Aragorn let it slip that he tossed the dwarf across the gap to the bridge last night. That's good to know, because all the time I was helping to haul their none-too-gingerly weights up the side of the keep, I was WONDERING how Gimli managed to get across that distance. It's all coming together.
Now, I know you want to hear what's going to happen next, right Diary? I think what looks most likely is that we will take King Theoden and the Rohirrim and pay a visit to Saruman at Isengard. Gandalf knows something we don't, obviously, because he keeps laughing whenever someone mentions Saruman or the mystery trees at our doorstep. I would like to get closer to those trees.
Well, Diary, I suppose I must again bid you a temporary farewell. With any luck I shall write again soon. We're off to see a wizard, as it were.
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(2nd)Author's Note: At my own discretion I have decided to leave the tiny detail of Haldir's death out of this fic. Why? Because I don't think that poor Haldir with his cute widdle buck teeth should die. LotR is depressing enough as it is, and this is supposed to be humorous.