"Yo, guys!" Aragorn called over his shoulder. "Hurry up! We're almost in Lothlorien."

The rest of the fellowship hastened to catch up with Aragorn at his words.

"You know, Aragorn," Legolas said, "I told you I could walk and write at the same time, but that doesn't mean I can RUN and write at the same time!"

Aragorn ignored him. Legolas pouted, signed the letter to the Guinness Book of World Records with a flourish, pocketed it, and picked up the pace.

Everyone stopped running once they were right by Aragorn.

"Okie donkers, I want you all to stay quiet once we're in the woods, got it?" Aragorn said.

"But Lothlorien is my home!" Legolas said indignantly. "I'm sure we'll be welcome here."

"Yeah, well, that's what Gimli thought too, but we weren't very welcome in Moria, now were we?"

"Yes," Legolas agreed, "but elves aren't stupid enough to get themselves killed by a bunch of goblins and orcs, are they?"

"What's that mean, ay, what's that mean!" Gimli said heatedly.

"It means," Legolas said calmly, "that elves are about a billion times smarter than dwarves.Gimli raised his axe threateningly.

"You wanna go, pal!" he exclaimed. "Let's take this outside!"

"We ARE outside."

Gimli took a step closer to Legolas, raising his axe higher. "I keel you, elf!"

Legolas pulled an arrow from his quiver, quick as a flash.

"Raise that axe any higher and I'll shove this arrow into your chest!"

"Oh yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"CHRIST, YOU TWO BICKER LIKE AN OLD MARRIED COUPLE!" Aragorn yelled. "Both of you shut the goddamn hell up and put your weapons away or so help me I will WILLINGLY get an apple and eat it! Now let's get moving and stay quiet! Mon dieu!"

Aragorn, fuming, stalked toward the woods.

"Did you know Aragorn knew French?" Merry muttered to Sam, who shook his head.

The woods were indeed quite strange. They possessed a feeling of magic to the air and all was unnervingly still and quiet. The leaves blew about gracefully but other than that, there was no visible activity in the woods.

Gimli, most unhelpfully, commenced to talk quietly to Frodo and Sam about an evil witch that was supposed to live in the woods according to legend. This talk gave Sam such a fright that he let go of Frodo's hand and walked ahead. Gimli pressed on.

"Gimli, shut UP!" Frodo hissed. "You're giving me the willy wonkers!"

"Would you prefer me to talk about dwarf women?" Gimli asked.

Frodo stopped walking as a voice spoke in his head, a cool, whispering, chilly female voice.

"Frodo," it whispered, echoing. "These are the footsteps of doom. You bring great evil here, ring bearer."

"I thought I would be rid of the voices! Ahh! They're back! Get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head!" Frodo whimpered, pressing the palms of his hands against his forehead. He kept walking, looking over his shoulder…you know, just in case……

"Well, there's one dwarf she won't ensnare so easily," Gimli growled, still going on about the "witch". "I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox."

Gimli found himself face to face with the point of an arrow.

"Oh!" he said, embarrassed. The elves pointing the arrows at them and the rest of the fellowship stared at him, everyone raising an eyebrow.

"You were saying…" Boromir said, raising his hands up in surrender.

"Seriously," the leader of this group of elves said, walking closer to the fellowship. "This dwarf breathes so loud we could have shot him in the dark."

"Shut up!" Gimli whined, crossing his arms and putting a pout on his face.

"Haldir of Lorien," Aragorn said breathlessly to the leading elf, "please, we are not foes; we only seek the shelter Lothlorien has to offer."

Haldir gave a kind of sideways nod to the poised elves and they lowered their bows. "I suppose," he shrugged. "But I think we should do a test to see if the dwarf is trustworthy or not."

"Of course I-" Gimli started indignantly, but Legolas cut him off.

"What kind of test?" he was watching Haldir with a hungry if-I'm-lucky-Christmas-might-just-come-early expression. Gimli glowered at him.

"He will have to play a game of Haldir Says," Haldir answered.

Gimli sighed. "Okay, fine, but no cheating!"

"Haldir says touch your nose." Gimli did so. "Haldir says pat your head. Haldir says bend down and touch your toes. Haldir says stay bent over. Haldir says smack your tush."

"Are you serious?" Gimli groaned.

"Haldir says smack your tush!" Gimli did so. "Haldir says hug Aragorn." Gimli did so. "Kiss Aragorn."

Gimli leaned forward and kissed Aragorn quickly on the lips.

"AAAAAAAHHH!" Aragorn yelled, wiping his mouth furiously while the rest of the fellowship doubled up with laughter.

"You silly!" Haldir giggled. "Haldir didn't say!"

Gimli blushed.

"Okay, you can all stay," Haldir stated. "I proved that this dwarf's intelligence was average. If it were above average, I would have been worried and not have let him in. Now follow the leader!"

Haldir strode forward, then came his elves, then the fellowship. Gimli and Aragorn both looked very disgruntled. Aragorn was muttering nasty things that sounded oddly like threats under his breath and Gimli averted his eyes from everyone else and scowled at the ground.

They arrived at Lothlorien some forty-five minutes later. Frodo noticed it was a very shiny place…very, very shiny………

Me:I LIKE SHINY!

clears throat Anyways…

Haldir and his troop of elves left the fellowship and went off…oh, I don't know…somewhere. Two elves came walking down some steps from what looked like thrones (again, it was very hard to tell because everything was so damn shiny!) and stopped a few feet away from the fellowship. One elf was a man (I am talking gender-wise, not race-wise) and the other a woman of great beauty. It was the Lord Celeborn and the Lady Galadriel.

Galadriel surveyed the others, then her eyes rested upon Aragorn.

"You are Aragorn," she stated baldly.

"I…know…?" Aragorn said slowly, wondering if this was some kind of trick.

"You are the one with the freaky apples."

"Yes, I know…"

"You will learn a big secret about the apples."

"Really? When?"

"Whenever Gondor's TRUE queen decides you will."

"…Who?"

"The REAL queen of Gondor."

"………"

"She will tell you sometime later, but not that much later"

Me: grins She means in this story, but sometime around the end. (I am doing sequels, you know!)

"Dude, where's Gandalf?" Celeborn asked, looking around. "Gandalf?" he called. "Gaaaandaaalf?"

"Dude, he died," Aragorn said shortly.

"Dude!"

"Dude."

"Gandalf's my bro!"

"He fell into shadow," Galadriel said bluntly.

"Okay, lady, you're kind of freaky," Pippin observed.

"Yes," she said, looking at him with a maniacal grin. Pippin took a step backwards. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You are quite safe here. You can all sleep. Aragorn, you don't even need to worry about the apples; they won't attack here."

"Check that out, bitches!" Aragorn exclaimed triumphantly.

"Welcome, Frodo of the Shire," Galadriel's voice said in Frodo's head as she looked at him, though she did not move her lips. "The one who has seen the eye!"

Frodo ran off to find a comfy spot to sleep.

In the middle of the night, Frodo woke up as abruptly as if someone had whacked him on the head. He got up, saw Galadriel walking somewhere, and decided to follow her.

She was standing in a small, circular courtyard, in the middle of which sat a strange, innocent-looking basin. She held up a pitcher and poured water into the basin as Frodo entered the courtyard tentatively.

"Will you look into the mirror?" Galadriel asked.

"That depends," Frodo responded. "What will I see?"

"Even the wisest cannot tell. For all I know, you might see a flying hippo."

"Umm…"

"Go ahead and look."

Frodo walked up to the basin, glanced back at Galadriel, and looked into it.