Disclaimer: I do not own Middle-earth or any characters conjured up from the brilliant mind of J.R.R. Tolkien.
A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates. Finals and such have kept me very busy. Thank you again for the great reviews. :O) And, here we gooooo!
My Head Hurts
Part IV:
The Challenge
"I think he's starting to come to," Legolas heard a voice. Little arrows were still spinning around his head making it hard for him to decipher which repulsive Man was talking.
"Legolas, snap out of it!" Aragorn slapped him the face. The prince bolt up in a sitting position screaming at the horrible sensation he felt. Not from the sissy slap but from the smutty hand that just made another contact with his skin.
"I'm up! I'm up! Just don't touch me again!" he replied frantically. He motioned for Gandalf to stop when he offered to help him up and said that he could do it on his own.
"Very well then, just hurry up, Legolas. We must keep moving," said the Maia.
"Yes, by nightfall these hills will be swarming with Orcs," squeezed in Aragorn. Both of them glanced him a strange look for his comment. "Sorry, I couldn't help it. I was watching the first installment yesterday," he blushed.
"Umm...yes, well, as I was saying..." Gandalf motioned with his hand to the Elf that the King had probably taken a swig of ale before coming to Mirkwood, "We don't want to hold the therapist from her other appointments."
The prince nodded and proceeded to get up. When they weren't looking, he wiped his cheek that Aragorn touched against the wall. Ah, much better... "So, in which direction are we heading towards now?" he asked.
"I believe we should turn east," answered Aragorn. "Come, let us go," he patted the prince on the shoulder. Gandalf agreed and began to walk beside him. Legolas stopped at stared at his shoulder and made a face before he followed. He wiped the handprint off his tunic and tried to find another place to smear it on. Yuck...
A sudden mischievous grin formed on his lips as he caught up to his other companions. "So, Gandalf, are you sure this is a wise decision?" he vigorously massaged the wizard's arm with his hand. Hee...hee...hee...
Gandalf gave an uneasy smile at what he was doing but decided to ignore it. "Well, yes. Aragorn is a skilled Ranger. We should trust his instincts. Besides, there are no more doors with the word, 'Minno!' ingraved on them. It only seemed that every time we went through one, we ended up getting more lost," he replied.
"What?!" Legolas jaw dropped. He looked around and sure enough the previous doors that they had passed had no markings on them. They were still exquisitely carved in Elven fashion but still plain without any decorations. "Gandalf, do you even know what 'Minno' in Sindarin means?"
"Umm...'Do Not Enter or Be Lost Forever'?" he guessed.
"No, you old geezer, it means 'Enter!' meaning that all those doors actually led to place in the palace. The doors without them lead to other doors that are mostly used as closet space to store things that we no longer use," Legolas told him.
Aragorn, thinking that they were still behind him kept venting about how Arwen sometimes had a bad case of the snoring bug as he went to open another door. "Arwen, let me tell you, she could wake the spirits alive in Mandos with her manly snor - "
CRASH! TOPPLE! WACK!
"See, I told you," the prince pointed to a now buried Ranger. The only thing you could see was one leg and one arm, flailing for help, along with two other arms and two different hairy feet. "Wait. Hairy feet?"
"Get off me! I cannot breath as it is!" said one of them.
"You're the one on top, idiot! Tell your big toe to stop tickling my ear!" replied the other.
Gandalf lifted one foot each and shook his head at what he saw. "Hello there young Hobbits," he smirked.
"Hello, Gandalf," Merry said with a big smile. He looked at Pippin who was busy nibbling on a mushroom and elbowed him.
"What? Oh! Hello there, Gandalf!" he smiled with mushroom stuck between his teeth.
"Pippin! Merry! What are you two doing here?" asked Legolas.
"We came with him for a bit of adventure," Merry pointed to Aragorn who was still underneath the pile of useless junk.
"Yes, when we got here we decided to play hide-and-go-seek with him, but he's not very good at it," whispered Pippin. "We knew he was a beginner so we hid in really easy places and every time he said, 'Hobbits where are you? Come out, come out wherever you are' and we did, he would roll his eyes at us and bang his head against the wall."
"Strange," nodded Merry.
"Yes, very strange," agreed Pippin.
"Umm...I don't think you were actually suppose to come out of hiding when he said that," Gandalf spoke. "I think his purpose was to scare you to keep you in hiding so he could better look for you."
"Scared? I wasn't scared. Were you scared, Pip?"
"Nope. Not with his girly voice. I can see why Arwen wears the trousers in the family," the Hobbit covered his mouth with his hands and giggled. "Speaking of Strider, I think he's dead. I can't hear him struggling for air anymore."
"Oops!" Gandalf dropped both Hobbits on the floor and tried to unbury the Ranger.
"It's about #@!$& time!" he breathed.
"Such a potty mouth," Pippin shook his head in disapproval while resting on Merry who got dropped on top of him, continuing to nibble on his mushroom.
"Yes, a potty mouth," Merry agreed with his chin prompt on his elbows under Pippin.
"You two!" Aragorn glared at them. The Hobbits scrambled to their feet and hid behind Legolas. "That is the last time I play anything with you two!"
"Oh, come now, Aragorn, it couldn't have been that bad. Could it?" grinned the Elf.
"Couldn't have been that bad? Couldn't have been that bad! Let's see how well you do the next time you have two Halflings running under you and around you kicking you in the shin because you didn't know how to play their stupid game correctly!" he glared at them again.
"Don't forget tripping you over Merry," smiled Pippin.
"Oh, yes, that was a brilliant idea, Pip," Merry smiled in return.
"Why, I aught a -"
"Come down, Elessar. We still have a long ways to go. Because of you, we'll have to retrace our steps," sighed the wizard. You'd think being able to speak the language; he'd also be able to read it! Illiterate fool... "Let us proceed." The two Men continued ahead while the Hobbits stayed behind with Legolas.
Merry and Pippin quickly got bored so they started jumping up and down trying to pull on the princes' silky hair and decided that whoever had the most strands by the end of the journey would be the winner. Legolas couldn't stand the thought of being half bald when they finally reached their destination so he threatened to swing them as a pair of clubs against the fangirls.
That made them behave...for a while.
"Hey, Gandalf, do you know what I saw when I was buried under all of that mess?" whispered Aragorn to the wizard.
"No, what?"
"I swear I saw one of Gimli's old battle axes lying in that pile. Care to tell me what a Dwarf axe is doing hiding in an Elven palace?" he asked curiously.
Gandalf smirked and glanced behind to see if Legolas might be listening in. The prince was too busy trying to shake the Hobbits off his sleeves who were using them as swinging devices to notice anything else but that.
"Well, it seems that the prince and the Dwarf did spend some alone time, if you know what I mean," he winked.
"No!" he gasped.
"Oh, yes. Well, he didn't quite spill the entire story out but just enough to satisfy the curious minds of certain races that we may know of," nodded Gandalf.
"So, he didn't confess the entire thing to you then?"
"Well, no...but, I was close," he said.
"Close doesn't cut it, old wizard. Either he did, or he didn't," answered Aragorn.
"Fine, no, he didn't. So what?"
"So, what? That gives me the chance to get it out of him myself!" he smiled. "Big shinny coins, here I come!"
"HA! Good luck! You can't even talk to the Elf-prince directly for five minutes without him wanting to vomit at the mere sight of you."
"I'll worry about that and the eye twitching later. What you have to worry about is being beaten out of your riches!" he laughed evilly.
"We'll see about that," mumbled Gandalf. "We wizards have our ways."
"If you win the bet among the races of Middle-earth, which you won't, maybe you could finally afford a decent tailor," he laughed again.
Gandalf looked at his hat and saw that the hole had gotten bigger. "Drats!" Stupid Elf... "Yes, and perhaps if you win, you could finally afford a decent bath in that grimy castle of yours!" he shot back.
"A decent bath? HA! I'm surprised you even know what the word means. And, my palace isn't grimy. It's just a bit...umm...untidy with cobwebs. That's all. Besides, when I win, I'm buying myself a new bed clear across the palace grounds so I can finally get a good night's rest," he smiled blissfully to himself. Arwen, dear, I love you, but sleeping next to your constant snoring is like sleeping next to a cave troll.
"Yes, a decent bath. Not one with dirt mixed into it, but one with pure water and soap!"
"I...I know that," the Ranger nervously rubbed his hands together. "I've seen Arwen do it plenty of times. I'll have you know that I am King Elessar of Gondor and insinuating that I do not know of such rituals is offensive and - oomphf!" he was pushed into the wall by two Little People laughing and one Elf-prince charging at them like a Balrog who's fire was extinguished.
'Serves you right! Your smell is offensive,' smirked Gandalf, 'And so, the journey now continues in the right direction...I think?'
End of Chapter
I didn't think it was as good as the other chapters. I kinda wrote it in a hurry. But, I hope you liked it just the same. Please review!
On to Part V!
