After the incident earlier that day, Gimli had decided to distance himself as far away as he could possibly get from the others. Now he lay floating on his back in the middle of the pond, his rubber ducky seated on his chest, staring at him.

"They think they're so smart," Gimli mumbled. "Why must they always choose me to pick on? What did I ever do to them?"

The rubber ducky seemingly nodded with the rising and falling of Gimli's chest.

"I see that you agree with me," the dwarf said. "At least someone does. But they will get what is coming for them… If they want to mess with me, I will get out the heavy artillery! They will learn why no one dares to mess with a dwarf!"

Gimli stared his precious duck in the eyes as it continued to nod.

"Yes… That's a great idea," Gimli agreed. "They will never see it coming!"

----

Meanwhile, Legolas and Aragorn were coming up with a scheme of their own, hoping that this time no one else would interfere.

"That was such a close call earlier," Aragorn remarked.

"I know," Legolas agreed. "I thought for a moment we would both be turned into extra crispy frog legs, but in the end it just made the prank on Gimli all the better!"

Aragorn chuckled. "Let's just do our best not to let something like that happen again."

"We should play another prank on Gimli tonight," Legolas suggested. "I doubt that he would expect another attack to come so quickly."

"You're probably right," Aragorn said thoughtfully. "Maybe we could tie his hair up in ponytails, or even kidnap his beloved rubber duck!"

Legolas giggled. "It sounds like we have a plan!"

----

That night a storm came over Rivendell. The wind whipped around the trees and thunder boomed in the background. Legolas and Aragorn hurried towards Gimli's room, seeing by the flashes of lightning. Despite the trip being quick, both of them were dripping wet by the time the arrived.

Standing outside his door, they rang their clothes and hair out, though it failed to do much in making them drier. Aragorn glanced at Legolas who nodded and gave him the okay. Turning the knob, Aragorn pushed the door open. Halfway through, it creaked loudly. The two froze, but after a minute or so of breathless waiting, they saw no movement in the room, and deemed it safe to go in.

Legolas tip-toed to the corner of the room where he thought Gimli might keep his rubber duck at night. His Elvish footsteps were so quiet even the keenest ear would have found them difficult to hear. Aragorn remained towards the center of the room, eyeing the form tucked beneath the blankets on the bed. It struck him as odd that Gimli was not snoring to a volume that was nothing short of obnoxious, as he had caught him doing many times before, but he decided to think nothing of it.

A creak sounded behind them, or at least Legolas thought he heard one. He whirled around stealthily, but saw nothing different about the room.

"Did you just hear that?" the Elf whispered.

"Hear what?" Aragorn asked.

"Never mind then…" Legolas said, returning to his hunt.

Finally Legolas found the duck and removed it from the cupboard where it sat upon its own cushion. Grinning at Aragorn through the dark, he began to make his way for the door. The ranger was preoccupied, however. Though he had decided to dismiss the fact that Gimli was not snoring, he was now almost certain that the covered figure was not breathing. Suspicious, he edged towards the bed; then quickly threw back the blankets.

On the bed lay no dwarf, but only a group of pillows and cushions, arranged to make it seem as if there were a body lying there. Aragorn panicked. If the dwarf was not here, and he had gone through such precautions as to make it seem as if he were there, the chances that Gimli was up to no good were staggering.

"We need to get out of here," Aragorn hissed, quite too loudly.

Seeing Aragorn's discovery, Legolas became just as concerned as he was. Their nerves already tense, a surprisingly loud crack of thunder made them jump and dash for the door. The dash was short-lived; however, because as they had almost escaped through the doorway, they hit an invisible wall of plastic wrap. Legolas hit it first, and bounced backwards, stumbling right into Aragorn, who was too close behind him to stop and was not paying attention to where he was going anyway. Both landed on their bottoms with a resounding thud.

"Hahaha!" a deep voice cackled from somewhere behind them.

They turned to see the form of Gimli, perched up on top of a wardrobe in one of the corners of the room.

"I got you!" he cried in glee. "I have outsmarted the both of you!"

Legolas was the first one to his feet. "That's not funny!" he protested.

"I agree," Aragorn said, standing up behind him. "I'm going to be sore tomorrow!"

Legolas began to walk towards Gimli.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Gimli said, wagging his finger and pointing something at him that looked remarkably like a squirt gun. "No further or the both of you get it!"

"Now Gimli, let's be reasonable about this…" Aragorn began.

"Reasonable or not," Legolas interrupted. "What on earth do you think water is going to do to us? Are we going to melt? Will we shrink? I think not! It's pouring in buckets outside, for Valar's sake, and that didn't do anything to us! You haven't planned very well on this one."

Aggravated by the elf's remarks, Gimli pulled the trigger and let loose a spray of ketchup in their direction. He kept squirting until both Aragorn and Legolas looked like they would go quite well with a side of French fries.

Enraged, Aragorn started for the dwarf with Legolas both behind, clearly bent on wringing poor Gimli's neck. This was just as he had hoped for. As the two came closer, Aragorn's foot set off a trigger, which in turn let go of a string that had previously been holding steady a bucket high above their heads. The bucket tilted precariously until it fell, dumping its contents of week old porridge all over the forms of Legolas and Aragorn. Atop the wardrobe, Gimli doubled back in laughter.

"My hair!" Legolas wailed. "Have you any idea what this will do to it? It will take hours to fix. What if I get a split end?"

"And mine!" Aragorn cried. "I am afraid that it may have to be washed again. How could you do something so cruel to me?"

Eager to leave before Gimli pulled something else out on them, they turned and hurriedly headed for the door.

"I told you!" Gimli shouted after them. "I told you to beware. Let us see if you ever try to prank me again!"

Aragorn and Legolas ran for their own rooms as the rain continued to pour, trying to dodge the puddles on the way, but muddying their boots nonetheless. When they were almost there, Legolas became aware of the putrid scent of week old porridge in his nostrils.

"Human," he said, face wrinkled up in repugnance. "You smell even worse than most of your kind."

Aragorn glared in return. "As if your scent is much better, elf."

Those were the last words spoken between them for the night as the two entered their own quarters.