A/N: I apologize for how long it took to get this chapter up. I hope you find it worth the wait!
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Legolas stood in front of the mirror in his room, looking quite discontent, and started to pick at his zit.
"Aragorn," the elf wailed. "It will not go away… Everyone is going to see it." He flipped his hair into his face. "Hey… now no one will be able to see it."
Aragorn merely grunted in reply.
"Fine," Legolas said, walking to the bathroom. He returned with a band-aid and placed in firmly on his forehead. "There. Now no one will know the difference. Right?"
"Yes," Aragorn mumbled. "It looks simply swell. Would you blow out the lamps and go to bed now?"
Legolas frowned, but complied, satisfied that his blemish was sufficiently covered from others' eyes, and quickly extinguished the lights before he slipped into his bed, snuggling under the covers for the night.
----
The next morning, just before dawn had begun to shine through the clouds in the sky, Legolas heard something moving around in their room. It seemed like someone walking around and… shaking a can of some sort? Why would Aragorn be up now?
The elf yawned, tiredly wiping the sleep from his eyes. He then opened them to find that Aragorn was not awake at all, but was instead receiving a great new hair style, courtesy of Gandalf and a can of pink silly string.
"Gandalf!" Legolas cried in amazement. "What in Middle Earth are you doing?"
"Oh, toadstools!" Gandalf exclaimed, whipping around at the sound of Legolas's voice. Then he noticed something. "What is on your forehead?"
Legolas immediately remembered the band-aid covering his unsightly zit. "Nothing!" he exclaimed, shifty-eyed, talking loud enough to cause Aragorn to begin to stir. "Nothing at all…"
"What is going on?" Aragorn groaned groggily.
Then he spotted pink on his chin… and in his hair. The silly string was everywhere, and already the ranger knew that it would not be departing without struggle on his part.
"Gandalf!" Aragorn wailed. "How could you do this to me?"
"It is not the way it seems," the wizard insisted. "You see, I was going to do the same to Legolas, so everything would have been fair then, right?"
"What?" Legolas objected, throwing Gandalf a glare.
"You could have started off with him," Aragorn protested. "Why did you come now, not long from dawn, rather than the middle of the night, if you were planning this all along?"
Gandalf mumbled something to himself.
"What was that?" Legolas asked with a hint of teasing in his voice.
"I could not get away from the tree!" Gandalf shouted, exasperated. "The four Hobbits duct taped me to a tree, from which I could not escape, until I was already late in pulling my prank."
The elf burst out laughing.
"The Hobbits taped you to a tree!" he exclaimed.
Gandalf angrily pointed the silly string can at Legolas.
"There is still some left," he threatened.
Legolas immediately quieted at the danger of having pink silly string ruin his gorgeous blonde hair.
"Right then," Gandalf said, still not lowering the can. "About now I will be… leaving."
With that he made a mad dash for the door and vanished around the corner.
----
Aragorn's head popped up from under the water in the pond. He had tried desperately to remove all of the pink string from his hair, but to no avail. A majority of it had washed away, but pieces still remained here and there, and were obvious enough to spot at a mere glance.
He walked up to the beach and toweled off his dripping hair, getting yet more pink stuck on the towel. He quietly grumbled something to himself before heading back towards his quarters.
"Hello there, Aragorn," Gimli said, seemingly popping out of nowhere and jumping into the ranger's path.
"Good afternoon, Gimli," he replied sternly.
"What brings you over here?" the dwarf inquired. "Usually I do not see you on this side of Rivendell unless you are coming to play some sort of trick on me."
"I am not here to play any pranks on you, Gimli," Aragorn told him. "I was just leaving."
"Oh…" Gimli said, seeming to understand. "I see. You did not come to play a prank on me because you have already been pranked yourself!"
Gimli giggled while Aragorn rolled his eyes and began to walk away.
"Aragorn," Gimli called after him.
"What?" he groaned in reply.
"I simply love your hair," the dwarf said. "Pink is certainly your color. It matches your eyes."
The ranger's eyes quickly narrowed as he turned and stormed off from the dwarf. Once he was out of sight, Gimli faced the pond and retrieved his rubber duck from his pocket.
"Did you see him down there?" Gimli asked his duck. "Bathing in our pond… The audacity of it all! He did not even ask our permission. Humph. But do not worry, rubber ducky. We will get him back for it tonight."
----
Pippin was walking along the side of the forest, minding his own business, when all of a sudden he was jumped from behind. He was about to scream when a hand clamped over his mouth, rendering his voice useless. In desperation, he bit the hand that covered his lips.
"Ouch!" a familiar voice yelped.
"Merry?" Pippin asked, turning around to face his assailant.
"What did you do that for, Pip?" Merry demanded, looking hurt.
"The same reason you jumped on me!" Pippin replied crossly.
"I suppose you do have a point…" Merry mused.
"What do you want?" Pippin asked.
"I have the best prank idea for Gimli," Merry told him. "But if we are going to do it, I need your help. We should probably get Frodo and Sam to aid us, too. And we need to get started right away!"
Pippin's face brightened visibly at the thought of pranking someone.
"Okay!" he agreed. "I will go find Frodo and Sam. We can meet back here in half an hour."
"Deal," Merry said, settling the matter, before they hurried off in opposite directions.
----
Gandalf stood in his room, staff in hand, staring menacingly at a flower pot seated on the nightstand in front of him. Tonight he would get his revenge, once and for all, on those dreadful little demons some liked to call Hobbits. Yes… They would find out why no one with any sense at all dared to mess with Gandalf the Pink. Grey, he meant. Of course he meant grey.
He was preparing for tonight, making sure that nothing would go amiss during his moment of glory. Pointing his staff towards the flower pot, he uttered a spell with such authority that it would have made an Ent cower. A puff of smoke flashed; then slowly dispersed throughout the room. Where the pot had once stood, a spotted frog now sat.
'Ribbit!' the frog exclaimed.
"This is going to be great!" Gandalf cackled, pleased with his success.
----
Meanwhile, Legolas and Aragorn were aimlessly wondering through corridors, contemplating what their next action would be. Legolas still sported a band-aid on his forehead, while Aragorn walked with the hood of his cloak draped over his head to hide the pink in his hair.
"The Hobbits go and duct tape him to a tree, and he decides to play a prank on us!" Aragorn ranted. "Does that make any sense to you? That makes absolutely no sense to me."
"I agree. We have done nothing to him. Perhaps tonight that should change," Legolas suggested.
"Perhaps it should," Aragorn agreed, grinning devilishly.
----
That night, Gandalf decided to take a shortcut through the trees to the Hobbits' room. He was about halfway there when he thought he heard something behind him. He turned his head to look, but failed to stop walking, and ran right into a tree branch.
"Fool of a tree…" he muttered to himself.
Just then he could have sworn he saw Gimli sneaking about, only a few yards away from him. Perhaps he had had a bit too much ale at mealtime? He shrugged it off and kept walking. A moment later he ran right into Gimli.
"What on earth are you doing out here?" Gandalf demanded as both he and the dwarf lie sprawled out on the ground.
A split second later Aragorn and Legolas arrived. Aragorn tripped over Gandalf's leg, and clutched onto Legolas's shirt in an attempt to keep himself from falling, but only succeeded in pulling the elf along with him to the ground. At the sight of all this, the Hobbits could not help but giggle and thus reveal their location as well.
"What? Why are all of you out here?" Gimli asked from beneath the wizard.
"Why are you here?" Legolas shot back.
"Erm… I…" the dwarf stammered.
"Okay," Frodo said, raising his hands in a sign of surrender. "It is obvious that we are all here on a common purpose. How about we all end this prank playing thing now? I am sure Rivendell will be much nicer without it."
The fellowship looked at one another and agreed. They all departed from the forest that night, seemingly content that they had decided to stop the pranks. But that was not the truth at all…
"Ha!" Pippin whispered once they were out of hearing distance. "They think we will stop playing pranks!"
In reality, he had crossed his fingers while agreeing to put an end to the pranks, and it just so happened that all the others had done the exact same thing…
--The End--
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A/N: Well, there you have it. Our story has finally come to a close. Perhaps one day it will be revived, but until then you will have to figure out on you own if the fellowship can or cannot be trusted to keep themselves from pranking each other. I hope you liked my fic. Leave a review on the way out!