I opened the door to storage area #2 and found myself staring at a dart-wielding elf. I quickly slammed the door shut and a moment later, I heard a 'thunk' roughly where my head had been. "Post a warning next time!" I barked irritably as I opened the door again and quickly moved out of dart-throwing range. "I'd like to remain free of head wounds, thank you. And wounds in general, really."
"You get used to it," Boromir remarked philosophically from the loveseat. "Death does have its advantages."
"I'll take your word for it. What news from Gondor?"
Boromir took a swig of his lager. "The usual."
"Excellent. Arwen and her ladies are in need of more brocade." I had a booming online business going selling Elven and Gondorian garments and accessories, all made and decorated by Arwen and her ladies. Her Majesty ("call me Arwen"), being a needlework afficianado, had been only too glad to volunteer herself and her ladies to do the construction and embroidery and told me which fabric merchants to go to. "Tell Miron I sent you and he'll give you a great deal," she'd advised. That was six months ago and I had nearly enough saved to buy a house and enough chocolate and power tools to bribe the Valar to move the portal.
"The weavers are on strike."
"You said it's 'the usual' in Gondor," I replied testily. 'I should have asked Legolas yesterday,' I fumed silently. 'He'd have told me more than "the usual".'
"It is. The weavers have been on strike for a month."
"Oh. Yeah. And stop laughing! I have more to remember than who has their tits in a twist this week. I'm alive. I have more to do than sit around all day drinking beer and watching the tele."
"And it's so much work to play at your computer all day?"
"I do not 'play' at the computer 'all day'. I also have to go to the market and clean."
Boromir snickered. "I've seen your flat. The cleaning you do could be done in five minutes without breaking a sweat."
"Shut. Up. You came when I'd just moved in."
"You moved in last week?"
I spun around. "What were you doing in my flat last week?"
"I was bored. The King of the Dead insisted on watching 'Wrestlemania'."
"That doesn't mean you can just…float into my flat uninvited! And why weren't you watching that with him? I thought you enjoyed watching men beat each other senseless and get sweaty."
"No, that's Eowyn."
"I heard that!" came a voice from the portal.
"Kidding!" Boromir yelled. "Just kidding!" To me, he said, "She does."
"There is a certain appeal to buff, sweaty men. As long as you don't have to smell them," I added. "I thought you liked that kind of thing."
"Not when it's so obviously an act!"
"Point taken. Stay out of my flat in the future." I felt myself blush. "What if I'd been getting dressed?"
"You don't have anything I haven't seen before."
"That's not the point!" Men! I stalked to the mini-fridge and jerked open the door. "And all the Coke is gone. Great!"
"Oh, is that what was in the red cans? I thought the ale you'd bought tasted like orc piss."
"How do you know what orc piss tastes like? Not," I said quickly, "that I want to know. I was being rhetorical. Don't answer that." Ignorance was bliss. "So you drank all the red cans?"
"No, I only drank one. The Tower Guard drank the others. We all thought it tasted like orc piss."
"Now you know why." I grabbed a can of Sprite. "Any idea when Riders might be coming through?"
"Sorry, I don't know. Why?"
"I wanted to check up on Grimbold and his men."
"Are they the ones who went to the stable and-"
"Yes."
Boromir's face lost some of its color. "I wouldn't expect to see them for quite a while."
"I don't. I was hoping to talk to someone who's seen them and could tell me how they're doing."
"Is that all you want to know? According to Eowyn, she talked to Madril who talked to Ioreth who talked to Grimbold's wife who said it's common for the men to have nightmares and wake up screaming and drenched in sweat, Grimbold is drinking more than usual, and all of them have developed a nervous twitch that starts up anytime they see a group of women."
I shook my head sadly. "I feel horrible for them. I did try to warn them that as buff, blond men who liked working with horses, they were likely to get lots of attention."
"No man expects anything like i that /i ," Boromir said forcefully. "When Grimbold told me what happened, even I was shaken."
"Hormones are powerful things, my friend." I drained the last bit of Sprite from the can. "Do you need anything from upstairs?"
"More cookies?" he asked hopefully.
I smirked. "Why am I not surprised? I'll bake some more up and bring them down when they're ready."
