"He would say simply, 'Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.'…" Celebrian read.
Elrohir clutched his pillow tighter to his chest. He glanced over at his brother, who was just as absorbed as he was. For the past few weeks, their mother had been reading them a story before they went to bed. 'The Princess Bride', it was called, and it was such a good story. Both of the boys loved it, and they weren't even halfway through yet. Elrond occasionally came in and listened to the story as well, because it had been read to him when he was little. Tonight, Inigo was going to kill the man in black in a duel, provided the man in black ever climbed up the Cliffs of Insanity.
"Inigo paced the cliff edge, fingers snapping. Fifty feet below him now, the man in black still climbed."
"Nana, can you just skip to where the man in black gets up?" Elladan interrupted.
"Patience, Elladan. He will get up soon enough." Elrond ruffled Elladan's hair, laughing.
"But I want to hear about the fight!" Elladan pouted.
"And you will, once he climbs up." Celebrian told him before she continued reading.
Elladan squirmed with impatience. He looked over at Elrohir, who was simply staring at their mother with huge eyes, taking in every word. And Elladan soon fell into that same state, completely enraptured as Inigo tossed the rope down to the man in black and helped him up. Celebrian glanced at the clock, watching the time. She had come to a good spot to stop.
" 'You seem a decent fellow.' Inigo said. 'I hate to kill you.' 'You seem a decent fellow.' answered the man in black. 'I hate to die.' 'But one of us must.' Inigo said. 'Begin.', and so saying he took the six-fingered sword and put it into his left hand." Celebrian finished, closing the book.
"No!" the twins cried.
"No, Nana, the fight was about to start!" Elladan protested.
"You'll hear about it tomorrow. Now, you sleep." Elrond told him, tucking him into his bed.
"Nana, does the man in black die?" Elrohir asked.
She chuckled, drawing his blankets around him. "You'll see." She kissed them on their foreheads, then she and Elrond blew out the lamps and closed the door. "Good night, boys."
"Good night." They chorused, though Elladan was rather sulky.
There was silence in their room for a moment. Then, Elladan turned over to look at Elrohir. "Who do you think wins?"
"The man in black." Elrohir stated simply.
"What? Why?"
"Because," Elrohir rolled his eyes "The good guys always win."
"Inigo's the good guy!" Elladan exclaimed, sitting straight up in bed.
"No, he's not." Elrohir told him, also sitting up. "Think about it. Inigo, Fezzik and the Sicilian kidnapped Buttercup. How can they be good guys?"
Elladan furrowed his brow in thought. This was true. The good guys never kidnapped people. They always rescued them. But…Inigo's dad had died, and he was only trying to avenge his death. Bad guys didn't do that, bad guys didn't care about who died. And he had said that he didn't want to kill the man in black, because he had seemed like a nice guy. And he had helped the man in black up, and let him rest. A bad guy would have just killed him before he got a chance to fight back.
So how could Inigo be a bad guy?
"Well, how do you know the man in black is a good guy?" Elladan asked.
"Because he's coming to rescue Buttercup." Elrohir stretched, yawning. "Why else would he be following them?"
"But…" Elladan frowned. "Inigo can't be a bad guy. He just can't be."
Elrohir drummed his fingers against his thigh for a moment. "Well…Inigo is only helping the Sicilian because he needs money. So…maybe the Sicilian is only the bad guy, and Inigo and Fezzik are just helping him because they have no other choice."
Elladan nodded. He was happy with that assumption. "But…then how do we know which one wins?"
Elrohir opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn't appear to have an answer to that one. "I don't know." He said, apparently struck by the fact that his logic couldn't find a solution to the posed question.
He slid back under his covers and rolled away from Elladan. "We'll just have to wait and see."
Elladan stared at his brother's form under the covers. "But I want to know now!"
"Go to sleep, El." His twin said loudly.
Elladan tried. He lay down and stared at the ceiling. He rolled this way, then that. But try as he might, he couldn't calm his mind. He desperately wanted to know who won, because whoever won would have to be the real good guy, and they would be the hero of the story. He was also upset, again (though he never told anyone), that Westley had died. How could the author have introduced this character, have he and Buttercup fall in love, and then promptly kill him off? And worse yet, have Buttercup become engaged to Prince Humperdink? It seemed to Elladan that none of any of the bad things that happened would have occurred if Westley had never left.
Elladan stopped himself. He was debating against his brother, against himself over a book? A bunch of pieces of paper held together with string and other things. This was silly. He didn't enjoy reading the way Elrohir did. Elrohir was the one who usually argued with their parents for hours about the outcome of the stories. He would just go to sleep, and not think any more about how the book ended.
But even as he drifted off to sleep he couldn't help but think, that in all the other books, there had been a clear villain and hero. There had been a distinct line separating good from evil. But in this book, that line was blurred, and he wasn't sure who was who.
But he definitely didn't like Prince Humperdink.
"But I want to be Inigo!"
"I called it first!"
"No I did!"
"No I did!"
It seemed that the conversation from the night before had caused the two elflings to become admiring of Inigo Montoya. So when the two went to go play an old fashioned game of good-versus-evil, the characters of the man in black and Inigo came up. And then the argument began.
"I did!"
"I did!"
"Boys!"
The two turned their heads to see Glorfindel coming towards them. "What's going on? Why are you two arguing so loudly?" He rubbed his eyes. "And so early in the morning."
"I want to be Inigo!" Elladan cried. "And Elrohir says he called him first this morning while we were getting dressed, but I did."
"That's not true!" Elrohir protested. "Glorfindel, I called Inigo first this morning!'
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did-"
"Boys!"
Glorfindel raised his hand to silence them. "I was not there while you were getting dressed this morning-" Elrohir stifled a giggle. "-so I cannot tell you who 'called' it first." He took out a coin from his pocket. "I will flip this coin, and whoever calls the side it lands on, gets to be Inigo. No rematches, alright?"
Two dark heads nodded.
Glorfindel tossed the coin in the air and Elrohir called it. It landed on the opposite side, so Elladan was able to be Inigo. Elrohir accepted this, muttering something about liking the man in black more anyway.
Glorfindel left the two to their game, and the boys drew their wooden swords from their belts.
"You seem a decent fellow." Elladan quoted, inwardly surprised at remembering the line. "I hate to kill you."
"You seem a decent fellow." Elrohir grinned, "I hate to die."
They stared at each other. "Well?" Elrohir prompted his brother. "What comes next?"
"I don't remember!" Elladan cried, exasperated.
"Well I don't either!"
They stared at each other once more. "Whatever, let's fight!" Elladan exclaimed, lunging at his brother.
"We can't start yet!" Elrohir blocked his brother's attack. "You have to say the right line!"
"But we don't know the line!" Elladan was getting frustrated. He just wanted to fight so he could prove to himself that Inigo was the real good guy. He knew if they fought, he would beat his brother, which meant that Inigo had beaten the man in black. Even if that was not how it happened in the book, it would satisfy Elladan until tonight, when his mother read to them.
Elrohir thought a moment. "I know!" He exclaimed. "We could go into Ada and Nana's room, get the book, and find out the line!"
Elladan paused. "Alright."
They stuck their swords back into their belts then scampered off, but not before Elladan had grabbed the blue scarf from his bedpost and tied it around his forehead. They ran to their parents' room, cautiously pushing open the door before hurrying over to the bookshelf in a corner of the room.
Elladan stamped his foot angrily, unable to control his frustration. All the books there looked exactly the same, with red leather covers and no words on the spine. They would have to pull apart the bookshelf to find the one they wanted.
Elrohir surveyed the situation. "Well," he finally said, "We'll just have to start from the top and work our way down." He pulled the first book off the shelf and opened it. " 'How to Be the Lord of an Elven City for Dummies'."
Elladan gave his brother a strange look. Elrohir shrugged, replaced the book, and pulled off another one. " 'Tales from King Arthur's Court'."
Elladan began picking books out at random and putting them back. " 'The History of Middle Earth'. 'A Midsummer's Night Dream'. 'The Iliad'. 'The Odyssey'." He looked over at his brother. "Ada reads boring books, Ro."
But Elrohir was flipping through the book he had picked up. Elladan, frustrated that they hadn't found the book and couldn't figure out who the real good guy was, pulled the book out of his twin's hands and shoved it back onto the shelf.
"Hey!" Elrohir cried.
"It was your idea to look for the book!" Elladan shouted. "So look!"
Elrohir stuck his tongue out at his brother and picked another book off the shelf. " '69 of the Most Pleasurable Positions Known to Middle Earth'."
The boys stared at each other, then back at the book, then back at each other.
Elrohir hurriedly put the book back. "I don't want to know."
After much searching, they came to an unhappy conclusion: the book was not in their parent's room.
"Where else would it be?" Elladan asked, his brow furrowed in a way that made him look a lot like his father.
"The library!" They both cried in unison and ran off in the direction of the famed Library of Imladris, unaware that a pair of chuckling brown eyes followed them.
"This isn't going to work." Elladan said, surveying the large library. "There are too many. And most of them are above out heads." He turned to look at Elrohir, only to find that Elrohir was not next to him anymore. "Elrohir?"
Elladan walked past a few bookshelves to find that Elrohir was talking to Erestor, asking where the book they wanted would be. Erestor waved his hand in a direction and Elrohir immediately began walking off. Elladan followed him quickly, thanking Erestor as he went by.
"He said it's on this bookshelf." Elrohir said confidently, once Elladan had caught up with him. "But I don't know where."
"I guess we'll have to start at the top then." Elladan replied, looking up at the highest shelf.
"But how? Unless you haven't noticed El, we're kind of short."
"We'll use the ladder!" Elladan said excitedly, pointing at the rolling ladder that stood about two feet away.
"I call it!" Elrohir cried, leaping onto the ladder and promptly rolling sideways to where the first book sat.
Elladan watched as his brother pulled book after book off the shelf, opened them, and then put them back. He got bored with his brother's inability to find the book they wanted, especially after the fifth time Elrohir started leafing through one of the ones he'd pulled off the shelf. Elladan, knowing his brother would find it eventually, wandered off. He ran his fingers along the spines of the books, wondering what fascinated his parents and brother so.
"It's just paper and words." He whispered. "What makes them so important?"
He pulled a random book from the shelf, determined to find out what books had that made his brother so spellbound. He opened it up and read the title aloud. " 'Wicked: The Life And Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'." He nearly shut the book. He didn't want to read about a bad guy. Or, bad girl, in this case. But he had decided to read a book, and he had picked this one up. So he turned to the first page and began reading.
He was very confused from the start. First there was a prologue, which had three people talking about this Witch, who, from what he could understand, was listening to their conversation. She wanted a pair of silver shoes that a girl had. And then it switched to something else, this couple talking. The woman was pregnant, and was expecting her child very soon. The man had to go away and save people's souls, or something. He didn't understand any of it, and that frustrated him.
"Elladan?"
He looked up. His father was walking over to him. "Hi, Ada." Elladan said, yawning.
"What've you got there?" Elrond asked, sitting down next to his son.
"Some book. I wanted to know what Elrohir likes about them, but this one is too confusing." Elladan frowned.
Elrond took the book from his son and looked at it. "Ah, Wicked. Yes, this book is confusing. There are lots of politics involved. But what I like about this book is how it shows how people aren't born evil."
Elladan blinked up at him. "You mean, the bad guys weren't always bad guys?"
Elrond chuckled. "No. Take the girl in this book for example." He opened the book to the title page, where there was a detailed drawing of the Witch. "She had a hard life. She was born with green skin, and because of that, people feared her. Her parents didn't particularly like her. Throughout the book, she does things to try and help people, but they all go wrong. In the eyes of the people who don't know or understand, everything she does is wicked. People thought her evil, and so she became what they thought. Of course, her actions made her that way, but was it ever her intention to be wicked? Certainly not. Everything she did, up to a point, she did for good." He looked down at his son. "Do you understand what I'm saying, Elladan?"
Elladan was still trying to absorb the fact that bad guys…weren't really bad guys. That bad guys had feelings, too. That they had reasons, logical perhaps only to them, to do the things they did. Bad guys were only bad guys because they were portrayed that way, when to them, they were the good guys, and the real good guys were actually the bad ones. The line between good and evil all depended on a person's point of veiw.
"There's a gray area." Elladan said, mostly to himself.
"That's right, my son. Things aren't always black and white, sometimes people can be both good and evil." Elrond put his arm around his son's shoulders and hugged him close. "That's an important lesson to learn, Elladan. Keep it in mind as you grow older."
"I will, Ada." Elladan replied. "I will."
"I found it!"
The father and son looked up. Elrohir was running towards them, book in hand. "Now we can find the line!"
Elrond smiled a slightly mischievous smile. "Elrohir, let me see the book."
His son clutched it to his chest, afraid that after all his hard work, he might have to give it up. "Why?"
"Well, I thought that since the three of us were all here, and we have the book, we might as well read ahead a little."
The twins cheered and settled down on either side of their father, eager to hear about the fight. Elrond opened the book to the marked page, cleared his throat, and began to read. "He had begun all his duels left-handed lately. It was good practice for him…"
CB here. We are sooooooooooooooo sorry we haven't updated in eons, we've been busy and writer's blocked and a thousand other excuses. We tried to make this chapter long to make up for it.
We hope you don't mind the insertion of The Princess Bride, Wicked, or any of the other books mentioned on the twins' book hunt (we did make up one or two books, of course. The 'For Dummies' book is a running joke in our stories). Princess Bride seemed like just the story to be read to little elflings, it IS of course, 'the classic tale of true love and high adventure'. And Liz and I wanted Elladan to learn about how bad guys aren't always bad, and Wicked seemed like the perfect way to do it. It was either that or how Anakin Skywalker turned into Darth Vader, and somehow I'm betting Star Wars wouldn't have been a Middle Earth sort of book.
Oh, and we don't own any of the books mentioned, they belong to William Goldman, Gregory Maguire, Shakespeare, and Homer, respectively.
