'Ello all! That's right, we're back in business baby! Sorry for the disgusting wait, we had quite a few problems as we went along, including an exploding computer, and the lack of muse after being deprived of a computer for a little over three months. So, with out further ado, CHAPTER FOUR: In Which Lots of Bacon is Consumed, People get Turned Into Jelly, and All the Bad Things Happen to the Comic Relief

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The meeting ended, and the group split up. Malfoy, Harry, Ron and Neville went with Alanna to the mess hall while Jon disappeared to go try and write bad poetry to make himself feel better. Captain Jack, Commodore Norrington, Will, Snape, Legolas, Gimli, Merry and Pippin were to follow the king's general and eat with other important nobles of the kingdom, but on the way there, Merry, Pippin, and Gimli managed to take a wrong turn near the portrait of a fat man. Elizabeth, Ana Maria and Hermione were dragged and sent to be torture-have lunch with Lady Delia of Eldorne and her fluttery minions. As each sat down to their respective lunch, or not sit down to lunch in our three short heroes' case, chaos ensued.

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"I had a dream once that the Dursleys died of ipecac poisoning." Said the green-eyed boy, Harry was it, with a slightly disturbing smile as he idly ate a slice of bacon. His jittery, shy friend looked slightly worried, and then spoke.

"Um, Harry, you can't get ipecac poisoning. That's what ipecac's for, to get rid of poison." He said it very carefully, as though he was afraid Harry would explode at the mention of the flaw in his logic. Instead, however, he sighed and his smile turned into a wistful expression.

"I know. That's how I realized I was dreaming and woke up feeling depressed." He sighed again, and began to eat his potatoes. The ridiculously tall, gangly boy shook his head as he swallowed a biscuit whole. "Too bad. All the good people seem to die. Such a shame." He ate two more pieces of bacon in a single bite, before taking a swig of juice. Alanna was now staring at them in disbelief, her food left untouched on her plate. Harry shrugged, the nervous one squirmed, and she realized her mouth was hanging open.

Quickly she closed it and with a forced smile picked up a biscuit and began to nibble, trying to remain calm as she came to the conclusion that the two boys sitting across from her were sociopaths.

"Well," she said finally, "I hope um... Do you have these sort of dreams a lot?" She asked, chuckling nervously. The blonde boy spoke before anyone else got the chance.

"Oh yes, Pothead here's a real seer," He sneered, a rude smirk on his face. "Knows how everyone's just going to drop dead like flies around him, deranged little Nigel." He looked down in disgust at his plate, and then pushed it away with one finger. The red head turned on him with a look of anger, and snarled at him through his food while brandishing his fork dangerously close to the blonde's face. "Shove it, Ferret."

'Ferret''s grey eyes narrowed, and he hissed back at him. "I could wish worse things on you, traitorous Weasel-spawn of a-" The red head, Harry, and Alanna all stood up at the same time before the other could finish his sentence. Harry and his friend looked like they wanted to pound his face in, and Alanna quickly put herself between them and their target.

"C'mon now boys, let's play nice, yeah? Why don't we all sit down and finish our food, alright?" The tall boy looked murderous, but Harry gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "Ron, Malfoy isn't worth it." He said, and N-N, oh, she could almost remember his name! Oh damn, it wasn't worth it anymore... Well, the last boy nodded behind him, so Ron slowly sat down. Malfoy looked mildly pleased with himself, and ate a potato before realizing that he had rejected them earlier.

"Anyway!" She said, trying to be the positive person in the gathering. However, before she caused yet another argument, relief flooded through her as a cheerful voice boomed through the mess hall.

"Alan! There you are! How are you, Prince's Squire of Despairing Size?" Said a very familiar, cheerful voice of her friend and knight master's cousin, Sir Gareth the Younger of Naxen. He leaned on an empty chair back while Alanna scowled outwardly at him, while inside she thanked the Goddess he had come so soon.

"Stop calling me that and sit down." She said, and picked up a biscuit, motioning as though to throw it at him. Gary, however, took notice of her company.

"Oh! These are the people that interrupted your jousting match. Jon's feeling mildly guilty now, just so you know, my cousin sometimes gets like that." He said, directing the last bit towards the other four. "Oh! By the way, I am Sir Gareth the Younger of Naxen, pleased to meet your acquaintance." He said, and gave a polite bow. The gesture was wasted on the boys; Malfoy looked unimpressed, and the other three looked disturbed and awkward. However, Gary was still Gary, and just grinned at them.

"But you can call me Gary." None of them seemed to change, but Ron decided to speak. "Um... Hi." He said, still looking rather awkward. Gary just kept up his grin, and sat down, stealing one of Alanna's strips of bacon as he did. "I'm Ron Weasley." Ron managed after a silence of watching the prince's cousin eat bacon. "Harry Potter." Harry said, brushing his bangs down as he did so. "N-Neville Longbottom..." Neville squeaked, and hid his face as he sipped juice. "Draco Malfoy." Draco drawled in his way, and began to trace words on the table with his fork, which, if Alanna read right, were 'Die Potter Die', and 'Up Yours Weasley'.

Alanna coughed and looked away from the table to Gary, trying to think of a conversation topic as he went through everything on her plate. However, Gary was, once again, a savior.

"So, what do you boys do for fun?" He asked, leaning back in his chair. Neville shifted in his seat, and mumbled "Plants are cool. I guess..." However, the other three had a sudden gleam in their eyes, and said as one:

"Quidditch."

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"Gimli, where are we?" Merry said as they walked down the same corridor for what felt like the umpteenth time. Their taller companion grunted, and tugged on his beard, a frown on his face.

"I'm not sure. I believe we've passed the portrait of that fat man already, but it could be hunger playing tricks on my mind." He boomed, and the hobbits sighed. Indeed, hunger was over taking them quickly, they hadn't eaten since Gimli had first commented on the bacon. Which was at breakfast, and as far as Merry could tell, it seemed high time for third breakfast, otherwise known as brunch.

"What wouldn't I give for some nice, juicy, bacon right about now." He moaned, clutching his stomach. Pippin nodded his head vigorously, and began to list all of the foods that he would consume if only they were there.

"Some cinnamon apples would be nice, and o' course, pancakes. With a mushroom omelet or two on the side, and a nice mug of hot tea." The Took sighed, and Merry felt like crying. Yes, a mushroom omelet sounded perfect right now. Oh, he could practically smell it!

"And half a roasted pig." Grunted Gimli, a slightly maniacal grin on his face, "Y'can never beat freshly roasted pig…." Both hobbits and the dwarf then sighed simultaneously and turned around the corner, going past, yet again, the portrait of the fat man.

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"Oh, it's so wonderful to have new people to talk to." Gushed a very pretty though gaudily dressed-up woman, fluttering a fan in front of her face faster than one would have thought possible. The other women cooed their agreement, and the pirate thought she would be sick. Nobles, really. Wore too much face paint, smelled too much of sickly flowers, and fainted at the sight of blood. They could barely walk by themselves, the lackadaisical bums!

However, AnaMaria need not give a response, as Elizabeth did all the talking. The brunette was very good at this, this whole 'social' thing, and she was proud to say that she had gone from one of them to a conniving wench of her own. They learned so fast….

"Do you like to watch the knights' joust?" Suddenly she realized that the green-eyed one was talking to her. "Uh…." She began, but Elizabeth saved her once again.

"Oh, she loves to watch them! She's quiet you see, darling AnaMaria." The pirate went a little red and looked away, a slight scowl on her face. It was bad enough they thought she was insane for wearing men's clothes, and thus tried to eat her alive whenever possible and she didn't need anymore insane dribbling from the little hens, thank you oh so much.

"And how about you?" Green Eyes asked the frizzy, brown-haired girl, Herm-something, and the girl's eyes narrowed.

"Oh yes," she said, clasping her hands together, "I ADORE watching a gaggle of moronic men hit each other with bits of wood. Highlights my day just as much as watching MOLD GROW." Her sentence ended in a snarl, and the ladies gave little appalled gasps, and fluttered their fans some more, tittering amongst themselves. AnaMaria gave a quiet snort and looked at the girl, who was watching them with disgust and slight pity.

"They should be doing something useful with their lives," She heard the girl say as she shook her frizzy head, "Besides being ignorant tarts and letting everyone else do their thinking for them." AnaMaria chuckled at this, and the girl looked at her.

"Do you think they're incredibly hopeless too?" She asked, contempt in her voce. AnaMaria nodded, and offered her hand. The girl shook it and introduced herself.

"Hermione Granger, and you're AnaMaria, right?" She was slightly surprised that she actually remembered her name, but nodded. "What's with your friend?" Granger asked, glancing at Swann as she chattered with the others.

"She's good at blending in I suppose." AnaMaria said with a shrug, picking up a little biscuit and biting into it. "I doubt she likes them much. But I'm not sure, she's insane, that one." Granger frowned and watched the others over the rim of her dainty little tea cup, draining it. Finally, she set it down and returned to stare at AnaMaria. The dark woman stared right back at her, and Frizz, as she had decided to call her, spoke.

"What exactly do you do, AnaMaria? I didn't catch it when everyone was talking earlier." She shrugged nonchalantly and considered throwing the little butter knife at someone just to see what would happen. With a sigh she decided against it, and spoke.

"This and that, mostly sailing. Wonderful thing, the sea…." She trailed off, and glanced out the window, where the only thing you could see was a rose garden full of little song birds and a gardener or two. Far, far away from the ocean. Well, at least she assumed she was; she wasn't actually quite sure as to her current location. She knew she was in a place called Tortall, in a place called Corus, but beyond that, she could only guess.

As she let her thoughts drift out the window to the Caribbean, Hermione Granger was very alert to what was going on. When AnaMaria had said 'sailing' she wasn't exactly sure if she could trust her all the way, but she was one of the only females not-from-this-world, and so far the only one worth putting any effort in conversation wise. Elizabeth, Delia, Cythera, and a few others kept twittering on, and when it became apparent that AnaMaria would not be returning any time soon, Hermione dug through the pockets of her robe and produced a travel-size copy of Hogwarts, A History. It came in very handy when on long, unexpected trips, or when finished with a test with twenty minutes to spare. She flicked it open, and began to read as the minutes ticked by.

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"Let's try this door." Merry said hopefully, and pushed against a small (large to him) door with his shoulder. It swung open, and sunlight slapped them all in the face, making them squint. They staggered forward, and saw that they weren't anywhere near where one could get food, but were instead in a rose garden full of little song birds, and no gardeners. Pippin let out a wail and threw himself to the ground, landing with a painful thud in the delightfully green grass.

"We're never gonna eat!" He sobbed, and curled into a little ball. "We're going to starve in some random garden full of flowers I can't name! SAAAAAAAAM!" He screamed, and began to rock while his companions watched on in pity.

"It's alright Pip." Merry said, sitting on his knees next to the upset hobbit. "We're going to get through this. Just chin up." He patted his younger friend on the shoulder, and Pippin looked at him through his fingers. "Really?" He asked, sniffing. Pippin always had idolized Merriadoc, and did whatever he said, because he just seemed like a smart hobbit with good ideas about fun. Merry nodded with an encouraging smile, and the other blonde let go of his knees.

"Okay. I'll try to keep going."

While the other two had been comforting each other, Gimli had found a door in the garden wall and pulled it open. What lay beyond was a stretch of grass that rolled down a hill and into a dense forest. The dwarf grinned, and turned around to face the hobbits.

"On your feet men!" He barked, and Merry and Pippin scrambled to do so, giving twin awkward salutes. "There are times when you have to take manners into your own hands," He said, and reached behind him. The hobbits knew exactly what he was going to do. Gimli had unbuckled his axe, and swung it around, stomping the end into the ground. "This is one of those times."

Both of the hobbits thought that Gimli's axe was, as the young hobbits like themselves say, cool. It was a good deal bigger than anything that they could possibly carry, and in fact, was heavier than anything the Big People carried. And all that size wasn't just for show. They had seen its purpose demonstrated on quite a few occasions, lopping off orc heads like snipping dandelions. And, it helped that Gimli knew how to use it very well.

"We," He said as he brandished his gargantuan axe, "Are going to go hunting."

The two hobbits stared at him.

"Hunting?" Pippin asked, tipping his head to the side. "Don't we usually get Legolas to do that for us?" Gimli scowled and thumped his axe against the ground. "The elf's not here and we are. We're going to find us a meal if it's the last thing we do!" And knowing the amount of trouble the three got into separately, combined, his statement may just well come true.

However, his speech just excited the two hobbits, and they grinned, happy that they would finally be getting something to eat.

"Wait," Merry said as they neared the tree-line, "How are we going to hunt with an axe and two swords?"

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In one of the many overly-decorated rooms of the palace, Legolas Greenleaf, Prince of Merkwood with a total high score of over 389 orcs killed in the last fort night, was admittedly bored. He did his best to act as princely as possible, as was his duty to his family, his people, and Aragorn, but he had spent so much time adventuring and shooting things that such things as stately luncheons were now very mundane things. What wouldn't he give to have a nice orc or ten to run through right now, or a nice staircase to slide down using a shield, and even, dare he say it? A fan girl or two to run screaming in terror from.

He turned to his left to comment about this to Gimli, but when he looked down, there was no hilarious little dwarf with the big axe. There was only empty space.

"Gimli?"

He called, and looked around. He looked behind him. Nope, no Gimli. Behind Aragorn. Again, no Gimli. He looked around people, under people, under the table, but no where was his violent friend to be found.

"Gimli!" The blonde elf was becoming hysterical, and pounced on Aragorn, who was being the wonderful heir to the throne that he was.

"ESTEL!" Legolas wailed, clinging to his friend. The Gondor king-to-be was nearly toppled from his chair, and many of the human nobles were scooting away with disturbed looks on their faces.

"I CAN'T FIND GIMLI!" He sort of sobbed, and Aragorn clutched the table to keep upright. "What?" He managed to get out, his face turning red from lack of oxygen.

"Gimli! Nowhere! Can't find him!" Estel managed to push him off at this, and looked around, frowning. "You're right, Legolas. I don't see him anywhere. Or Merry and Pippin for that matter…." He was quickly drowned out by another scream from Legolas.

"MERRY AND PIPPIN ARE GONE TOO? DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THIS MEANS? WE HAVE NO COMIC RELIEF! WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO WITH OUT THE COMIC RELIEF?"

Legolas had crumpled into a heap on the floor and was tugging on his gorgeous, shining blonde locks.

"That's it!" He said, and leaped to his feet. "I'm going to find them!" He snatched up his bow and quiver from where they were leaning against the wall, and slammed his foot into the double doors, ripping them off their hinges and sending them sailing down the hall.

"I'M COMING GIMLI!" He screeched, and then sprinted away, causing many court ladies to faint as he passed.

"That," said Commodore Norrington, "Was one of the strangest things I have ever seen."

His companions agreed heartily and Aragorn apologized profusely for his behavior, and a buzz returned to the table as most of the men began to talk again. All save for one large-nosed, sallow-skinned, greasy-haired potions teacher that still had childhood issues to work out.

Severus Snape glared at everyone at the table in his usual fashion as the talk picked up, and wished for the thousandth time that he had just become a hermit or a professional grumpy person, or some other equally easier job. He hated people, so what was he doing surrounded by them? This would not be the last time he doubted his reasoning and sanity that day.

"Um, Professor Snape?" Oh Merlin no. He hated that voice. Hated it with the passion of a thousand boiling pits in Tartarus and the frosty intensity of Antartica. He gritted his teeth and looked up to see The Boy Who Pissed Him Off More Than Any Other standing tentatively in the door way, a vexingly innocent look on his face.

"What is it Potter?" He said in his best, most venomous, acid-dripping, poison-spewing, 'I hate you with the passion of a thousand boiling pits in Tartarus and the frosty intensity of Antarctica voice. The green-eyed monstrosity looked like he was going to have an apoplexy from fright.

"M-Malfoy and Ron turned hexed each other until they became plasma-like substances stuck to the mess hall floor." He said, and shifted uncomfortably.

Snape snorted. Wasn't that like children, going and disrupting his perfectly fine self-hatred/pity moment. He knew that the thing expected him to fix it, and so with a peeved sigh he stood up and swooped out of the room, a scowl on his face and Potter at his heels.

"Does he remind anyone else of a large, rabid bat?"

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Alanna, who though she was to be called the Lioness in the future, was hiding behind an over turned table and quaking. The event had started out simple enough. The three boys had started talking about a game, that, if she could tell right, that's main purpose was to kill other people using heavy flying objects and to chuck heads through hoops. However, in the course they had gone from simple teasing and singing of strange songs about slithering and kings to screaming curses and jinxes at each other, causing limbs to pop off and tentacles to grow and tongues to grow fur and try to strangle the body they were attached to. She had faced down Ysandir, countless savage raiders, and killed gods knew how many people, but this, this was in a world unto itself. It was vile, it seemed impossible, it was frightening, and at the same it was hard to not watch.

Finally, after ten minutes, the fight seemed to have died down, and she worked up the nerve to peek over the table edge.

Two puddles of strangely colored substances sat on the floor, with a furry tongue and a tentacle trying to reach far enough to hit the other, or what was left to hit. Neville sat on a chair with a slightly upset look on his face as he stopped up the flow of a bloody nose. Harry was leaning against the wall with a very resigned look on his face, and he slowly got to his feet.

"I guess I'll go get Snape to fix them." He said, and started towards the door. "Why not Hermione?" Neville said anxiously, and Harry gave him a, 'You're crazy, right?' look.

"Hermione wouldn't go with in ten feet of Malfoy." Neville sort of nodded, but didn't look happy about it as he watched Harry trot out the door.

"Are they going to be alright?" Alanna asked, gripping the table so hard her knuckles were white. Neville nodded, and took away his robes to check his nose. "Yeah. They're not that bad. It'd be much worse if they had splinched themselves or done something like Full Body Bind someone into something sharp." He winced as the thought of it, and Alanna sort of shuffled out from the cover of the table and beside him.

"I can fix your nose." She said helpfully, and though the boy looked worried, he let her touch his nose and her purple Gift flow over it. He winced as the cartilage righted itself, but smiled at her when the blood stopped.

"Thanks man."

Harry came back soon after that with a rather obnoxious looking man who looked at the once-teenage boys on the floor and took out a wand from a pocket in his black robes. Waving it agitatedly, the puddles slowly morphed back into Ron and Malfoy, who both looked very upset, but glad to be human again. The greasy-haired man snapped at Ron and just frowned at Malfoy, and then, turning sharply on his heal, billowed from the room.

"Sooo…" Ron said, breaking the eerie silence of the mess hall. "Where'd that Naxen bloke run off to?"

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Merry, Pippin and Gimli were now starved, out in the middle of nowhere, and without a nice pipe to ease their troubles.

After they had realized you cannot, in fact, hunt very well with an axe, two swords, a dwarf and two hobbits, they had collapsed under the nearest tree and bemoaned their ill fortune. Why did everyone hate the comic relief? Was it their fault they were so amusing and undoubtedly handsome hobbits? And dwarf, of course. No, it wasn't, so there was no use for the world to be all jealous. If it felt THAT ugly it could just become a clown. No one expected clowns to be pretty, or all that funny. In fact, clowns were rather disturbing. So, scratch that, Merry thought, he didn't want the world to become a clown. Then he'd always have to leave the night light on.

Anyway, so the three companions sat, sad, hungry and tired in the middle of no where until a manic cry reached their pointy (and nicely rounded in Gimli's case) ears.

"GIMLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! And Merry and Pippin, of course."

A blonde elfin prince they knew particularly well leaped down from a tree to their right and attacked Gimli, though Merry soon realized he was in fact hugging him the same way his mother did when he had been gone a particularly long while.

"I was so worried about you!" He sobbed, and Gimli looked disgusted, and tried to push Legolas off of him. "I didn't see you anywhere, and there was no one to talk to, and it wasn't FUN. I MISSED YOU SO MUCH GIMLI! And Merry and Pippin, of course." Gimli son of Gloin son of Oin sighed and patted the traumatized elf's back in his most sympathetic fashion, while rolling his eyes at the two hobbits.

"Yes elf, we missed you too." He grunted, and Legolas finally stopped sobbing. "Now we can go inside and have a tea party and talk about killing orcs!" He chirped, and, in that annoying, graceful, seemed-impossible-way, leaped to his feet, taking Gimli with him. "Come along friends!" He said cheerfully, and began skipping off into the woods.

"Elves," Said Pippin wisely, "Are very cool, but very, very neurotic." Merry gave Pippin a peculiar look.

"I didn't know you knew what neurotic meant Pip!"

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Le end of Chapter Four!

I know, we haven't updated in like, ever, but we've started on a writing spree, so hopefully that will make up for it. Any comments, etc. are welcome!

(translation: review or we'll send the fangirls after you.)

Your bonny, though insane, friends,

- Queen of Anonymity and GuestheName (formerly NameWeAreTooCowardlyToSay)