Finally, they reached Moria.
"We'll have to send the pony away," said Boromir. "I know we've just fought off a pack of wolves, and Bill will probably get eaten by something within a day, but hey hum, what can you do?" he shrugged.
"I never wanted to bring a pony anyway, said Gandalf. "I'm allergic."
They were getting ready to abandon the animal under their care, distracting Sam with a potato, so that he would stop crying, when magical silvery writing appeared in the shape of a door.
"It looks like a door!" cried Gandalf astutely.
Embarrassingly, Gimli did not know the password. "There are so many different passwords to remember for everything. I think I left the notebook I write them down in at home. Soz."
"Well that's bloody useless!" said Pippin.
Pippin threw a stone into the lake. Something moved in the water, so Gandalf zapped it with magic. The water bubbled, then stilled.
"What was that!" cried Frodo.
"Probably some swamp gas, don't worry about it." Gandalf answered.
"So, we're just going to be out here all night, are we?" Legolas whinged. "You've been teasing us with talk of how much there is to drink. I was looking forward to that."
Just then, the doors opened a crack.
"What have you brought an Elf for?"
"Um," said Gimli.
Aragorn spoke. "Gimli's a bit in love with him. They won't stop mooning over each other."
The sulky voice in an oversized helmet emerged. "I was on my break. I still have ten minutes you know."
"Sorry," they all mumbled, as they filed in.
Someone took the pony in and led it to a luxurious stable.
There weren't even any skeletons or anything. Just nice and normal. Yes sirreee.
Everyone was alive and there was a feast. Everyone in the Fellowship was dead impressed. Not any other kind of dead. In fact, no one was dead at all.
Gimli's uncle wandered in. "Oh, hello, I had just been taking my daily walk around the lake, sorry I'm late - the timekeeping kind of late."
"Better late than never,'' said Gandalf.
They had a wonderful feast, as wonderful as you can imagine. There was every kind of potato for Sam, mashed, boiled, stewed, fried, and other exotic, foreign things. He ate so much he had to lie down, but that was alright because everyone else had overindulged too.
The hobbits had pipeweed which is absolutely not any other kind of weed, as the essayists tell us. They didn't have munchies or anything. Just hungry.
As Gimli had hoped, the Fellowship was impressed by Moria.
"If movies existed, we would say it's really steampunk here, but because they don't, we won't."
Gollum had followed them. He snatched the Ring and ran off. But the Main Forges of Moria were really hot, and he dropped the Ring in accidentally. Elrond had not really considered dwarven capacities when making the plan, and it turned out that the molten liquid metal stuff they had there was just as good as the lava in Mount Doom. When the Ring melted, Gollum went back to being all cute and Smeagol.
Legolas and Gimli realised they were in love as they looked into each other's eyes at the feast. They said sorry for all the fantasy racist things they had said to each other and everything was fine. They got dwarf-married there and then, and magically elf-married later the same day.
Ori was best man at the wedding. Balin conducted the ceremony. And Óin gave a moving speech. They could do these things because they were alive.
Moria was a technological marvel. They had so many marvelous things. Too marvelous to describe.
"But why did you not reply to our messages for twenty-five years?"
"Sometimes I just leave people on read," said Balin, who was alive.
"We've just been so busy getting rich, we thought everyone would be jealous of all our mithril if they saw it. Sorry for ghosting everyone."
"It's OK."
"We had heard there were orcs and goblins killing everyone."
"Well, for a start, we do not use such negative, pejorative labels. There was a wee bit of unpleasantness, but we believe in therapy here. There's been a lot of trauma. Some beings are changing back to elves and sailing to Valinor. The ones without an elvish family of origin are being helped in other entirely coherent ways, and everything is ending up happily ever after."
Everyone smiled and hugged.
As they were leaving Moria, Gandalf tripped on the safety-rail-less bridge.
"Elf-n-safety!" complained Legolas.
Gandalf appeared to fall to his death, but an eagle caught him.
It spoke, because that was normal, and it said it just tended to hang around Gandalf. It said it would fly him to a retreat for a few weeks, because he was 'suffering from exhaustion.' No, one made eye contact, but someone mumbled that, 'if he insisted on alternative fashion, he could at least get it hemmed properly so that it was not a trip hazard, and that maybe it was a good idea that he was taking some time away for himself.'
"Absolutely!" slurred Gandalf.
The Fellowship had so much fun together in Moria, they decided to take a year out to visit some tourist hotspots.
They left Moria and everyone was alive.
Aragorn asked them to come and visit his Grandmother-in-law with him, because she could be a bit intimidating. They did, and she gave them everything on their Christmas wishlists.
After visiting Lothlorien, Boromir decided to go home, because he was very busy. He was not dead or anything like that.
Sam and Frodo and their new pal Smeagol went on a boating and walking holiday. Merry and Pippin joined a group tour.
Aragorn third-wheeled Gimli and Legolas' honeymoon, constantly talking about his girlfriend 'who goes to a different realm', and was totally not his foster-sister.
No one was sad, and everyone lived, including Fili and Kili. Bagginshield existed. Sauron and Saruman became goodies. The end.