Yeah… I'm sorry. That's all I have to say. Actually, no, I'm not sorry. You clicked on this, so you're subjecting yourself to this insanity. I regret nothing. No Middle-Earthen (which I do not own!) or Real-Earthen beings were harmed during the making of this fic.

Elrond cleared his throat, gathering the attention of the elves, men, dwarves, hobbits, and wizard surrounding him. Realizing that all eyes were on him, he decided to stand up and start the meeting. After all, everyone was already there and they would only lose focus the longer he waited.

"Attention, all you elves, men, dwarves, hobbits, and wizard!" he announced quite unnecessarily, for all eyes were already on him.

"You already have our attention," Gimli grumbled loudly. He was not happy to be in the company of so many elves.

This statement hurt Elrond's feelings, and he became very sad. "No one asked for your opinion," he retorted, forgetting that he was supposed to be a formal, put-together leader. He noticed a slight movement out of the corner of his eye, but chose to ignore it.

The dwarves glared at him, but none of them dared escalate the fight further. That is, until they heard a distinct snigger from the Mirkwood elves.

"You want to know another opinion?" a random dwarf asked. "ELVES STINK!"

A huge fight broke out between the elves and dwarfs. Elrond tried to regain control of the situation, but no one was listening to him, and if he was being honest, he was also more than slightly offended. So he joined the fight.

"Enough!" Gandalf cried, leaping to his feet. "We have a serious issue with a Dark Lord to resolve, and you fight each other?" He shook his head in disappointment. "Since Lord Elrond is severely biased in these matters–" Elrond gave him the Look, and Gandalf was so taken aback that he had to pause before continuing. "I have decided that nine of us will travel to destroy the Ring!"

"Yes," Elrond interrupted trying to regain both control and the audience's respect. "We have come to this conclusion. You will go," he proclaimed, pointing to Frodo, "and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you." He pointed to eight other random people, who just so happened to be Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, Sam, Merry, and Pippin.

"How did he know we were there?" Merry wondered aloud as they moved into a cluster for the benefit of cinematography.

"Elves know everything," Elrond said knowledgeably, coming to stand in front of the cluster.

"Not everything!" Saruman jumped out from behind Elrond's chair.

Everyone gasped in unison. "Saruman!" they all cried, fearful of what he might do to them.

"He must have followed me when I escaped from Isengard," Gandalf mused to himself. Elrond gave him the Look again.

"Ha! Now I will cast an Evil Spell on you all," Saruman told the Fellowship. "And not just any Evil Spell, one I have invented myself!"

"What does it do?" Legolas asked, intrigued by the idea of an Evil Spell.

"You will find out!" Saruman yelled triumphantly. He pointed his staff at them, and there was a bright flash of light. The Fellowship and Elrond were gone. Everyone gasped in shock.

"Heeheeheehoo!" Saruman laughed evilly as he hid behind Elrond's chair once again. No one paid attention to him.

"Where could they have gone?" Bilbo asked himself as he searched the bushes nearby.

Gloin scratched his head with a spare axe. "This is troubling indeed."

Glorfindel looked around. "Who's going to be in charge of Rivendell now?"

"Not you," Erestor muttered. Glorfindel whipped his head around to face him.

"What did you say?" he asked, doing his best impression of Elrond's Look. It wasn't a very good one.

"I said, 'not you,'" Erestor repeated louder.

"Oh." Glorfindel shrugged. "That's fair."

~oOooOo~

"Hyah!" Josey made sound effects as she did some self-proclaimed super cool kick. No one else paid much attention to this. It was quite normal.

Aspen had found a yellow glowstick bracelet in a drawer somewhere, and now she was crouching in a corner. "My preciousss…." she whispered to it in a half-decent Gollum impression.

Bren noticed what Aspen was doing. "What has it got, preciouss?" she asked in a less-than-half-decent Gollum impression.

"No, no!" Aspen held the glowstick bracelet close to her chest. "It mustn't take the precious! It is ours, not theirs!

"It has the precious, yes! We must take the precious from it! It will be my precious!" Bren crouched down and attacked Aspen.

"No! No!" Aspen frantically tried to get away, but Bren had already pried the glowstick from her fingers. "They stole the precious!" she wailed.

"It is our precious now," Bren declared.

Lia, who had been trying to hide her laughter, snorted. Both Aspen and Bren turned just in time to see her end a recording on her phone.

"You better send that to me," Josey said to Lia, finally growing bored of kicking and flopping down on the couch.

"José!" Aspen whined. Josey rolled her eyes. Josey was short for Joselin, but sometimes her friends called her José. On the same topic, Bren was short for Brenna, and Lia was short for Cecilia. And Aspen was short for, well, Aspen.

"Of course I will," Lia said, tapping on her phone. The three other phones in the room buzzed. "I sent it in the group chat."

"Traitor," Aspen said in mock disgust.

Just then, they heard a loud OOF come from somewhere outside. The four friends froze.

"Stranger danger," Bren whispered, causing us to quickly exhale out of our noses in amusement.

"Should we open the door?" Aspen whispered back.

After a moment of contemplation, Josey spoke. "Okay, here's the plan. Do you guys remember what I taught you about fighting?"

"No," the Bren and Aspen responded.

"Yes," Lia said at the same time.

"Okay," Josey continued, undeterred by this information. "We'll open the door. I have a knife, I can hold them off for a moment while you run. Unless they have a gun. Then we all run."

Bren looked a bit nervous, so Lia patted her on the back reassuringly. Aspen just nodded and gripped the doorknob. She made eye contact with each her friends. "Ready?" she asked.

"Ready," Lia and Josey chorused. Josey gripped the handle of her knife. After a moment of hesitation, Bren nodded.

"Three… two… one…now!" Aspen jerked the door open before she could change her mind.