Author's Note: Hello again, readers! Things are super busy right now, but I managed to get this one edited. The next two chapters exist as abstract ideas floating around in my head (no, Plato, they are not Ideas), but with some massive academic hurtles looming before me, I don't know when I will get a chance to articulate them. Hopefully soon! In the meantime, please be sure to leave me some feedback! Reviews really are a great encouragement to me, a "pathetic mortal". :)

. . .

Estel sat on her bed, slipping on some socks as she prepared to welcome some fellow students into her apartment for their weekly time of Saturday night worship. But being the very diligent sports fan that she is, she quickly pulled up the gamecast for the Oklahoma Sooners' basketball game. She wasn't the biggest basketball fan ever, but the lack of baseball season was causing a void in her heart, and basketball helped to fill it. Plus she'd been a Sooners fan forever, always enjoying the opportunity to cheer for the university's teams, no matter the sport.

Of course she hadn't expected their football team's unfortunate and unforeseen loss at the end of the season a few weeks back; that had been a strange occurrence. After a long talk with Aragorn, she was beginning to suspect that some of her less-than-desirable circumstances might have some shady causes behind them, but that revelation didn't make her feel any better. She was no match for orcs, let alone Sauron.

Despite the fact that nothing should have surprised her at this point, she still let out a gasp of fright when the game's score loaded on her computer. Oklahoma's basketball team—ranked number 1 in the nation—was losing! Granted, it was not yet halftime, but they weren't putting up much of a fight at all. And she wasn't buying it.

"Finrod, get in here!" she called in desperation.

For those who are unfamiliar with Thalion's dear muse and friend, Finrod (who appears only by name in The Lord of the Rings), he is Galadriel's brother, and in the terms of the laymen, he's super awesome. He entered a few seconds after the writer's call, his blond hair seeming to shine from the reflected gleam of his intricately crafted armor. He did not wear his typical smile, for he knew from Estel's tone that something was amiss.

"What troubles you, Estel?" he inquired with concern.

"Look at this!" she exclaimed in exasperation, turning the screen to show Finrod the ongoing atrocity. The elf eyed the computer with a frown, seemingly in contemplation.

"And you think this is a result of interfering evil?" he asked, apparently not convinced of the implications.

Thalion nodded emphatically. "They're way better than to be losing like this!"

Finrod pondered the situation for a bit, but he seemed to see the logic of Estel's anxiety. "And what would you do about it?" the Noldo asked.

The writer gave a nervous chuckle, but she had to answer. "Well, I was thinking that maybe…you should be the one to do something."

"What?" Finrod demanded, his frown growing. "Why me?"

"Because I have guests in the living room right now!" Estel said, gesturing to the door from which emanated the sound of conversation. "And besides, only one with such skill and experience as you could take on this evil. Remember how I'm a little, pathetic mortal?"

This finally produced a sly smile from the elf, who gave a small laugh. "Perhaps not too pathetic," he said, still grinning. Thalion gave a sigh, but she smiled with him.

"Please?" she begged. "At least check it out to see what's going on. You wouldn't want people to get hurt, right? Who knows what will happen next! Today it's a loss, tomorrow a nuke."

Now Finrod laughed out loud, a sound so hearty and merry that you can't really understand it unless you've been so blessed as to hear it. The writer—by necessity—joined in the laugh, but then an image of people in the living room hearing her and coming to investigate made her cease. She let out a long, slow breath and did her best sad face to Finrod, praying he would have pity.

It turns out that Finrod really does have a weakness for helping the helpless, especially pathetic mortals such as Estel. So, with an attempt to not appear overcome, the elf yielded.

"Fine," he answered. "But I feel like I should get a story out of this. Muses are not known to work for free."

Thalion felt her heart sink, but she would rather have happy muses and winning teams than sleep. "Can we negotiate? How about a chapter instead of a story?"

Finrod sighed, nodding reluctantly after a moment's consideration. "But it better be a good chapter. And make it extra-long, too."

"Now hurry up!" Estel begged, pointing to her screen again. "You don't have much time!"

. . .

"That's his excuse?" Sauron demanded in a booming voice that caused his orcs' ears to ring. "The football had too much air in it?"

Snaga 2 nodded. "That and he got sacked too many times."

Sauron cursed the useless quarterback under his breath. "He was no match for Manning in the first place," he mumbled.

Snaga 2 shifted on his disgusting feet. "My lord," he said nervously, "he still wants to be paid."

A dark, wicked laugh echoed from Sauron's unseen spirit. "As if New England doesn't pay him enough! No; if that scum can't win a simple playoff game, he won't receive anything. As if I would have paid him, even if he had been successful!"

"But what will we do now that one of that writer's teams is headed to the Super Bowl?" Snaga 3 meekly asked. "If Manning wins that game, her grief for all the other losses will be assuaged."

"We'll deal with that when it comes," Sauron answered. "Now we just need to focus on finishing off the top college basketball team."

The orcs obeyed, silencing any other questions and scurrying before the Dark Lord. The small troop had been hiding outside the stadium during halftime, but now it was time to reenter and secure a defeat for Oklahoma. So far, the plan of shooting players with tranquilizer darts and causing clouds of darkness to obscure the combatants' vision had proven largely effective. Granted, it's not that the other team needed lots of help; they were truly a good group of players. But there was a reason the Sooners were ranked number one, and thanks to the forces of evil, they weren't playing like it.

Yet just before the orcs and their master could sneak back into the crowd (a task which always required a veil of darkness since Sauron and his minions would have been slightly conspicuous, even among college students), they were confronted. A tall figure, gleaming softly in the night, held an unsheathed blade in his hand and barred the path. But when he beheld those who made to enter, his expression of confidence faltered slightly. It's not easy to stare down a Dark Lord, after all.

"You!" Sauron spat, recognizing the person immediately. "I would have thought you had learned your lesson last time—when I killed you!"

The elf regained a defiant stance, not giving back. "Technically, it wasn't you who slew me."

"That's right," the Dark Lord affirmed. "It was one of my dogs."

As you can imagine, Finrod wasn't thrilled with this comment. A deadly and dangerous anger flared in his bright elven eyes, and he took a commanding step towards the Dark Lord. Sauron felt a tiny sliver of cold fear in his heart, for although his body was technically not there, being a mere illusion or habitation of his presence, that didn't mean Finrod was utterly powerless against him. After all, the elf before him had died once and yet was now alive and well. And there was also the fact that great confusion surrounded the question of how muses exist ontologically, and that left open lots of options.

"Deal with the Sooners," Sauron ordered his slaves. "I'll end with this wretched Noldo—again—myself."

The Snagas were all too eager to obey their master's commands. Finrod, however, was not about to let them pass unchallenged. Just when the orcs thought that their foe's attention was fixed solely on Sauron, Finrod gave a cry and leapt at the servants of evil, sword flashing in the night. Snaga 2 fell dead after one stroke, and the other orcs shrieked as they fled. Finrod made to pursue them, but then a loud roar from Sauron and a strange force of an unseen blow sent the elf smashing into a nearby brick wall.

Estel has consulted many Sauron scholars in an attempt to understand just how his existence works. However, there are many complications with this study, especially when one considers that technically these are all the product of Thalion's creative muse and not objective realities. What the scholars have managed to conclude is that Sauron's spirit can, when his power is exerted, have an effect on the physical world. He can enter it on some dimension or other, making him vulnerable but powerful. And that is how he managed to engage Finrod in battle.

But the elf would not be so easily defeated. He quickly rose from the dust and charged the shadowy figure/spirit/other-sort-of-being, hoping that in this rematch, he might have the upper hand. Sauron was more frustrated by this glitch in his plan to defeat Oklahoma than afraid for his life, yet he could not wholly forget the struggle Finrod had put up so long ago, and thus he didn't take the fight lightly.

Much could probably be said of the battle that ensued outside that basketball stadium, but unfortunately, Estel doesn't know many of the details. All the facts she does have come from Finrod himself, who, as you may have guessed, survived. When he finally dragged his beaten and battered (though still very noble and valiant) form to Thalion's apartment to explain the reason he could not help Oklahoma win, he told her some key elements of the encounter.

"I performed my sworn oath to protect all that is good with great valor and skill," he informed her, fully engrossed in the telling of his tale. "I blocked blow after blow, my sword flaming forth with light older and brighter than that of the sun. Yet my wicked foe pressed on, intent on destroying me—the last hope of you, his target of destruction. The rest is too terrible for your young ears to hear, but rest assured that I did not let him reenter that building. At last, his spirit fled before me into the night to cower in fear."

"Uh huh," Estel agreed with half-sarcasm, doing a very stealthy eye roll. She didn't doubt Finrod's honor or courage, but he could be a tad dramatic. "Or maybe he left because the game ended and the Sooners got beat."

Finrod nodded sadly, huffing out a breath of defeat. "The two orcs who escaped must have had some success."

Thalion looked up from her bed, where she had retreated after that her guests were gone. Finrod really did look pretty sorry to have failed, and he could certainly use a good shower and maybe some band-aids. Estel gave her friend a sad smile, which the elf returned.

"Thanks for trying, though," she consoled. "And anyway, it's just sports—only a game."

Finrod chuckled quietly, shaking his head. "Tell that to Maglor."

Estel joined in the laugh, feeling very much not insane despite the sad loss of her no-longer-number-one team. And there was hope for them—they wouldn't go down in the rankings by too much. There was always a chance to come back.

"I'll make your chapter really awesome," she promised, pulling her laptop closer and searching for the right document in which to start typing. "This almost feels too sappy for my Conspiracies story, though."

"Sappy?" cried Finrod in true surprise. "I'm coated in sweat and blood to protect your sanity, and you think it's sappy?"

Thalion shrugged. "It just feels like it ended too well."

"If I punched you right now, would that make for a better story?" Finrod asked, still exasperated. "You might not even have to ask me to do it."

"Okay, okay," the writer yielded. "I'll just add something unsavory to the ending, like a short scene from the evil side or something."

"How?" the elf inquired, raising one of his brows in curiosity. "It's not like you know what they're doing, right?"

. . .

Meanwhile, completely unbeknownst to Estel and her companion, the orcs were trying to deal with their now depleted team.

"That Noldo scum!" grumbled Snaga 1 as he dragged the dead body of Snaga 2 to a dumpster near the stadium. "Now what are we supposed to do?"

"We'll get a replacement," Snaga 3 said, helping his comrade hoist the corpse into the trash. "I never liked this worthless maggot anyway."

"Yeah, but how long until we join 'im?" pointed out Snaga 1. "If that writer—" here the the orc spat on the ground in disgust, "—has an elf fighting on 'er side, this job could be the death of us."

Snaga 3 growled as he slammed the lid of the dumpster closed and faced Snaga 1. "We'll just have to hurry up and finish it," he said with a particularly evil grin.

. . .

In case you didn't pick up on the hints, this occurred before the Super Bowl, so sometime in late January. Since then, the Snagas have ceased to leave my Sooners alone, but they have not utterly destroyed them yet. *looks nervous* I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Are my readers familiar with the valiant Finrod Felagund? He's one of my favorite Tolkien characters, and he really did deserve this chapter. Let me know what you thought of it!